Yep - I'm new and naive. An old time beardie owner told me I was under feeding my 8 month old beardie (I was afraid of impaction). So now I'm feeding it 2 dozen crickets twice a day which she eats up in about a minute. This has been going on for about two weeks now. Plus I'm making sure she's got greens all the time. How long is this going to last. These crickets are expensive!!!! I love my Beardie, but I didn't expect it to cost so much on a weekly basis. Any feed back? :shock:
I'm pretty new too, but where are you buying your crickets? Petstores seem to be really expensive like 10cents/cricket. You can buy them bulk online like 2or3cents/cricket, there are a bunch of places. I've used http://www.wormman.com and http://www.mulberryfarms.com. Both places seemed ok to me but one of the more experienced owners might know of a better place. I cant believe how much they eat either, I sometimes worry I'm over feeding my beardie but he seems to be happy!
There is lots of places on the net to buy crickets cheaper than a petstore. Premiumcrickets.com, Armstrongcrickets.com, generally, you purchase more and get a price break. I know how expensive their food can be. You could order them online or raise them yourself and be able to feed your dragon all he/she needs for cheaper.
They can eat alot. :shock: At one point my Neato was eating 80 crickets at day. I was spending more per week to feed him than the rest of the family. :lol: Thank goodness when they are adults they reduce their feeder intake and mostly eat veggies which are much cheaper. I believe Neato was about 11 months old when he started eating less.
i can't believe how much they eat either.ozzy must be about 4 months now. I buy 4 box's of locust on a tuesday and have to buy 2 or 3 more on friday to keep him going! my pet shop says i'm over feeding oz because he ate about 100 locust in 1 day....he was still looking for more though. they said i should be feeding him about 15 - 30 per sitting. he's started eating his veggies now too. should i cut down on his locust?
Petshops don't dispense the best advice. I'm not familiar with that kind of feeder, but they do need a lot of protein at that age. I know that my babies could eat 100 crickets per day each when they were young. The petshop was amazed too when I kept coming in to buy a pack of 500 crickets every couple of days, but that really was what they needed when they were that young.
If it's getting really expensive, you could always breed them.
i thought about trying to breed them but haven't got a clue where to start...any tips? at the moment i keep them in a plastic tank with some egg cartons, a bit of wet tissue and their veg.
Under "normal" circumstances you could see a drastic reduction in intake any time now, especially toward the first year. However, if he needs to catch up on his protein intake he will probably keep eating that way for a bit. Hang in there as it will decrease in a few months.