Large crickets vs small crickets with Juvy

[Stolas]

Ok so the situation I faced is that my juvy has been going through small crickets like no tomorrow. He started eating 4, then as each day passed went to 8 then 12 for the corresponding days. However my current store was out of small crickets for his food today, and I experimented with large because at the moment it was my only option. 8 (yes thats EIGHT) large calcium-dusted crickets later, my juvy refuses to eat anymore, which makes me think he's happy and full.

Now my question boils down to, if my juvy is actively eating large crickets (calcium-dusted and gutloaded) and he does have a healthy appetite for his greens (kale in particular), would it be ok to move from small to large crickets and just watch how many he eats at a time? I'm not sure his total age at the moment, but i'll post a picture of him to give you guys an idea.

 

[Beardednoob]

I would still try your best to stick with crickets no larger then the space between your dragons eyes. This is important for baby dragons, juvenile dragons all the way till sub adult as they are born with a natural kink in their digestive tract. This grows out ~ when the dragon hits 16 inches. That is the basis for saying not to feed super worms until 16 inches, same basis on which others (not me included) will say it is okay to have your dragon on sand at 16 inches. ( I do not support the use of sand with bearded dragons but, it is the basis of the opinions of others as for when it would be fine )

So the safest route here would be to follow the feeder rule. :wink:

 

[MelissaC]

This is a really good question. I went through a similar situation very recently. My dragon was eating SO MANY small crickets a day that I started considering just buying it large. Well just the other day I went and bought 10 large crickets just to see how he would react. I put one in the cage and my dragon didn't think twice, just ran over there and ate it. So I gave him a few more. The next day I inspected his poop and it seemed fully digested. So now I'm going to buy large crickets instead of small.

This is how big my dragon is. Not much bigger than yours

Hope this helps
Melissa =)

 

[Mirthy]

someone here with more knowledge will probably pop in and give better advice then me cuz I'm a newbie but I seem to recall reading somewherethat not only do larger crickets pose a risk for for impaction but they also have more shell/exo-skelleton to good stuff/meaty bits than the little crickets. Obviously, as the little guys grow they start really chowing down on the crickets...there are a couple of videos on here of true cricket crunching mayhem and I'm blanking on where you'd catch the links but the cricket counts are high!

 

[randommonks]

I would also recommend you stick with the space between the eyes rule. I would imagine that the choking risk for a small beardie eating large crickets would be increased. If you're going to do this, I'm sure you know to watch him closely to make sure he chews the crickets well and gets them down all the way, as well as making sure that he's pooping every day. At the length it looks like your beardie's at, I was feeding 1/4" crickets, probably about 40 a day. If the crickets are getting too expensive/bothersome, try looking into starting a roach colony.