Feeders for a future BD - where to start?

[NiKolae]

Hello,

I have been thinking about getting a bearded dragon for some time and figured that it may be a good thing to start a feeder colony or what-not before I get one. I raised crickets for an anole once but that was small scale and like 10 years ago, so any advise to start me off would be great. I know that baby bds eat A LOT so I thought this would be a good idea to save a little bit of money, while keeping my bd healthy.

Even if you just point me to another topic I'll be happy, but I figured I'd just ask.

THX )

 

[Dawnrider]

Well if you looking for easy I would recommend mealworms. They are the easiest BUT you have find the freshly molted ones for the young beardies due to risk of impaction. Mealworms aren't very nutrient enriched either, but they are easy to breed and keep. start with 200 to 500 mealworms. thats all it will take and put about 2-3 inches or more of bran, or oatmeal in the bottom of a large tupperwaare container, or if you perfur you can buy a 5, 10, or 2.5 gallon tank from the pet store and use it. I doesn't need to be tall, mealworms can't jump like crickets.
Put the mealworms in and add a peice of potato or some fruit of veggies once a week if you want to try to gut load them a little, but they are fine with their oatmeal if you don't want to but they will need some water. And thats it you'll soon see beetles and then the beetles will mate and lay eggs. the only other thing to do is to try and gather up the dead beetles just for hygenie (they die shortly after mating). Some people seperate the pupae (alien look ones) from the rest because mealworms can become cannablisitic, but if they have food and water you don't need to.
If you where able to breed crickets then I take my hat off to you, for me they have proven to be the most high maintance breeder I have tried yet, but if you can they are well worth your time.Crickets are generally straight forward start out with say 250 adults and they will start lying eggs, the hard part about crickets is seperating them by size, and having to clean up the dead ones/mess daily and making sure they have food and water which they seem to use more of the then the various worms (higher metabolism?). The thing with small crickets is the young beardies can inhale the 20 or so smalls you took a half hour to carefully seperate in under 5 minutes.
You might want to try superworms as well. If you are getting a baby they will not be able to start eating them right away, after they are about 9 months old they can eat them, but by then you would have a strong breeding program setup. Supers are breed like mealworms except if you seperate them they tend to pupate faster. Supers and their breeding are rather hot recently, if you want more info on any breeders just tell me and if I cannot answer it, maybe I can find someone who can

 

[diggerdrake]

with the supers figure about 5 months before you have feeders available. a dragon should be 16" or longer th handle supers. I would not even attempt the mealworms as they do not have a good nutrition factor and could cause impaction. another feeder that wasn't touched upon was roaches. they are prolific breeders and a colony can be established with minimal maintenence. I personally have dubia at this time but the turks seem to breed better and the adults don't reach a size like the dubia do. an adult turk is similar in size to crickets while an adult dubia will reach 2" in length. the meat to shell ratio is high in both types. you can easily feed younger roaches to smaller dragons and as the dragon matures you can easily feed larger nymphs. breeding is easy put them in a rubbermaid container add some heat and leave them be other than food and water and within 6 months you will have more than enough roaches for feeders in a variety of sizes. look within this section of feeders and you will easily find all the info for breeding roaches and supers. some get elaborate some are simple set-ups.

 

[diggerdrake]

another thing I forgot to mention is that the initial cost for dubia is a bit expensive the turks are a lot cheaper(actually not much more than crickets) but with crix you do have a lot of maintenence and the life span of a cricket is about 8 weeks. roaches will live near 2 years and produce babies from adulthood (5-6 months old)

 

[Dawnrider]

I would have to say diggerdrake is right about the mealworms, they don't make great food. I abandoned my breeding project with them and released them in the backyard (the breeding project really got started by accident anyway). The birds where paying a lot of trips to our backyard for a while then though. I know locust are offered commerically as well for adult, but I have no info on breeding them.

 

[diggerdrake]

due to the risk of infestation locusts are not offered in the US but you can get them readily in the UK

 

[patrickb]

I have to agree that mealworms are a bad idea overall. I would not recommend them as a feeder for a beardie period.

If you have done crickets on a small scale sucessfully, then definitely look into roaches. Dubia seem to be the most popular as feeders right now, with Turks and Lobsters coming in a close second. Each species has its pros and cons. Do a search for roaches here in the feeder section and checkout http://theroachguy.com for all the info you need. You could do them on the larger scale that you would need to feed a beardie and have less time/work invovled than with the small scale you did breeding crickets before. Plus they don't make noise and don't stink!

Superworms are another good easy breeder, but like was said, you will be looking at feeding them off later on down the road when you dragon is around 16" in length or so roughly. But again, it would hurt to start them now since they seem to grow a bit slower.

All in all, I can say it is very wise to research breeding your own feeders, for the money saved and the trouble saved as well. Not having to order online every week or two, not making trips to the petstore regularly, its just so much easier to have the food there in the house. Many people underestimate what babies can eat when they first get them, but if you consider that some consume 1500 crickets per a month, that's a lot of food! heh

 

[NiKolae]

Thank you for the info. I know where to start now and I think it sounds like a great idea to start a roach colony [i'm sure my roomates will LOVE that idea ]. So now I just need to get everything together. Then, a few months from now, I can get a baby dragon and keep him/her healthy and fed.

Thanks again.

 

[patrickb]

Yeah, your roommates will love that idea! :lol:

After your research, if you still have any unanswered questions, feel free to ask them here on the forums. Lot's of members here raise roaches and Jason (theroachguy.com) and Chad (bestroach.com) are also quite active on the forums, so plenty of peeps to answer anything you can't find in old posts.

 

[sithcdw]

I highly recommend roaches, they're very easy to breed, they have a higher meat to shell ratio and have little to no odor. I recommend lobster roaches because they're cheap and they breed fastest; however they can scale ANY surface so a slick barrier such as 2-3 inches of vaselin at the top the enclosure is needed. Crickets are relatively easy to breed but they stink horribly and require more maintenance compared to roaches, crckets also only have a lifespan of a few weeks as compared to lobster roaches who have a life span of about a year. Mealworms can be bred, but the risk of impaction is increased, especially in babies. However mealworms are very easy to breed. If you need any help with any feeder care just ask

 

[NiKolae]

Thank you for all your help. I think i am going to go for the Dubai roaches (prolly from the roachguy ) Now all i have to do is do a lot more research so I can convince my roomates that they will like this idea :study:

again thank you

 

[clear]

Without a doubt get roaches, your will never regret it! If you get them now and have a decent colony when you get your BD your never have to buy feeders!

 

[diggerdrake]

Thank you for all your help. I think i am going to go for the Dubai roaches (prolly from the roachguy ) Now all i have to do is do a lot more research so I can convince my roomates that they will like this idea :study:

again thank you

check the thread "convincing the parents" patric and ihaggerdy posted very good research into the roaches