by Danelle Karth

Created on: September 07, 2010

Many people who own emperor scorpions either feed them crickets because they are easy or pinkie mice because it's "cool". However, neither of these diets is one that is really healthy for the emperor scorpion. It is possible that the scorpion would live off of one of these diets for some time, but if you want a healthy, long living then you should feed them a varied diet.

Natural.

A natural diet for an emperor scorpion in the wild consists of a huge variety of insects, bugs, spiders, and even the occasional rodent, lizard, or bird. Often vertebrates who end up as meals for scorpions are babies or ill. However, the diet is much more varied than a single food source.

Choosing foods for your scorpion.

Choosing foods for your scorpion will require that you choose things that will be easy for you to feed them while still offering a wide variety of foods. Crickets can certainly be a large part of your new friend's diet, but you should also include mealworms, wax worms, moths, and other insects. While it isn't a good idea to offer pinkie mice very often, this can be a good supplemental food. If you want to catch insects, bugs, and spiders you can also feed them those. It should be noted that you want to make sure that any wild food that you are offering doesn't have pesticides or herbicides which could be harmful to the scorpion.

Feeding your scorpion.

It is best to feed live foods to your scorpion. The occasional treat can be offered in a different form such as a can of worms treats. Place one or two items of food in the cage at night. Before feeding each pray item should be well feed on a variety of healthy foods (gut loaded). Adding a high quality vitamin and mineral supplement to the food every other feeding can be good for your scorpions as well. Pay attention to the food that is left in the habitat in the morning. Emperor scorpions don't need much food and you don't want to over feed them. They will consume three or four medium sized crickets in a week. Usually it is every other day that they will eat, however they may gorge and not eat for a week. They are also likely to avoid eating before and after shedding.

Water.

It is important that you offer your scorpions a lot of water. It is easy for them to get dehydrated and have a wide variety of health problems after that. You will want to offer the water in a shallow dish because your scorpion can indeed drown. You want to make sure that you are also cleaning the dish and offering fresh water on a daily basis. It's best to do this right before adding food to the habitat and it is important to do it at night right before they come out to eat and drink.

Keeping your emperor scorpion healthy isn't that hard. It is best if you offer a variety of foods to them every other day. You want to make sure that they are getting enough food, especially kept in groups because they will eat each other if food is scarce. It is important that you also offer a fresh water source. By doing these things you will have the best results with your emperor scorpion.

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