Giant Millipede Feeding: The Floor Is the Diet, Produce Is the Treat, and Calcium Stays In
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Feeding a giant millipede is unlike feeding any other pet on the shelf, because the animal is standing on its food. The substrate is the diet, and the produce a keeper puts in is a supplement to it. Here is what the floor is made of, what goes on top and how often, the mineral that never comes out, and the one reason a millipede stops eating that is not a problem at all.
The Substrate Is the Diet
The primary diet of a millipede is its substrate, and a millipede on a floor of coconut fiber alone is on a floor with no food in it. The staple is decaying hardwood and pesticide-free hardwood leaf litter, oak, beech and maple, four to six inches deep, with rotted hardwood mixed through for foraging. A specialist's own mix is compost soil, crushed dried leaves from hardwood trees, sand, oak sawdust and a sprinkling of calcium carbonate, and a simpler version is peat-free compost mixed with dead leaves. Four to six inches is the depth that lets the animal burrow and molt in it, and the same material is dinner.
Because the floor is the food, it is topped up rather than replaced. Fresh leaf litter and a piece of rotting hardwood go in as the old is eaten down to frass, and the lower layers stay moist, since lack of humidity is the most common killer of pet millipedes and a dry floor is also an inedible one.
Every leaf that goes in is a pesticide question. Litter collected from a sprayed garden, a roadside or a treated lawn poisons the animal that eats it, and the invertebrate pesticide hazards guide covers where the residue comes from. Collect from woodland away from roads, or buy litter sold for the purpose.
What Goes On Top, and How Often
| Food | How often | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetables: cucumber, carrot, sweet potato, leafy greens | Every 2 to 3 days | Out before it molds, which is about that long |
| Fruit: apple, banana, melon, mango | Small amounts, in the same rotation | Sugar draws mites and mold fastest |
| Protein: soaked fish flakes, a little dry dog kibble, mushrooms, or rabbit pellets | Occasionally, a few flakes a week | The vitamins and minerals the leaves run short on |
| Cuttlebone or powdered calcium carbonate | Always in | Taken as needed, most before a molt |
Millipedes are omnivores that eat almost anything, from fruit and vegetables to bits of dried pet food and potato peelings from the kitchen, and all of it is a supplement rather than the diet. Offer a slice or two every two to three days, and remove whatever is uneaten before it molds, which in a warm, humid enclosure is the same two to three days. A millipede that ignores the produce for a week is eating the floor, not starving.
Calcium is the one item that never comes out. A cuttlebone or a pinch of powdered calcium carbonate left on the substrate supports the exoskeleton, and the animal gnaws it when it needs it, which is most in the weeks before a molt when a new shell is being built. The hermit crab feeding guide carries the same rule for the same reason.
Water is a small, shallow dish with a few pebbles in it so nothing drowns, or water poured into one corner of the enclosure every few days, or a damp pad of cotton wool the animal drinks from. A daily misting does the same job and keeps the substrate moist at once, and the sprayer has never held a pesticide.
Foods to Avoid
Leaves and wood from anywhere sprayed, and from conifers, which are resinous. Softwood mulch. Citrus, which is acidic. Anything salted, seasoned or cooked in fat from the kitchen. Fruit left in past the third day. And any calcium product with vitamin D3 or phosphorus in it, which is a reptile supplement and not a millipede's.
Why Giant Millipedes Stop Eating
It is molting. The one that matters. A millipede that burrows, vanishes from the surface and stops taking produce is molting, which takes several weeks, and it stays down for days more while the new shell hardens. It must not be disturbed: the new exoskeleton is soft and a probing finger can rupture it. The invertebrate molting guide covers the timeline and the one rule, which is to leave it alone.
The floor is dry. A millipede on a dry substrate stops eating and, soon after, stops moving. Moisten the lower layers and it comes back.
The floor is spent. A substrate eaten down to frass with no fresh litter in it has no food left. Top it up.
It is cold. Below the low 70s a millipede slows down and eats little. Bring the room up.
It is new. A wild-caught import arrives dehydrated and stressed and may not feed for a week or two. Keep the floor moist and the produce fresh and let it settle.
When to Worry
A millipede underground for weeks with a moist floor is molting. A millipede on the surface, curled, dry-looking and unresponsive to a touch on the tail, with a soft or discolored shell, is the animal in trouble, and the millipede health guide sorts the signs. There is no vet treatment for most of it, and the fix is the floor: moist, deep, made of the right leaves, with the cuttlebone in.
A millipede fed this way is fed by the enclosure itself. The keeper's job is a slice of cucumber every few days, a fresh handful of leaves as the old ones vanish, and the patience not to dig.
Sources & Further Reading
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What do giant millipedes eat?
The enclosure floor, mainly. Rotting hardwood and clean fallen leaves from oak, beech or maple are both the bedding and the bulk of what gets eaten, with vegetables and a little fruit added on top a couple of times a week as extras.
How often do I feed a millipede?
Put a slice or two of vegetable in twice a week or so and clear it before it goes furry, roughly the same interval in a damp tank. Since the bedding is edible, an animal that leaves the vegetables alone for a week has still been eating.
Do millipedes need calcium?
Yes. Leave a piece of cuttlebone or a pinch of calcium carbonate powder on the floor at all times and let the animal help itself; demand peaks as a new shell is being built.
My millipede has not eaten in weeks. Is it sick?
Probably molting. A burrowed millipede can stay down for weeks while it sheds and hardens, and a keeper who digs to check ruptures the new shell. Moist floor, fresh produce on top, patience.
📰 More on the Giant Millipede
🪱 How Much Does a Giant Millipede Really Cost? (And a Supply Note Worth Knowing)
🪱 How to Handle a Giant Millipede (Gentle Giant, Brittle Shell)
🪱 Common Giant Millipede Health Issues
🪱 Giant Millipede Enclosure Setup
🪲 Giant Millipede Enrichment: The Substrate Is the Food and the Home
🐛 Is It Legal to Own a Giant African Millipede? State-by-State Guide
Written by Michael Ryan
Mike keeps two rescued bearded dragons, Dex and Cera, and writes the care guides on BeastlyFacts from his own research and mistakes. He is not a veterinarian.
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