medium size superworms?

[ashleyelsha]

So my bearded dragon is 5 months old and between 14-15 inches right now. I have been feeding him around 30 crickets twice a day along fresh salad daily. Some days I have to just top his salad with the frozen/thawed crickets in the morning and leave for work, other days I put salad in first thing and he will eat quit a bit before I give him crickets later in the morning (usually after I get home from the gym). His salad consists of greens (mustard, collard, etc) and sometimes squash, zucchini, grated carrots, etc. I have supplemented phoenix/reptiworms and most recently waxworms. I want to order more worms but we are moving next week and I don't want to order anything until we get settled in the new house. I do have a large batch of crickets coming in later this week, but that's it.

So i was looking at what petco and petsmart have to offer and I picked up what was labeled as medium sized superworms at petco yesterday. They are small compared to the supers I saw at a local petstore so I figured they might be ok to try as long as I am careful. I gave him one yesterday and one today. So yesterday and today he had his salad in the morning, crickets later in the morning, and then one superworm later in the afternoon. He absolutely loved the superworms. I just want to know what the thoughts are on feeding them at his current size? I know the reccomendation is 15-16 inches and he is almost there. I just want to give him some variety and I can't get my hands on any soft bodied worms at the moment. I probably won't give him any superworms for the next couple of days just to make sure he tolerates them. He usually has about 2-3 stools each day. As fast as he has been growing I fully anticipate him to reach 16 inches in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for any input.

 

[Catalyst]

It sounds like you've already done your reading on the topic - 16 inches is the recommended size, however since you're not using full sized supers, you're only giving a small amount, and you're watching him so closely to make sure they're being digested correctly, I think it should be okay

 

[ashleyelsha]

Thanks for your response, I really appelreciate it. No supers today and he had normal stools so seems like he digested them ok. I'll probably just do one super worm every other day for a while.

 

[ashleyelsha]

So far he is doing great with one superworm every other day. Still having normal stools every day.

Now my question is when he hits 16 inches I want to give up crickets completely, at that point how many supers a day should I feed? He usually eats about 20 appropriaty sized crickets twice a day along with fresh greens daily.

 

[Catalyst]

Now my question is when he hits 16 inches I want to give up crickets completely, at that point how many supers a day should I feed? He usually eats about 20 appropriaty sized crickets twice a day along with fresh greens daily.

There isn't really a given number in regards to how many superworms a young dragon should eat and opinions vary. When my girl switched over to supers at around 10 months old I gave her 15-25 superworms a day (one superworm being approximately the equivalent of two crickets), although she would have happily have eaten herself silly on them.

 

[ashleyelsha]

Yes, I know they will gorge themselves on them. So I want to be careful. Crickets are just such a pain. And the newest ones I got are very aggressive and bite! Luckily I only had to handle them long enough to freeze them.

 

[Catalyst]

Yes, I know they will gorge themselves on them. So I want to be careful. Crickets are just such a pain. And the newest ones I got are very aggressive and bite! Luckily I only had to handle them long enough to freeze them.

I couldn't wait to get rid of crickets - supers were sooooo much easier to keep and to breed. Plus I don't like bugs at all, so jumping bugs who were determined to escape were an unpleasant thing to have in the house

 

[ashleyelsha]

Problem with the supers, I bought a cup of 35 and fed the last two live ones today. I think I only fed 10 total. I put slices of carrot on top every few days and removed the old pieces that got pulled into the substrate. Buy still found lots of dead ones each day.

Keeping live bugs is such a pain.... Well at least keeping them alive is. What did I do wrong?

 

[Catalyst]

You may not have given them enough space. I used to keep my worms in plastic shoebox sized containers with air holes melted into the lid. They need a good substrate to live in and eat - from what I remember I used wheat bran with some other things added in to increase the nutrition, and a source of moisture (potato slices are good).

 

[snazzyglasses]

My supers live in dry rolled oats (like the kind you make oatmeal with) mixed with a bit of wheat germ, and I give them whatever greens Brick has been eating for their water source. Lots of little bite marks in the greens, and no dead ones yet!

 

[ashleyelsha]

great, I just kept them in the cup and substrate they came in. Where do I buy wheat bran???

 

[snazzyglasses]

Any grocery store should carry it. If they don't have any then a health food store definitely will!