Wild lizard tail safe as food?

[hprmom]

No, I'm not butchering lizards for food!! We catch little lizards, the kind common in Central Florida, in the house all the time and throw them back outside. Sometimes they lose their tails in the process. Can I feed the tail to the hermit crabs? Weird question, but hey, the tail isn't doing the lizard anymore good!

[C_fiesta]

Ummm... my only hesitation would be the perhaps questionable diet they eat or if they roll around in pesticides. I know exactly what kind of lizards you're talking about!

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[Da_Stos208]

I think it should be fine, as long as you wash it very well (to remove any possible pesticides) and boild it in dechlorinated water to kill any germs or parasites. But I'm no expert!

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[aussieJJDude]

I personally wouldn't. Unknown bacteria a viruses present, pesticides and fertilizers, which in the wild is fine but in a closed system a small build up of these compounds/ organisms could be deadly.
I would personally use it as a fertiliser for a garden bed tbh.

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[GotButterflies]

Do you have your house sprayed with pesticides and fertilizers? If so then I would say no. I would rather be safe than sorry

Edit: I didn't see AussieJJDude's comment before I commented- sorry!


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[wodesorel]

Eh.... I would be leary for reasons already mentioned, but it's probably no worse than raw poultry in terms of chemical exposure or salmonella. If you'd be comfortable doing raw meat the tail would be similar.

[hprmom]

Okay, good info. We don't spray, but I didn't think about bacteria or viruses. Would the same go for locally caught isopods? My son stumbled on a spot teeming with isopods and now we have a few in a separate 5 gallon habitat. Although I don't think they're gonna make it; we've only got 8 or 10 live adults and when we went back to the spot in the yard, they had all disappeared!

Tangent: I rinse leaves, etc. from the yard to make sure I'm not bringing in bugs or bug eggs, but I always wonder if I'm washing off "good dirt", something they'd be getting in the wild. A friend once suggested that our garden snails were missing nutrients because I sterilized their sub.

[GotButterflies]

I think I remember someone saying to use the offspring of them if you take them out of the wild. I'm not positive though.

Edit: I personally don't rinse off things before putting them in my tat. I just try to get things after it rained, or in the morning when dew is on them. Seems the most natural to me, but that's just how I do it. Doesn't mean that it's right

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[wodesorel]

Bacteria is pretty low down the ladder of things to worry about. I never have.

Viruses tend to be species specific so unless you live in area where wild hermit crabs are running around there isn't much to worry about. One notable exception are iridovirus which can affect all crustaceans (pill bugs are crustaceans) and may possibly jump species. They cause extreme coloration (grey pills bugs will be bright blue or purple) and do something else I can't remember which causes death.

I don't really worry too much about rinsing off either. Depends on what it is though.

[LadyJinglyJones]

I'm about breeding isopods out for a couple of generations (just in case of nematode parasites, though these don't seem to be as bad in crustaceans as in some other animals). I take the babies of the babies & add those to the tat... but it's a wee bit more work than just dumping them in, and I doubt any one would blame you if you didn't. It's one of those paranoid precautions.

[LadyJinglyJones]

Bacteria is pretty low down the ladder of things to worry about. I never have.

Right? I mean, crustaceans just have NO respect for human sanitary concerns. They're like, "yum, poop - don't mind if I do!"