best feeder for ~8 month old

[worriedmanblue]

Hi everone! I've had my beardie for almost eight months, and I was just wondering what the best thing to feed him would be. I currently feed him crickets, but he eats SO MANY of them at once so I end up going to the pet store twice a week buying over 100 crickets every time (what an expense haha). Is there a better, cheaper alternative that I can get at petsmart?
also the crickets smell bad and die quickly even if i put water crystals and food… any suggestions?

 

[Mysty]

As far as I'm aware the crickets are cheapest.

However, in answer to your question a mix of livegood is best. This excludes waxworms and meal worms and includes dubai roaches, locusts, crickets, silk worm, bsf/calciworm.

I use staple of locusts and dubai with 5 morios every other week but morios are only OK for adult/over 16inch dragons.

 

[JessPets]

Buy online. It will save you HUNDREDS of dollars!!! I buy both crickets and dubias online. In fact, I just finished by 1k dubias for $30 + free shipping! Look around: ebay, personal websites, craigslist, or other classifieds are sure to turn up something!

 

[kingofnobbys]

For my money I reckon silkworms are hard to beat, followed by roaches and crickets as the daily feeders an 8 month old.

Buy the crickets and roaches online in bulk (maybe 1000 per order) .
Buy the silkworms as eggs and hatch them and rear them to feeder size (med 2in and large 3in and bigger for an 8 month old) yourself (beats paying maybe $1 per worm , especially if you have access to a few big mulberry trees). Let some of the adult worms (20 - 30 say) pupate and become moths ,and harvest their eggs (each female silkworm moth will lay about 400 eggs , which can be kept dormnant for several months in the fridge in a sealed bottle or ziplock bag), never need to buy silkworms again .....

 

[halpern07]

I have an 8 month old as well and I buy the Dubia's in bulk online. I couldn't keep 60 crickets alive long enough (maybe 3 days) and felt like I was always in the pet store buying them. I buy the Medium Dubia's and although they seem to be a bit more in price, they last alot longer (it is hard to kill them), I also supplement with silk worms and smaller horn worms. The vet said to take her down to one feeding a day, so I alternate greens and bugs so that helped too, I thought I was going to go broke feeding her.

 

[JessPets]

I have an 8 month old as well and I buy the Dubia's in bulk online. I couldn't keep 60 crickets alive long enough (maybe 3 days) and felt like I was always in the pet store buying them. I buy the Medium Dubia's and although they seem to be a bit more in price, they last alot longer (it is hard to kill them), I also supplement with silk worms and smaller horn worms. The vet said to take her down to one feeding a day, so I alternate greens and bugs so that helped too, I thought I was going to go broke feeding her.

Same!! The few times I attempted 1k crickets, they were all dead in two weeks. 1k dubias can last me a month, and are fairly cheap and good feeders.

 

[kingofnobbys]

I have an 8 month old as well and I buy the Dubia's in bulk online. I couldn't keep 60 crickets alive long enough (maybe 3 days) and felt like I was always in the pet store buying them. I buy the Medium Dubia's and although they seem to be a bit more in price, they last alot longer (it is hard to kill them), I also supplement with silk worms and smaller horn worms. The vet said to take her down to one feeding a day, so I alternate greens and bugs so that helped too, I thought I was going to go broke feeding her.

Same!! The few times I attempted 1k crickets, they were all dead in two weeks. 1k dubias can last me a month, and are fairly cheap and good feeders.

I regularly order in 700 - 800 crickets.
first thing I do with them is divide them up into 9 - 10 x 2L cricket tubs (I have a horde of these from when I was buying crickets from petshops in tubs - these are cleaned before use), I put maybe 70 crickets in each tub.
I give them a hand full (8 - 10) dry RepCal adult beardie pellets to eat per tub
I give them a fresh chunk of carrot to eat and this is also their source of water.
I keep the tubs in a cardboard cricket tub bulk order box in the kitchen/dining room (about 24 - 26 degC)

Every 2 - 3 days I check the crickets and replace the carrot and top up the pellets, any dead crickets are removed.

A few days before I'm ready to feed the crickets to the lizards I add buk or puk choi greens to gut load them.

I can keep my crickets going OK for over a month. I avoid buying adult crickets , restricting myself to 2/3 size crickets (they become adult crickets in 2 - 3 weeks) .

Crickets are easy to keep.