Why are the skins of Tenebrio molitor and wheat worms difficult to digest?

10 17uij.html Online tonight, I saw a blog titled "Floating objects on the surface of South America ~ ~ Suspected ~ ~" by blogger HakkaPaPa, saying that I saw the turtle excrement fed the day before mixed with undigested feed barley worms. In fact, many reptile owners have such confusion in the feeding process. In animal feed, Tenebrio molitor and wheat worm are the most convenient. Love is that this thing is low in fat, high in protein, rich in nutrition, easy to obtain and raise, and can greatly meet the demands of reptile owners. I hate that the worm skin of this thing is not easy to digest, and it often makes reptiles sick, even higher than the situation. So, why are the skins of Tenebrio molitor and wheat worms difficult to digest? Why can fish bones and even shrimp shells be digested, but insect skins can't? It's a long story Let's take our time. Then let's talk about shrimp shells. The main components of shrimp shells are equal amounts of calcium carbonate and chitin (chitin/chitin), or according to different types and parts of shrimp, calcium carbonate, chitin and protein each account for about one third, and the first two can float by one to twenty percent. Therefore, calcium carbonate and chitin are equal. Because calcium carbonate and protein can be fully digested, a certain amount of chitin will remain in shrimp shells. Let's start with the skins of Tenebrio molitor and wheat worms. The main components of skin are chitin and a small amount of calcium, and the content of calcium in skin is very small and almost negligible. Chitin is a kind of animal macromolecular cellulose, which is not easily decomposed by gastric acid. Moreover, chitin is an alkaline substance, which can neutralize gastric acid, absorb the expansion of intestinal contents, stimulate intestinal peristalsis and accelerate excretion, so the skin of wheat worms and Tenebrio molitor is difficult to digest and absorb. In the case of feeding a small amount, gastric acid can be fully decomposed and digested, so the visibility of defecation is very small. However, in the case of a large amount of food intake, gastric acid is not enough to digest and decompose a large number of chitin-rich insect skins, so undigested insects will be excreted. The same is true for the cultivation of ornamental fish. Finally, there are two points: first, in fact, there is no difference in nutrients between wheat worms and Tenebrio molitor. The biggest difference is that the chitin content of wheat worm skin is relatively small relative to its size, while the chitin content of Tenebrio molitor skin is relatively large relative to its size. In other words, wheat worms are easier to digest than Tenebrio molitor. As for fish friends and reptiles, it is nonsense to say that eating this thing is not nutritious and gets angry. This kind of thing has a high content of protein, so how can it not be nutritious? Moreover, chitin rich in insect skin will protect gastrointestinal mucosa, so how can it get angry! It's just indigestion from feeding too much. Any food is like this. If you eat too much, you will get indigestion. You can't blame it on some kind of food. It is the most unacceptable to give up eating because of choking. Secondly, have you found that the visibility of insect skin in the feces of omnivorous reptiles after eating Tenebrio molitor or barley worms is much lower than that of carnivorous reptiles? The reason is that after omnivorous reptiles ingest plant food at the same time, chitin can be decomposed under the interaction between plants and various enzymes existing in the body and contained in enteric bacteria, and finally absorbed by the body in the large intestine. Carnivorous reptiles just lack such conditions and processes, so the visibility of insect skin in their feces is very great.