I’ve been reading about pill millipedes recently and I was wondering if anyone had tried (or heard of trying) feeding them items sourced from animals that have cellulose-digesting gut bacteria (e.g. lagomorphs, ruminants, etc.)? I can’t help but wonder if that might successfully recolonize the pillipedes’ GI tracts once they are settled into a hobbyist enclosure, post-shipping. Though that wouldn’t address the reported need for consistent, rather cool temperatures, I feel like it would make keeping them in captivity at least possible for a dedicated hobbyist. In my imaginary dream home they definitely live in a special ‘cool room’ with a bunch of axolotls, hehe.
Manure or gut contents would be interesting to investigate, but not a ton of people have fistulated cattle easily accessible, so poo of some kind is what comes to mind. Caecotrophs (I probably misspelled that, I’m rusty) would maybe be the ideal thing to try, but they’re not generally easy to collect if your bunny/guinea pig is healthy.
I’m not really planning on keeping pill millipedes, but I’m interested to learn about them and see what the current understanding of their care in captivity is. I also wonder if any zoos have successfully kept pill millipedes, and if so, what their husbandry is like.