How many hoppers per feed?

[lauraisnotagiraffe]

I got my bearded dragon yesterday (Marcus) and he has had 2 feeds since then, the first he had about 8 hoppers, and the second, this morning, he had about 7... Is that enough? Should I feed him 3x per day?
Also, the hoppers are very hard to catch so I let them just hop into his cage, so sometimes it takes a long time for Marcus to notice them, is this okay?

 

[Gail]

You should be feeding him at least twice a day as many as he wants to eat. New dragons can be a bit stressed and it may take a few days for him to settle in enough to really start eating a lot. Many babies will happily eat 50+ crickets a day, if your guy is a baby, you might want to look into buying bulk feeders.

 

[lauraisnotagiraffe]

Oo I see, yes in that case I might do that because the Pets at Home hoppers only come with about 30 in each. How do you catch yours to put for your beardie? I sort of just let them hop in, is that okay? Only thing is, it takes quite a while for Marcus to feed.

 

[Gail]

We can't get hopper is America, only crickets. For crickets you keep a couple empty toilet paper tubes in the bug contain, that way you can just shake the bugs out into a tall container or plastic bag for dusting. Doesn't really matter how you get them in the cage, as long as you get them in there and your dragon is eating. Another thing you can try is feeding him in a separate container, put a few hopper in a plastic tote them place your dragon in there too. Some dragon take to eating out of a tote really well, some never do learn to tolerate it.

 

[lauraisnotagiraffe]

Okay thanks so is it okay to feed him as many as he wants?

 

[EmilyRussom]

As many as he can reasonably eat within 10-15 minutes is fine

Also, just so a cricket doesn't hide from you in his home, ever thought of a separate feeding location? I use a large rubbermaid storage bin - crickets can't hop out, AND they can't hide from Tiki!