cowgirlsblues
Member
Ok, I have several questions, and I hope some of you great beardie parents can help me out.
I'm very much a DIY kinda girl, I want to raise my own food for my beardies, I have started a cricket colony, and a meal worm farm, but the more research i'm doing, i'm finding these are not the best staples for my dragons.
SO now i'm considering raising black soldier fly grubs (also known as reptiworms, phoenix worms, etc etc etc), and some super worms, ... There is a couple of great benefits for me raising my own:
1) I know what they are eating and where they've been, and ergo what my dragons are eating.
2) the casting make GREAT compost, which will help the greens i'm going to be trying to grow for the dragons to get organic greens.
3) I will be doing it my self, which in the long run should save me money.
My questions for the soldier grubs are these: has anyone else tried to raise them? and if i'm using scraps from the house is it going to be a problem for feeding them to the dragons? i.e. if they (the grubs) are eating whatever scraps, if it's something beardies wouldn't eat, is this going to make the dragons sick?
I of course plan to start small only enough to feed my own dragons, but I would like to do a bit of composting, as I have horses and you get a lot of horse 'waste' around, and i've been reading these guys are GREAT composters, if I use them to compost my horses, um, 'leftovers' are those grubs going to be unsafe because of the diet they were on? (composting horse manure, and house scraps?
how long does the whole life cycle last of the fly (haven't been able to find this anywhere yet) so I know how many to order for my dragons, as well as my breeding colony? and how long does it take to get worms after you get flies?
Now to cricket questions: My crickets keep dying, no idea why. I have food in there (at the moment chicken starter grower but I will be changing this to my own blended cricket food, and veggies, this was just to get going) and cricket gel for water. I bought 2 dozen adults, by the next day nearly all are dead or dying, what the heck is up with this? same goes for the babies that i'm using as feeders, by the next day nearly all are dead or dying. Do I have bad crickets? or am I doing something wrong?
I bought my starter crix from petsmart, and a friend of mine who has an exotic pet store. both sets have died.
My next set of questions: are Super worms the same to raise as meal worms? or do I have to feed and raise them differently?
I know i'm asking a lot but i'm still pretty new to all this, and if I do something, I want to do it right!
Thank you everyone in advance!
I'm very much a DIY kinda girl, I want to raise my own food for my beardies, I have started a cricket colony, and a meal worm farm, but the more research i'm doing, i'm finding these are not the best staples for my dragons.
SO now i'm considering raising black soldier fly grubs (also known as reptiworms, phoenix worms, etc etc etc), and some super worms, ... There is a couple of great benefits for me raising my own:
1) I know what they are eating and where they've been, and ergo what my dragons are eating.
2) the casting make GREAT compost, which will help the greens i'm going to be trying to grow for the dragons to get organic greens.
3) I will be doing it my self, which in the long run should save me money.
My questions for the soldier grubs are these: has anyone else tried to raise them? and if i'm using scraps from the house is it going to be a problem for feeding them to the dragons? i.e. if they (the grubs) are eating whatever scraps, if it's something beardies wouldn't eat, is this going to make the dragons sick?
I of course plan to start small only enough to feed my own dragons, but I would like to do a bit of composting, as I have horses and you get a lot of horse 'waste' around, and i've been reading these guys are GREAT composters, if I use them to compost my horses, um, 'leftovers' are those grubs going to be unsafe because of the diet they were on? (composting horse manure, and house scraps?
how long does the whole life cycle last of the fly (haven't been able to find this anywhere yet) so I know how many to order for my dragons, as well as my breeding colony? and how long does it take to get worms after you get flies?
Now to cricket questions: My crickets keep dying, no idea why. I have food in there (at the moment chicken starter grower but I will be changing this to my own blended cricket food, and veggies, this was just to get going) and cricket gel for water. I bought 2 dozen adults, by the next day nearly all are dead or dying, what the heck is up with this? same goes for the babies that i'm using as feeders, by the next day nearly all are dead or dying. Do I have bad crickets? or am I doing something wrong?
I bought my starter crix from petsmart, and a friend of mine who has an exotic pet store. both sets have died.
My next set of questions: are Super worms the same to raise as meal worms? or do I have to feed and raise them differently?
I know i'm asking a lot but i'm still pretty new to all this, and if I do something, I want to do it right!
Thank you everyone in advance!
