Cowpies

Not sure how well that would work unless you are able to rehydrate it somehow.

Phanaeus needs fresh, moist dung from a wide variety of omnivores and herbivores.

 
My Aunt keeps horses, I'm going to keep this subject in mind when we visit her later this season. It seems there could be either a market

for horse dung, or as trading material, I'd like to try dung beetles, but there is no way I'm using anything but herbivore dung, I'll skip a species

before any omnivore matter gets inside my house. But that's just me.

 
Pretty sure I can get some for you next weekend when I volunteer at my local museum. There's a compost heap there for all the farmyard manure, so it would be a fresh mix of cow, pig, goats, and alpacas I guess. It's actually swarming with Phanaeus sometimes, so yours should definitely like it. Now...how best to ship fresh, stinky, poop?

 
I am just lucky I was able to get the wife to say ok to keeping my  beetle collection downstairs. There is no way in heck that she would allow dung in the house. hahahahaha

 
Also I have a question guys, can I give my phanaeus sulcata tortoise poop? I get plenty of that daily from my 87 pounder.

 
@pickle01 Can you collect phanaeus? I only have one at the moment and I can’t find anymore.
I'm definitely going to be keeping my eyes open for some this year because I've never kept them. If I end up with extras I'll definitely list them here, and if I see any next week end specifically I'll let you know. As for the tortoise poop, not sure, but the listing for phanaeus on BIC lists lots of species people have had luck with.

 
Honestly I'd go down to your local farm and ask to take some poo poo pies from the cow field... 

I'm sure they will give you a weird look but let you, seems like the freshest option too. 

 
Just FYI, dung is probably considered a hazardous material for shipping, I'm not saying I follow all the rules for shipping, but you'd want to

make sure your material is well sealed in something that can take some handling and time in the post, or use a flat rate box and don't tell

the postal clerk you're shipping animal waste. UPS might be different, but I doubt it, Fed Ex as well.

 
I was sick this weekend and didn't make it to the museum. Hopefully I'll find some next weekend. I also live next to a farm, so I'm going to set up some pitfall traps with a malt bait along the fence line to see if I get anything. I don't know my neighbors well enough to ask about digging in their manure pile!

 
Back
Top