Dairy Cow Isopods

12 count

Porcellio laevis ‘Dairy Cow’ are a solid beginner species, they should be kept like most other isopods: a substrate base of soil with bits of rotting leaves/wood mixed in, a top layer of leaf litter, bark hides, moderate humidity, but always offering a moistened corner of the enclosure (laevis, can handle dry spells but I offer all of my pods a corner of moist sphagnum moss that I keep more humid than the rest of the enclosure). ALL isopods need rotting leaves,carrot peel, but Porcellio species like dairy cows also fancy themselves some extra protein in their diets, and if not offered protein will begin to cannibalize. Protein can be offered through feeding fish flakes, isopod food, dead/wounded feeder insects such as mealworms or crickets, and when your culture is big enough, scraps of leftover raw bone from dinner or even whole frozen-thawed fuzzy mice typically used for snakes. All isopods should also be offered a calcium source to promote healthy exoskeleton growth, best given via a cuttlebone left in the enclosure. The pods will gnaw away at this when needed, and eventually it will need replenished. Other calcium sources include eggshells and calcium powder used for reptiles.