what insects do you feed beardies (10 months old) currently i only give him crickets. sometimes, phoenix worms too.but what else is good to feed them. and what are some sites online to get them from. i also have a leopard gecko. so i would need to know what would be good to feed to both of them.
Superworms and Blatica Dubia (a type of non-climbing/non-flying roach) are the 2 other feeders that immediately come to mind...(granted if your Leo is a younger one, then the superworms will be too big for him....but my adult Leo loves them)..If you have more than one, then it might be a good idea to start your own colony of feeders....and superworms and roaches are a LOT easier to deal with and breed than crickets and phoenix worms......(both crickets and phoenix worms colonies have a tendancy to REALLY stink.)..... I just recently started up my own colony of Blatica, and so far, it seems to be the best/most reliable.....both of my Leos....(Adult Tigger and baby Roo) eat them readily, and they are edible in all sizes.....My Bearides are currently going through a brumation period, so they aren't eating as much of anything.....but I have no doubt they will take to the Blatica as well.....(before I got the Roaches they ate Crickets, Superworms, and Phoenix worms...(Crickets were from a local cricketranch, and Phoenix worms were from a friend who started to bred them, so sorry, no point of reference to give you on where to purchase those feeders from.) There are lots of places to purchase the superworms from (don't even remember the website I ordered from) but I do remember the name of the website for the roaches.. it is www.theroachguy.com (His prices were very reasonable and they arrived promptly, with none D.O.A.....so the service was great.) Hope that helps...I'm sure someone else will be along to give you a few more suggestions..
Superworms are good for bearded dragons,i dont have to cut them in half or anything. im not sure i can do the whole roach thing.
A 10 month old dragon should be able to handle full grown superworms (zophobas), an adult leo can handle them just fine as well. I wouldn't say they are the best staple insect, but you can certainly get by with feeding them often if you offer variety. There is no need to cut them up or anything they are perfectly safe to feed Roaches are great =) teach920 covered that and I second it. It costs a little to get things started and you have to give them some time before feeding heavily out of the colony, but you will have an endless supply of feeders if you go down this route. Other species that are easily accessible and make great staples are the turkistan roach (blatta laterallis) and the discoid or false-death head roach (along with dubia of course). Possibly the best feeder you can offer your herps are silkworms. They are quite expensive and in all honestly will probably require more care than your leo himself. However, they are nutritionally exceptional and make GREAT feeders. My beardie relishes them. Another debatable staple feeder is hornworms (NOT wild caught or they will be poisonous to feed!). They are extremely expensive though so most opt to feed them as a treat for variety. They are by far my beardies favorite food item, he would do backflips for them if he could. The above are all ideal staples (+crickets), along with phoenix worms although I feel they would be most expensive of all due to their tiny size. You can also feed trevo/butterworms and waxworms as occasioanl treats for variety. I would not feed mealworms to a bearded dragon due to their highly chitinous shell and lack of nutritional, maybe once in a blue moon and even still i opt to feed freshly shed. http://mulberryfarms.com is a good one stop shop for almost any of these feeders. I have also received great customer service from them. You can, however, find much cheaper prices on roaches from other sources. We can include those (along with teach's recommendation) if you think you might be interested. Here's a couple of nutritional data tables for you to look at to compare bugs: http://www.reptilerooms.com/index.php?cate...template=Simple (silkworm info may be inaccurate) I'll just copy and paste a section I made from another topic about this =) http://dubiaroachguide.blogspot.com/2009/1...r-reptiles.html <---he got the info from Feeders Inc. http://mulberryfarms.com/faq.htm <---Scroll down just a bit, theres a small chart on the right http://grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html <--- look around for bugs, also has salad items http://www.greatlakeshornworm.com/ <---- an interesting chart about halfway down discussing weights of feeders This last link is nice for weight comparisons, because although a silkworm and hornworm are individually expensive compared to crickets or other bugs, by comparing the amount that will be consumed due to weight it's clear to tell that they really aren't any more expensive per unit weight of food than anything else. For example, a beardie may eat 5 full gorwn silkworms and be full, or 50 crickets. EDIT: I began thinking about it a few hours here after posting this and I recalled a post Cheri made regarding feeder insects for beardies. It's stickied in the bearded dragon forum and it's definitely a good read so I thought I would go ahead and include it here without double-posting: http://www.reptilerooms.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=24368
