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Pre prepared foods?

J

Jake The Snake

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I was just wondering is anyone has had success with preprepared foods for beardies. Since baby beardies eat so many insects, I figured that one of the preprepared products would be more convenient until they get bigger and can eat the roaches I keep. Its just too damn hard catching 30-50 young roaches and going to the pet store even a few times a week is a HUGE hassle. I could easily do insects 2-3 times a week but not every day.
Any experience appreciated
 
What kind of roaches do you breed? With lateralis it is easier when you put the egg casings in another container so you only have small roaches in the bin when they hatch.

I tried monster bearded diet from petsmart and the katy brand with no luck. My beardie won't touch them or eat anything that has.
 
You can't cut out insects on a growing baby, they need the protein especially. But if you want to supplement with prepared foods repcal pellets soaked in water for a good 5-10 minutes along with the veggies gets mine eating in 1-2 weeks from hatching. I just put the veggies in a food processor and make it super fine, toss some pellets on top and some veggie growth and they go nuts for this! It's funny watching a hatchling jump up and attack the dish trying to get to it before the others.
 
Cat_72 said:
Why not just order a bulk lot of crickets online? They are easy to keep.
Click to expand...
I did that before and was finding crickets throughout the house for months later.

I do breed the lateralis so maybe putting the egg casings in a deli cup would be a good idea. I got a buddy that has some beardies hatching out in a couple months and I'm almost positive I'll be taking a couple of them. Also, are freshly molted mealies ok for youngins?
 
The prepared pellets are okay for adding variety to a dragon's diet but they don't replace the live bugs that growing dragons need.

I've only heard negative things about mealies for small dragons mostly due to their shell and the difficulty that small dragons have in digesting them. I'm not sure about freshly molted mealies since those should be softer though.
 
Maybe even some freeze dried mealies in a the salad would be ok. I could always get started on seperating the egg casings to get started and see how that works.
 
Baby dragons have a difficult time digesting mealies, freeze dried or not.

As long as you have a tall Rubbermaid or such with smooth sides that the crickets cannot climb out of, there should be no reason that you would be finding them all over the house, lol.

The general rule of thumb with insects is that the food item should be no larger than the space between their eyes. Different animals grow at different rates, so it's hard to put a time frame on it, but they would have to be pretty close to adult size to eat adult crix.
 
I think I'll just try and boost the roach colony for a couple months and hope I have enough feeders to feed a couple babies. If you put the dead insects in the vibrator(lol) dish, will beardies go for them?
 
Why would you want to feed a dead insect? If an insect is dead for any reason other than a purposeful death at your hands, there is something wrong with it and it shouldn't be fed.
 
I've never tried one of those dishes, but everyone I've talked to who did said all it did was scare the poor lizards. ;)
 
Cat_72 said:
Denise, I think he was referring to the freeze-dried insects.
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Dohhhh me; makes sense. I assumed dead was different than freeze-dried, since he'd already used that term.
Thanks Cathy; sorry Jake. :)
 
freeze-dried's just not as good as fresh in general. heh. Have you thought about maybe doing silkworms or something for the dragons? The convenience of a mealie, but with a soft body?
 
Jake The Snake said:
I'm just hoping to find an alternative to live insects multiple times a day but rather feed live insects maybe just a few times a week
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If you're not willing to feed live insects, then you shouldn't get them. Not trying to be a big meanie about it, but that is what they need and if you can't provide them with the nutritional requirements, then you should not keep them.
 
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