Are superworms ok to feed to a 10 month old BD?

[mushusmom01]

Mushu is 10 months old. She is currently eating crickets but I wanted to try her on some type of worms. I can only buy the mealworms and superworms locally. Is it ok to feed her superworms at her age? Mealworms aren't safe for beardies...right?

 

[vtintraining]

From what I have read on here, you want your dragon to be at least 16 inches before feeding superworms because of a kink in their digestive track that doesn't straighten out until 16 inches. I have also been told 13-14 inches so I am not really sure.

 

[bumblebee]

vtintraining is correct, beardies have a kink in their digestive tract that straightens out once they reach 16 inches. Super worms and meal worms both have tough exoskeletons, which is why you shouldn't feed them to beardies under 16 inches. Meal worms aren't ever a "good" food for beardies because they're really high in fat, and are basically nutritionally worthless. Super worms are okay as long as your beardie is 16 inches long, but shouldn't be fed as a staple to juveniles because they are higher in fat than crickets. So you could feed her some super worms (assuming she's at least 16 inches), but she really should still be getting crickets, too.

Hope that helps

 

[mushusmom01]

Thanks for the info...so crickets won again...lol

 

[fancybearded]

Can I cut the super worns?

 

[mushusmom01]

I actually measured Mushu last night. She's 17.5" long....YEAHHHH!!!! I ordered her superworms today.

 

[Claudiusx]

Can I cut the super worns?

Technically, yes. I still would say they are not ideal until the dragon is older though.

Anything smaller than 16 inches is still really young, and at that age the amount of protein they need would add WAY too much fat into the diet if using superworms.

-Brandon

 

[AHBD]

Yes, at 17.5" she can have large superworms. One thing to be careful about, she will want to gobble them like candy, but you can't feed quite as many of them as you could crickets. So just give her 5 - 6 at a time but you can do that twice a day. She should be fine that way, and you are still best off to keep crickets in her diet as well.

 

[mushusmom01]

Sounds great....THANKS!

 

[fancybearded]

Thanks for the reply. He is only having them over the weekend tho.I order him pPhoenix worms every month. We had a snag on when to order them and now have to wait.