stubrookes":13c0wvpd said:
, he actually lost interest in the medium crickets and wouldn't eat them, so we had to buy him something bigger.
I am so glad you said this because our dragon will not eat the smaller size crickets. He has no intrest in them at all. We have only had our dragon since Dec 4, when we got him we thought the pet store (private, not chain) was feeding him too big of crickets so we ordered a 1000 smaller crickets. He just would not eat them. After 3-4 days no crickets and only salad I went out locally and bought more big crickets, he ate them immediatly! The smaller crickets are growing and I'm picking through them for the smallest ones to feed to our goldfish!
Our dragon is small for his age but has grown alot since we have got him. He was 10.5 inches long when he came home and is now 12.25 inches! That's 1.75 inches in a month! We think he is about 9 months old.
To answer your original question, I'm not for certain how many crickets he is eating everyday, with 2 little boys who help feed it is hard to keep track. This last time (Dec. 28) when I bought crickets we counted them (131 large) I kept track of the number of dead crickets pulled out of the cricket bin (3) We started feeding the new crickets Dec 29 and the bin that batch of crickets were in ran out yesterday, so 128 crickets in 7 days, average 18.28 crickets a day! He gets about a half cup (loose packed) of shredded butternut squash and chopped collards a day. He doesn't eat all of it though, probably only probably only 3/4 of it, some days more, some days less. We also mix in about 1 Tbs of Ready To Eat Bites by Nature Zone (wet looking food) I think he picks around that though. He also gets a tad of whatever fruit/veggies we are eating as a family that day if it's ok for him.
Feeding schedule is right before I go to bed I give some collards so he has food 1st thing of the morning if he wants, his light is off and he is in his cave. In the morning before he gets crickets I give those collards to the crickets and give him fresh collards with the squash mixed in. His light turns on at 6:00am and goes off 8:00pm. After the kids eat their breakfast 7:00ish am, they put crickets in his pen. About 11:00 he has pooped and I clean out his papertowels and all the remaining crickets. Then about 4:00 they feed him more crickets. I pull out the extra ones about 7:00pm
I know I'm leaving the crickets in longer than some suggest but for now it seems to be working for us. The crickets aren't all jumpy on him. Either they are scurring around while he's actively eating them or they go hide in his cave or behind his bricks until he goes for more. We did try a seperate bin for feeding when he first came home but our dragon didn't like that, he would puff up and stand still and wouldn't eat. Now that he has gotten more comfortable living at our house maybe I will try the seperate bin again and see what happens. It would be easier for me for sure since catching crickets a couple times a day isn't all that fun especially when you have to remove all his stuff to make sure all are out, At least his pen gets cleaned more that way!