- Live food
Live food is living
food for carnivorous or omnivorousanimal s kept incaptivity ; in other words, small animals such asinsect s or mice fed to larger carnivorous or omnivorous species kept in either in azoo or aspet .Live food is commonly used as feed for a variety of species of exotic pets and zoo animals, ranging from
alligator s to varioussnake s,frog s andlizard s, but also including other, non-reptile , non-amphibian carnivores and omnivores (for instance, skunks, which are omnivorousmammal s, can be technically be fed a limited amount of live food, though this is not known to be a common practice). Common live food ranges from crickets (used as an inexpensive form of feed for carnivorous and omnivorous reptiles such asbearded dragon s and commonly available inpet store s for this reason),waxworm s,mealworms and to a lesser extentcockroach es andlocust s, to smallbird s andmammal s such as mice orchicken s.Variety of live food
Live foods commonly available are [http://www.exotic-pets.eu/crickets.php crickets] (both "Gryllus bimaculatus" and "Acheta domesticus" commonly), [http://www.exotic-pets.eu/waxworms.php waxworms] ("Galleria Mellonella"), [http://www.exotic-pets.eu/mealworms mealworms] (Tenebrio molitor),
Giant mealworm s ("Zoophobas morio") andlocusts (a number of species are seen commonly). There are however many more species used such as butter worms,phoenix worms , a variety of cockroach species, silk worms and more.Insect species are most commonly used to feed smallreptile s andamphibian s.Another common form of live food, most commonly used to feed
snake s, is smallrodent s. The most commonly known small rodent used for live food is likely themouse ; many pet stores which carry snakes or cater to snake owners also carry "feeder mice" for this reason (see "Fancy mouse ").Creatures that are the most common choices for live foods, ranging from feeder mice to crickets and mealworms, generally are bred and raised in captivity themselves, and can often be found both through local pet stores and from
wholesaler s or "farms" that breed them specifically for live food sales.Animals commonly fed live food
Animals that are commonly fed live food include
bearded dragon s and other lizards, various types ofsnake , turtles, and carnivorous fish, though other animals, such asskunk s (which are sometimes kept as pets), being omnivorous, can also eat some live food, though it is unknown how common this is in practice.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.