Feeders and Money

[mauler5858]

I have a baby beardie that I just got about a week ago. I know that they, as babies, can be a little more expensive to feed....which I have no problem doing. However, I would like to save some money if at all possible. He is about 6 inches from nose to tip of the tail. He is typically eating about 40ish crickets a day, and a couple bites of greens. I know that I have some options on bringing down the price of this:

1. Order crickets online. I know there is some money to be saved, but I do not know what place will be the best. http://www.carolinacrickets.com/ is about an hour's drive from my house. How well do the crickets hold up? What would be the recommended amount to order at a time so that I have the least die before they are eaten. As for feeding the crickets, I am using the little orange cubes at the moment. Any suggestions there?

2. Dubia's. How easy are they to setup and care for? How big of a colony would I need to build in order to sustain one beardie? How many of those do they eat a day compared to the crickets?

3. Other feeders....silkworms, superworms, phoenixworms, etc. How do those stack up against the other options? Are any of those worth colonizing as well?

Thanks in advance.

 

[AHBD]

Hi there....if you look in the feeders + feeding sections, you'll find answers to most of these questions.

 

[GingerBeachy]

I order my crickets from Carolina Crickets and am very happy with them. They arrive within a day or two since they are about 2 hours from me, the crickets are very active and healthy. I have ordered 250, 500 and 1,000 crickets in an order. The 1,000 cricket order is the only one I had a problem with. They were 1/4" crickets, had alot die off/not accounted for. They issued me a coupon code to use on my next order to compensate for the loss, which could of been due to the fact that last week it was quite cold in the overnights during shipping or that I used cricket cubes instead or water (per the lady who emailed me to address my concern with the shipment). The lady suggested that I use water for crickets of that size as they are a bit delicate, being the "baby" of the species. Prior to this shipment I had always used the cricket cubes and either potato or orange slices to add water. The cricket chow from their website is a great feeding supply - the crickets love it!

I also tried phoenix worms for the first time and my beardie loved them! He is about 10 1/2" long, so I ordered the medium size worms. These are a little more expensive than crickets, but the upkeep is less, IMO. I ordered from www.phoenixworms.com although some here have said there are a couple of cheaper websites for the worms.

 

[Goonie]

[Moved from General to Feeders]