meal worm/cedar dust?

[m2wandc]

The woodish like dust that live meal worms are living in, in their plastic tub container...is that cedar?

if so, is it dangerous? because sometimes there is little bits of it on the worms....???

 

[~*Sweet Cheeks*~]

It's some sort of shavings however I doubt it would be cedar due to the oil in cedar. The issue with cedar is not with injestion, it's the fumes getting in their lungs causing respiratory problems.

For the meal worms, I fish around for them with a teaspoon and then put them on a paper towel where most of the shavings fall off. I had to do it that way because with ten 3 wk olds that could fly out of the brooder and onto my lap, arms, back to get to the meal worms, I couldn't scoop the little worms out and shake the shavings off fast enough before the chicks were snatching them out of my fingers.

 

[m2wandc]

my chicks are only 9 days old and already quick to snatch out of my hands...so I put them on a little saucer and set the saucer in the brooder to watch them go crazy...but this morning one worm had a piece of it STUCK to him, I couldn't get it off...so I know one of the chicks ate a bit of it...so I thought I better make sure it's not cedar...sort of looks like cedar (being darker)

 

[Renee']

It's harmless wheat bran.

 

[m2wandc]

Renee' :

It's harmless wheat bran.

YEAH...just what I was hoping for...someone that KNEW the ingedient in there...thank you thank you thank you

So it's AOK that they ate it.

Sooo is that what the worms eat while they are in there to keep them alive???

 

[Tala]

MEAL worms are the larvae of meal beetles - which eat wheat and grain, so yes it's their food.

Somebody probably has a more technically correct explanation, but "meal beetles" works for me