my baby beardie eats like its going out of style. They say to let them eat as many crickets as they want but he can eat 30 crickets easily in one sitting. at first i was feeding him 15-20 each meal cause he was eating but i notice that if i put more in there he will eat them all without hesitation. Is it possible for them to overfeed?? i want him to be fat and healthy but i want to make sure im doing it right. anyone had a similar situation?
I don't know how you could over feed them either! I have 8 ,10 week old babies right now who still need homes ....left from the original 14. When there were 14 they easliy ate about 1500 crickets every 6 days or so. The 8 remaining still eat almost 1000 a week or so, thats including what ever veggies i can get them to eat, some meal worms, calci worms, and occasionally wax worms.
I will say that they can eat too much too fast!
I would caution against wax worms a this point.( for babies) They aren't that nutritional anyway. we had a couple of close calls with the babies and wax worms. We had fed them each two wax worms the night before. I noticed one of them didn't seem his usual self. and then when i fed them he didn't come charging over to eat like his usual ravenous self! So I kept an eye on him while I was doing animal things in the room. I happened to be looking in time to see him shaking his head like crazy sideways, suddenly a big white gob of goo came out and flew across the cage. It was two wax worms wadded up together not really digested at all. I feel soooo lucky!
Another occasion feeding crickets the appropriate size
NOT ALL, IE:::The cricket being no bigger then the width of the beardies head between its eyes. This occasion they were eating like giant pigs on speed as usual ! after feeding i noticed one of them seemed to still have his throat puffed out like he hadn't swallowed his food yet. i watched and he was swallowing alot trying to get it down, and moving and rearranging his head a lot , obviously uncomfortable. It got worse not better as I waited. i tried to give him a drop of liquid to help him , and ever so lightly rubbed his throat a little. Not working. We finally held him ,propped open his mouth , and used tongs to pull large cricket parts out of his throat. He was fine after that. We gave him drops of aloe and Liquid ( yummy kids flavor) echinacea and goldenroot formula for a couple days in case he'd hurt his throat in any way.
There are recommendations by some who say to feed crickets 3/4 to 1/2 the width of head. I'm feeling like I got my lucky error warnings and safe is better then sorry. G..........