Feeding various wiggly things

Good morning everyone!

I wanted to confirm I am not messing up my new baby because of the way I'm feeding... was told on another forum that I shouldn't change up my beardie food as often.

When I got Kempachi he was 4 months old. I've had him for 2 months now and have fed him the following:

Came home first week with crickets- he was eating crickets as a staple at the pet store. Since I wasn't sure if he would eat anything else I slowly introduced worms.

Second/ third week he was completely off the crickets and eating dubia nymphs and silk worms.

Fourth/fifth week he is eating dubia nymphs and the occasional mealworm

Now it's week 6/7 and he will be eating BSFL and dubias. Since I got BSFL I am not dusting the dubias with calcium.

Every week he eats some mealworms since he goes bananas when I clean the bin and he sees all the wiggling, but I don't use them as a meal.

I unconsciously applied my personal eating habits to the way I feed my pets. Is this something that will make him sick?
I read that a varied diet is encouraged, but how often can you change the staple diet?
I put veggies in his tank daily, but he doesn't tough it. At the pet store they were giving him romaine lettuce, but since there was an issue with the lettuce in the US I never gave him any.
Are beardies affected by things like E coli?????????
I've put zucchini, sweet pepper, soft carrots, collard green, and cilantro in his veggie dish.

**I'm purchasing feeders online so I buy enough to last for two weeks, which is why his diet has been changing every two weeks.

It's fine to offer a range of live staple feeder insects to your little hatchling/juvenile beardie.

Insects to choose from for the following :

BSLF and flies
silkworms (up to medium size = from 1" to 1.5" long
crickets (small size = about 1/3 size would be ideal) , gutload with high calcium greens and carrot , dust daily with calcium powder
roaches (sized to suit) and ditto
locusts (sized to suit) and ditto.

Up to 6 months old I recommend 3 feeds of live insects per day, no restrictions on how many are eaten per meal
6 months to 12 months old I recommend 2 meals of live insects per day , again no restrictions per meal.
Offer salad daily BUT if the young dragon shows no interest don't worry . Best = shredded coarsely leafy greens rich in Ca + grated carrot & grated sweet potato are good. What is not eaten by the dragon can be given to the crickets/roaches/locusts as food/gut load.
NO GELS please - best way to hydrate insects if chunks of fresh carrot.

At your dragon's age and size , I was giving a big feed of live crickets in am, a smaller feed of crickets about lunchtime , and giving salad and silkworms (on a mulberry leaf) about 5pm.
Lights were on 6am, off 10pm.
Sometimes I observed my little dragons up and about quite late (near my bed time) visiting the food dish (where there were nibbling on the salad and discovering crickets doing the same (the ones who avoided being eaten and recaptured) …. lizards are very smart and soon discover these these opportunities.

So the water crystals are a no-no? I'm using dubia chow to feed the roaches, water crystals for hydration, and carrots for gutloading.

chifeo":3pai9dhm said:

So the water crystals are a no-no? I'm using dubia chow to feed the roaches, water crystals for hydration, and carrots for gutloading.

Click to expand...

Definitely …. would you eat water crystals ?

That's what the insects do , and where the insects end up ?

Carrots are an excellent source of moisture (90% by weight of a carrot is water) , and they double as a food too.... stick with carrots and ditch the water crystals or use them in the garden or planters where they are meant to be used.