Are dubia roaches much more filling than crickets?

[fluffpuffgerbil]

Hey everyone =) On Dec 20 I bought a baby dragon... he's about 3 months old I estimate and a little over 8 inches long.
Now the last time I had a baby dragon was in 2010, when Scout was a wee lad. And when he was that young, he was eating anywhere from 50-100 tiny crickets a day between 2-3 feedings a day. Now for Maes, I don't have crickets, but dubia roaches, and I was offering him multiple feedings a day, but now I have a food dish in his cage so he can go eat roaches whenever he wants and I do see him zip down from his basking log to get a 'to go meal' and go back up to his basking spot to munch on a roach(Though multiple times a day I offer him bugs via tongs and he usually takes a couple in the morning and in the late afternoon). They are probably the max size he can eat or just a bit smaller. Not teeny tiny, about the exact size between his eyes.
And he poos everyday, he has a multilevel log/branch thing so he can bask in temps anywhere from 95-112*f or a little warmer, and he has a nice n new reptisun 10.0 tube along the length of his cage, no lid on the cage so UVB unfiltered by screen =) Substrate is paper towels.

BUT he only eats maybe 6 roaches a day throughout the entire day. Maybe a lil more. The largest roaches I offer him are 1/2 inch long and are just as wide as the space between his eyes. I'm sure he'd eat a lot more roaches if I offered him teeny tiny ones, it's just, the fact this baby has yet to gobble down 50 roaches is so confusing since Scout ate so many crix as a babe.

I'm gussing this is normal, but you know how these guys like to worry their slaves... I guess I need reassurance

 

[NatashaFatality]

I'm still new to this but mine is about the same age. Mine eats quite a bit. What I do is take her out and feed her in a bin for about 10-15 minutes. I try a second time a little bit later so I know she gets her fill. Maybe yours needs dedicated feeding time to keep him focused. I like the bin method because they have a task at hand and I don't have to find anyone not eaten in the cage decor. Plus I can count how many.

 

[fluffpuffgerbil]

I've used the bin feeding method several times, actually! I might have to find a bigger bin now and put some coloured paper underneath it as he seems to have a hard time seeing them in a regular clear bin when they're dusted. Perhaps I'll go ahead and try it again. I think he ate about 9 or 10 roaches yesterday...

 

[thundersmommy]

I don't have any "adult" beardies (yet). Mine are still fairly small, a couple months old. I have 2, one is about 7-8 in from snout to end of tail and the other is about 10. I was feeding them crix until I got my dubias in.

From the research I've done, past experience with reptiles and what I see with mine they are more of a meal than the crix. Meaning they have more meat in them compared to the crickets. Mine tend to follow this theory.

Both of my beardies would eat about 10-15 crix per feeding (fed 3x a day). Now they are on dubias and eat about 5-6 per feeding. so about half. Occasionally they will eat more or less depending on the size of the roaches.

Hope this helps, but it does seem normal.

 

[fluffpuffgerbil]

Thanks for the response--- Looks like Maes is still averaging 4-6 a day though. These aren't very small roaches though(small enough for him to eat just fine, I make sure they aren't too big, but they're still 1/4inch - 1/2inch roaches). It could be he still just hasn't hit his 'super hungry growth spurt phase' yet. But now I'm not home(I'm at another house dogsitting) so I can't constantly be watching him to see how much he is eating. He still has the dish of dubia roaches and seems to be doing fine and growing at the same rate Scout did as a baby. (about an inch a month)