Meal worms wiggling out of lid all over cage

[BeardieMommy85]

I started to feed my beardie a couple meal worms a day and I'd come home from work and my beardie ate them up...or so I thought. Today I put 2 in a lid and they both wiggled out and when I cleaned my beardie's tank today I found 5 under the tile....I have seen my beardie eat them, but he won't eat them out of my hand, so does anyone know what I can do to prevent them from wiggling out of the lid? I keep them refrigerated until I put them in his tank as well.

 

[Erok000]

Mealworms are on the NO-NO list for dragons. They really arent nutritious enuff to feed and are full of chitin. You could try phoenix/calci-worms, silk, or hornworms. Or the occasional wax or butter worm. I use a little glass dish, looks like a kidney bean, worms cant get out. any small glass dish with smooth sides small enuff the beardie can reach in will work.

 

[Soulwind]

A shallow, but with vertical sides, smooth-sided, ceramic bowl is what I put the Phoenix Worms in
and they typically stay put unless Mellow knocks them out. (Rico won't eat them out of a bowl, only by hand
so I don't bother with him).

However, meal worms are best avoided entirely. They have almost no nutritional value and are
nearly all shell (ie almost no meat and really hard to digest), which can lead to impaction issues.
The hard to digest and minor chance of impaction might be almost acceptable if they were
actually nutritous, but they aren't, so it's not worth it imo.

 

[BeardieMommy85]

Thanks for your responses! My vet is actually the one who told me to start feeding my dragon mealworms to help him gain some weight....anyways, what are the best types of worms to feed beardies, and where can I get them? I think Petsmart only sells mealworms and superworms, and I can't get them sent to my apartment because all packages go to the office first and they would freak out if they knew I had crickets and worms in here lol...any suggestions?

 

[Erok000]

The worms I posted above are your options. If you want to put on weight any of those will help, as worms are a bit fattier than crickets or roaches. You could have them shipped to a friends house or parents or something like that.

 

[sweetpea1981]

you could also have them held at the post office, when you order just put in the comments section to hold at post office.