Betta's Fresh Food: Beef Heart?

[soritan]

I own a tank full of African Dwarf Frogs (ADFs), and I feed them frozen bloodworms every other day.

One of the handy things about owning all carnivores is, they pretty much have the same diet. So all my bettas enjoy some bloodworm every other day, as well (one of those tiny cubes is enough to feed everyone, including my shrimps, a single $8 flat lasts me a month).

Reading up on other stuff to feed my frogs, I found someone else suggesting: Frozen Beefheart and Chicken Liver.

Now, I remember the local grocery store selling both of these things quite cheaply. Cheap enough for me to actually think of buying it, but I don't really want to buy it unless I can use all of it.

Do you think a betta would enjoy beef heart and chicken liver?

Or shall I just learn some paté recipes?



***

Doh.

Me and my good friend, 'search' have solved the mystery of life.

Thank you, and good night.

 

[TigerMan]

so do they???

 

[soritan]

Well, as far as search goes, yes.

Someone on here recommends you grind it and pull out everything that's not beef. I'll probably dice it up quite small and feed it to my frogs first, and then feed my bettas the leftovers, personally.

 

[RandomWiktor]

I would use extreme caution when feeding something like that to a fish, or frog for that matter.. I've heard some bad things about the amount of fat, cholesterol, etc. in meat in regard to a fish's diet, not to mention the fact that the bacteria you might find in a terrestrial mammal is something an aquatic animal would probably never encounter. I tend to be of the opinion that insects are the best choice for fish whose diet would be mostly insects and other very small animals in the wild; chances are, a betta would never eat a cow, so giving it something so wildly different from what the diet would normally constitute is stepping into some touchy territory.

In regards to livers, I wouldn't go for them at all. Chickens, particularly those from factory farms, are constantly loaded with antibiotics so that they can stay healthy in the conditions they are kept in. The kidneys and liver are the two major organs that filter antibiotic. They also metabolize cell waste, and are a "graveyard" for dead cells. In short, they are often full of some really nasty, toxic stuff that might not hurt a big 'ol human that eats them, but could possibly harm a sensitive little fish or frog.

If you want to try other foods for variety, have you considered wingless fruit flies, pinhead (newborn) crickets, blackworms, glassworms, brine shrimp, etc? Petco carries and sells wingless fruit flies, most LFS carry glass worms and brine shrimp, and some more exotic stores will blackworms. Pinhead crickets are great if you have larger fish who would eat the adult cricket, as the species breeds very readily in a moist, warm substrate.

If you do go for beef heart, please try your LFS instead of the supermarket. It is more likely to have been prepared in a way that is suitable for your fish.

edit: D'oh! I just saw the whole "allready looked it up part." My bad. Oh well.

 

[soritan]

It's an unfortunate fact that any Petco or other LPS (as in, other than the one I have) is about an 8 hour flight from where I am currently situated. There really are no options for me in the 'better than flake, better than pellet' department, other than peas and frozen blood worm. I'd look funny carrying fruit flies onto my flights.

I probably won't be feeding anyone beef heart of chicken liver. Not simply because of what you said, but what you said was definately the nail in the coffin for that idea.

It's cheap to feed them these things, but cheaper not to feed it to them at all, you know what I mean?