Specific Superworm Questions

[sunkist]

Okay soooo Fargo has hit 16 inches.. whoo hoo

I'm going to order some superworms to try him out on as they are soo much cheaper than phoenix worms. Now my specific questions...

I've read that some people kill their supers so they don't bite?? Do they bite the dragons? My boys are self-sufficient in that I put their worms in a bowl and they eat as needed. Can I just do that with the supers or do I have to kill them??

How many would a 16 inch dragon eat in a day? He is currently eating about 50 large phoenix worms a day - 2 different eating times.

I'm just worried about ordering 1000 superworms and having them go bad or something.

 

[WAFisherman]

Can you start with 100 or 500 and see how many you go through?

My girl is about 6mo old and 14-15 inches and eats about 10 a day + greens. (I broke the 16 inch rule)

No need to kill them first or pinch off the heads. My lizards (water dragon and beardie) LOVE supers (their staple while my dubia colony establishes).

I usally feed one at a time and watch each one get eagerly chomped down. But I do have a small glass dish I hide one or 2 in with the greens for a suprise. The supers feed on the greens and the lizards find a treat while eating their greens. And the supers can't climb the 2-3 inch glass sides.

 

[sunkist]

Thanks for the input. My problem is I don't have time in the morning to handfeed them so maybe I'll do phoenix in the morning and supers at night.

 

[Catalyst]

No need to hand feed supers - just drop them into your dragon's food bowl and if he's anything like my girl, he'll chomp them down pretty quick. I give my girl 5 or so at a time (she's an adult and only gets 25-30 supers a week) and they're gone before they have time to climb out of her bowl.

Supers do bite, like a hard pinch, but its much more of a problem for us humans who try to pick them up than for a dragon. No need to kill the supers ahead of time, your dragon will do a great job of that himself

There's not really a concensus on how many supers a dragon should get. When I switched my girl over to supers at about 10 months old, she got around 20 a day (near as I can remember) and I'd offer her crickets as well (to make sure she was filled up) but after getting supers she wouldn't even look at a crickets. Make sure you start him off slow - 2 or so the first day, watch his poo to make sure he digests them okay, and then gradually increase the amount he gets each day until you find an amount that you and he are comfortable with. They're a decent all around feeder.

Superworms live a long time. My girl just went into brumation a couple of weeks ago and my supply of supers will be alive and kicking for months so I'm not worried about die offs while she's sleeping. They're also reletively easy to breed yourself if you're interested; although the process takes a while all 3 life stages of the bug are pretty low maintenance.

 

[sunkist]

Thanks for the info... I should have read your post first. Oops

I was finally able to pick up a small container of superworms. I put two on the floor in his tank and they are gone in no time. So I put 8 more in his bowl. Yep... gone like lightning. I'm gonna give him his phoenix worms tonight so he doesn't get jammed up.

 

[clear]

I would have started with 2-4 and make sure he digests them. Its a myth that a super will chew his way out if a stomach of a bearded dragon.

 

[diggerdrake]

I would have started with 2-4 and make sure he digests them. Its a myth that a super will chew his way out if a stomach of a bearded dragon.

I don't know for sure if a super is able to eat its way out of a beardie's tummy but I do make sure that the ones I give Sappy are big enough that she has to chew them up

 

[sunkist]

He definitely chewed each one up a good 3-4 bites each time. I think it's okay. He's acting fine, trying to escape his viv right now.