Crayfish as feeders?

[MeredithTheNerd]

Crayfish are invasive where I live, so the you can legally take as many as you want. Since blueys eat snails, I was wondering if crayfish would make good feeders for them? The larger ones aren't fun to get pinched by, so you would definitely want to either avoid feeding those or maybe pull the claws off? (I don't normally have much empathy for invertebrates, but that seems a bit gruesome...) I'm mostly wondering if parasites would be an issue, or if there's some other problem that didn't even occur to me. Local wildlife rehab places feed crayfish, so for whatever that's worth?

Also, off topic but in a similar vein: Feeding wild hornworms? I'm assuming they would pupate too fast to really pick up any parasites... are they only safe to feed if they haven't been eating tomato plants? All of this is just for future reference by the way.

[mb606587]

Always risky to feed anything wild caught. I don't think crayfish on its own would be inherently risky to feed but yeah I'd advise against from directly outside for a captive animal.

[Chris]

Horn worms in the wild eat tomato leaves and tobacco leaves both toxic . You can purchase online from various vendors whi h are safe. Hope this helps.