Hello All. I have a female (90% sure she's female anyway) baby bearded dragon named Ruby (a Chris Allen Red crossed with a Red/Orange Sandfire) that I keep in my office at work. She is approximately 12 weeks old and about 8 inches long from snout to tip of tail (which I think is quite small for her age). She is still terrified of me and almost never eats in front of me. Although, when I move slowly into her cage she will let me stroke the top of her head, but runs like crazy when I go to pick her up. She doesn't bite though. I currently keep her in a 36"x18" enclosure with a large piece of driftwood that she can climb on and get to her heat and UVB source. I also have a shelter for her in the enclosure (which she never uses). I use an 18" ReptiSun 10.0 UVB tube and an incandescent light for basking. While the UVB does not run the entire length of her enclosure, it does sit above the basking area and I regularly see her under it and the incandescent light at different times of the day and sometimes evenly between the two so she can get the benefit of both at the same time. She can get approximately 6 inches from the UVB source while basking if she chooses. I do not know the exact temp of her basking area but I do see her gape from time to time which tells me it's sufficient. There is also a cool side of the enclosure that she can go to if she chooses (although I never see her there). I feed her small crickets (always supplemented with calcium and D3 powder), meal worms, and a mixed bag of veggies consisting of romaine, purple lettuce and carrots. I also add strawberries and apples in with that. She poops regularly and shows no sign of impaction.
Now that I have her husbandry details out of the way...She loves her veggies but does not seem to enjoy her crickets very much at all and I'm worried she is not growing well due to a lack of protein. I see her eat a cricket from time to time but not often. And she is definitely not scared of them (I have seen them crawl on her and she doesn't bat an eye). I also provide meal worms in a dish (she doesn't like them either). At first, I would place her into a 10 gallon feeding enclosure so she could eat her crickets and I would not have to worry about them crawling all over her and stressing her out in her permanent enclosure. But instead of eating the crickets while in the 10 gallon enclosure, she is almost always nosing along the tank looking for a way to escape and doesn't eat. So I tried placing the crickets into her main enclosure. Still, she doesn't eat them much, and to make things worse, the crickets hide in holes of her driftwood that she can't get to. To get her to eat something alive, I have been giving her two wax worms a day (which she loves). However, I know that there is little nutrition in them, a high fat content and I don't want to get her "addicted" to them. Is there a good protein substitute for crickets that she may find palatable? I know she definitely needs more protein. In addtion, I don't really have access to phoenix worms or other rare types of insects.
One last thing. Will she ever stop being terrified of me? I regularly try to interact with her while moving slowly, but her attitude isn't changing.
Now that I have her husbandry details out of the way...She loves her veggies but does not seem to enjoy her crickets very much at all and I'm worried she is not growing well due to a lack of protein. I see her eat a cricket from time to time but not often. And she is definitely not scared of them (I have seen them crawl on her and she doesn't bat an eye). I also provide meal worms in a dish (she doesn't like them either). At first, I would place her into a 10 gallon feeding enclosure so she could eat her crickets and I would not have to worry about them crawling all over her and stressing her out in her permanent enclosure. But instead of eating the crickets while in the 10 gallon enclosure, she is almost always nosing along the tank looking for a way to escape and doesn't eat. So I tried placing the crickets into her main enclosure. Still, she doesn't eat them much, and to make things worse, the crickets hide in holes of her driftwood that she can't get to. To get her to eat something alive, I have been giving her two wax worms a day (which she loves). However, I know that there is little nutrition in them, a high fat content and I don't want to get her "addicted" to them. Is there a good protein substitute for crickets that she may find palatable? I know she definitely needs more protein. In addtion, I don't really have access to phoenix worms or other rare types of insects.
One last thing. Will she ever stop being terrified of me? I regularly try to interact with her while moving slowly, but her attitude isn't changing.
. The dubia are great and as far as I know the best replacement for crickets in terms of low fat but higher in protein. Mine likes them much better than the crickets and so do I...they are expensive to get started with but so far, my 65.00 invested in the whole breeding kit is totally keep up with my one beardies needs and I think I might even be getting a little ahead...I am not sure (and it doesn't matter cause the number of creatures in my house seems to be increasing at a slightly alarming rate-LOL). If I need more, I will just add another large enough to add to the breeding population group of roaches and you definitely don't need to buy them often anyhow..keeping them if very, very easy and they are so much easier to handle/manuver to feed/deal with than the crickets. If you want more proteins sources, the phoenix worms are great...my beardie LOVED them when I first got her...they were the thing that got her to actually start eating here...they are kind of expensive but the 1000 plus for 48.00 from phoenixworms.com seemed to me to be quite a bit more than a 1000 and lasted me a really long time. I am also about to try to start breeding silkworms as they sound like a great food source (and a fun little science project to do with the kids as well). Hornworms are another option but sound not as healthy as silks. 
