banded crickets and superworms

[SkyfangRauss]

so I ran out of crickets this week, and ordered some from ghanns farm

instead of the brown crickets im used to, they switched to banded crickets.
in some ways theyre excellent, they aren't as noisy, don't smell as bad, have less chitin,, and are pretty hearty.

however there's some bad points to them too. they are VERY good at jumping away from Agni when he goes for them, and they also like to 'freeze' for long perioids of time when one of them actually gets eaten, so they don't attract attention.

the bad points are compounded by the fact I had to go a day without crickets, so I fed him some superworms. he gobbled them down, and had no problems digesting the shell and passing it.

however now, he doesn't really want crickets. I don't have anymore super worms to try to see if he'll eat them, and hell only eat 5 or 6 crickets before he gives up trying to catch them and goes to his basking rock. he wont even take them from my fingers at that point.

he's shedding 3 out of 4 of his legs, so im hoping when he's done he'll eat his crickets again, but I might have messed up in giving him superworms, and may have to switch to them instead of crickets.

 

[Taterbug]

Hope he goes back to his crickets! I get the impression some dragons can get quite a preference for supers - I know both of mine did. I've a colony of roaches that only get dirty looks now.

 

[SkyfangRauss]

I guess im switching to superworms instead of crickets.

he'll only eat 2 or 3 crickets before he refuses them, but hell eat 10-12 large supers at a time.

guess I messed up giving him supers in the first place, but they've got more protein than crickets anyway, they're quiet, and they don't smell as bad as crickets, and he's having no trouble digesting and passing supers

was hilarious, he was taking his afternoon nap in his hide, and I dropped a single super into the tank at dinnertime, and he darts out and gobbles it up, and looks at me for more. he'll actually chase supers, and he gets plenty of outside the tank time, so the higher fat of supers is offset

 

[dementedlullaby]

Hey,

my beardie is just a baby (well juvie now I guess) but we feed him bandeds as well. I noticed he is more hesitant to eat bandeds. I think they scare him because they're crazy jumpers. I just ordered 1000 bandeds so I'm stuck with them anyway lol but I've taken to tong feeding. He even gets excited when he sees the green tongs now haha. He even lunged at them once lol. He knows they mean food.

Banded crickets are really annoying. They also love to get into rock crevices which makes retrieving them when he didn't want the last one before (or I drop one, oops) a real pain. But I find they live longer and don't show as much agression. The other house crickets I had would really beat on each other even in a huge space with lots of food. I guess it's a trade off =/.

He still goes after his worms and such, I don't bother hand feeding those. So yeah, if you don't mind try shoving them right in front of his face. Mungi is so cute, he'll give it a little lick and then go omnomnom.

It's worth noting for a baby/juvie this is crazy time consuming though lol. Worth it for my little one.