• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Pre prepared foods?

silkies are a whole lot better nutritionally than crix. I'm not really big on looking up information, but it should be easy enough to find if you google it or talk to anyone that sells them.

Main setback with silkies is that the silkworm chow is expensive, but if you've got mulberry trees, you're all set, cuz they eat the leaves.

I agree that there's really no way around feeding live. You've just gotta find the live feeder that will work for you. If you're already keeping the roaches, moving the egg casings seems like the best plan for sure. Roaches are supposed to be really healthy for beardies.
 
Well at the rate which they go for them, it is much better to have them shipped. Reptilefood.com is awesome! And all you need is a tote to keep them in. They can't get out of those.
 
Jake The Snake said:
Its not that I can't feed live insects period its just that getting crickets every day is a pain in the ass, I've done it before.
Click to expand...

Jake, I understand what you are saying, but if you're worried about the "inconvenience", perhaps you'd be better off with animals that don't require live insects on a daily basis. :shrug01:

Crickets, silkies, supers (for older animals)...there are a lot of very simple options of insects to keep that don't require you to go to the pet store every day or every few days if you order in bulk. You have roaches already, so that source is right there now. During baby season, I order a few thousand crix every couple of weeks, they are delivered to my front door, I throw them in a big Rubbermaid tub with some egg crate, gutload, and oranges for moisture, and I'm set for a couple of weeks. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
 
I may have to resort to ordering bulk again. Last time I did that They kept escaping regardless of the "secure" tote I prepared. I'll see what I can do. Since I don't have the beardies YET I still have time to get ready
 
The most important thing to remember is that the Rubbermaid should not have ANY texture whatsoever, the inside should be completely slick. I bought a cheaper brand container once....didn't think anything of it, and it turned out they could climb the sides, no matter how "secure" I thought my top was. My cat was hunting crix for a week. :ack2:

Since that mistake, I've never had a problem.
 
My dragons LOVE Exo-Terra's canned silkworms. I give them those 3 x's a week. You will need to cut them up into little pieces for babies, but I've had no problem getting any of my dragons to eat them. They're actually REALLY greedy about them. I've heard good things about the Rep-Cal pellets too, I've just never used them.
 
Good luck with the pellet food mine wont touch the stuff. if its not moving they hate it. They only eat the greens if I starve them a few days and not give them superworms or crickets. They rather eat the superworms and they are not to hot on live mice either.
 
Yeah, alot of people have trouble with the pellets. I am just very lucky I guess. I start them on greens and pellets a few days after they hatch so they get used to seeing it. Once one of them is daring enough to see what it is, the rest jump in as well. usually by the end of the first week, if not the second, everyone is dive bombing the greens and pellets like there is no tomorrow. I just keep giving them reguardless of hatchling or one I just aquired, they all change to it if you keep up with it.

I wish I could get away with one order every few weeks. Try minimum 10k every single week. And I have roaches as well! The supers go fast if I get them. I actually have one female that is afraid of crickets so she eats mostly those and pinkies when I have them. But most everyone prefers live, I can only get a few of them to eat F/T. They will pull a body part out of anothers mouth if they get the chance.
 
How many people feed their beardies mice? Only the second time I've heard anyone say that. I've always heard they were bad for beardies.
 
i've never done pinkies for the fact that while half of the people argue that it's completely ok, the other half of people insist it's bad for your dragons. I figure there are other methods of providing protein and calcium to my babies without having to worry about which side is right.
 
I like to feed my mama dragons pinky mice after laying, it gives them an extra "boost" after putting out all of the nutrients they have expended on the eggs and laying. I only feed 1-2 day old pinkies, never anything larger. They give them the added protein and calcium supplied not only by the actual pinky, but they have a tummy full of milk besides.

I have always had good luck adding the juvenile Rep-Cal pellets (pre-soaked of course) to the salads of my babies as well. If you give them to them from the very start, they all seem to really like them. I would never consider feeding them as a sole diet, however.
 
