I just got my baby dragon yesterday, and ordered him a cup of 25 hornworms. The hornworms arrived today, but I'm not sure if I can feed them to him because they seem large. They're about 1.5" long and maybe 1/2" wide at most.
I know I'm not supposed to feed anything larger than the space between the eyes, and sorry if this is a stupid question, but when calculating this, does it matter if length is too long, but width short enough? For example, is a 1.5" long hornworm okay to feed because the width is only 1/2" and shorter than the space between the eyes? Or does both length and width need to be smaller than the distance between the eyes? My dragon is 10" long and 10 weeks old.
At 10" long I think your dragon may be able to handle this size, though I wouldn't go any bigger and hornworms grow extremely fast. You may want to refrigerate them every other day to keep them from growing too quickly.
If you believe your dragon usually chews food well you can try one out. Just give one and see how well he chews it and handles it first. A lot of people go by the width with worms instead of length, and they are so soft bodied this size should be fine
He ate two of the small ones yesterday. I didn't see him chew - he never seems to chew! I'll take your advice and refrigerate them for a bit to slow down growth. Can I freeze them? I'm thinking he can't possibly grow fast enough to eat the larger ones --- could I freeze them until he's bigger? (Don't know if he'll eat insects if they're dead, but I can try...)
A 10" beardie can eat those easily, and you might as well give him the bigger ones first because they do grow at an explosive rate. Keeping them cool is fine, but don't freeze them. They will become soggy mush. Hornworms are great, but you have to be careful to not buy too many at once.