Pet shops are very bad in this department, they simply don't look after the feeder insects , many don't even bother to put a bit of carrot in each tub to give the crickets a source of
hydration, result is sick and dead crickets and crickets eating each other , and infestations of the tubs with wasps and flies.
I often walked out of a pet shop in disgust at the state of the crickets they had on the shelves, and left empty handed to go elsewhere to get my supply of live crickets. And my wife brought home the crickets when she went to do the grocery shop for week and often several even most the tubs of crickets were putrid when I lifted the lid - and some tubs that should have 50-60 1/3 size crickets in then were lucky if there were 5 living crickets in them !!!
Inspect the tubs before you give then salesperson the $ , you don't need to lift the lid, just give the tubs each a good shake and then watch how many lively crickets run about.
If you cant see any carrot slices in the tub, or cant see enough live crickets in it, walk away.
What I did when I only had one pet lizard or just a couple of pet lizards was find out what day the nearest pet shop took bulk deliveries of the insects I was using , and I'd call the staff who I developed a relationship with , and I'd ask if the delivery had arrived , and if it had I asked they set aside and I'd be there soon after (that day) buy the 10 - 12 tubs of crickets I needed for that fortnight.
This way I got the best quality I could from the shop and rarely got a bad batch of crickets.
I now rarely buy crickets from pet shops , I order in my crickets in batches of 700 - 1000 by mailorder every 2-3 weeks.
If you dragon is very young, I suggest NOT having any period when you have no live insects to feed her longer than 24 hours.
I'd have a packet Repashi GrubPie on hand as an emergency backup protein source for these times.