Yep. I like to top off the salad with them. But even those that I don't raise from the egg I can still convert them into eating them on the salad. I figure the more variety they get the better. I give pinkies to the females that just laid eggs as well. The boys are outta luck! Would I do either pellets or pinkies as a sole diet? No way!! I believe the variety is the key, seriously, would you want to sit there and eat at McDonald's everyday? I don't believe any one company that says a particular diet of theirs is complete. I would not eat that nor would I expect my dragons to either.
 
I didn't think you meant pinkies as a sole diet. I haven't tried the Rep-Cal pellets.Only the monster and katy brand or whatever it is. I think I got her at 4 months and she wouldn't eat them then either. I'm not too worried about it but it would of helped last summer when I was feeding so many crickets, or this last winter when greens were so hard to find. Now I've got roaches so no more ordering cricks i hope
 
I have tried those other pellets as well and they were just not interested in them at all. When I went back to the repcal after the monster they were very happy to have them back again even after not seeing them for a while. I am working on the roaches, I have them spread into 4 colonies, but they are no where near ready to take over the place for crickets yet. I wish! I think I am still a bit away from that.
 
prepared reptile foods...

I agree, you can't cut the protien out of the diet of growing dragons or you'll stunt their growth among other issues...

bearded dragons are "desert scrubland" dwelling lizards in the wild, that means there is little access to water. Their bodies are designed to absorb the majority of the water they need through the foods that they eat since they may not come into contact with water in the wild for long periods of time...

if you use dehydrated (canned) insects of any sort they are not only unable to get the moisture from their food, but in addition, the canned insects are full of preservatives, and harder to digest because of their low moisture content, also dead insects do not stimulate a feeding response in the lizards because the food does not move.

with regard to the prepared dragon foods (like pellets), they are also full of preservatives, dyes, and sugar...check the ingredients lists very carefully before purchasing prepared foods.

think of prepared foods as fast food or tv dinners, they do not have sufficient nutritional value to merit their ingestion, they are high in calories and sugar which causes obesity, and are full of chemicals to enhance their flavor, not to mention the preservatives, dyes, and other random ingredients...reptiles eating prepared foods in many cases are just as bad as eating children eating fast food for their meals.

i think having a few of the prepared reptile products are good to put in an emergency kit, in case you couldn't get your hands on fresh vegetables and live insects for a short period of time, beyond that I do not recommend most of the product available in the pet industry...check the labels carefully...

Take care of yourself and each other,

Kricket
 
Maybe I'll try those pellets sometime.
As for roaches, Last summer I'd ordered 500 lateralis and started a colony. They were starting to reproduce late fall. I left on an emergency in november and was gone a month. When I came back all the adults were dead and all that was left were the tiny nymphs. They've finally started to get to reproductive stage now. I haven't been able to feed any of them. My hissers are slow to reproduce and I have a good bit of adults in there. I have nothing to feed adult hissers too. I got a small colony of discoids, 20, and have babies but pulled out three or four dead adults today and some of their wings are curling. Couple weeks ago I bought 4k lateralis off of kingsnake, had nearly all of them die in less than a week so I'm getting some more. That way I can feed my beardie roaches without worrying about depleting my small colony.

If half are female, and there are 10 eggs a case, that would be 2,000 a month. So you need 40,000 roaches a month and 10 a case would need 4,000 roaches. If you want Turkistan there have been some good deals lately on kingsnake. My 4k was $100
 
Roaches

For a while I was one of those who were disgusted by the thought of feeding roaches to the dragons because that would mean I would have to touch them. Figured they would get out all over the place too. But looking at my feed order every week I got over that pretty fast. I first started off with maybe 12-20 discoids. Everyone else seems to get them going fast, but it just didn't seem to be going as great as I had hoped. So next I purchased an established colony of lobsters. I don't even know how may exactly were in there. It was just a tub full of them, all sizes. So I got them moving. Like I said I have them split into 4 groups now. So maybe with a little more time they will be closer to where I want them. I know my expectations were pretty high that they would reproduce fast enough. But if I look at it realistically, they are getting there. I should be in decent shape for the next group to start hatching so it at least won't increase my feed bill like it normally would. I have gotten kind of used to my vacation from breeding here and wanting to try a few new projects as well. Oddly enough my mom loves feeding them! She thinks it's great and she is just as determined as I am to get them moving. She is always tossing something new in there to see if they will eat it.
 
Back
Top