superworm to cricket ratio

[ashleyelsha]

Nutritionally speaking, a superworm is equivalent to approximately how many crickets?
My sub-adult bearded dragon eats around 20-30 appropriately sized crickets twice a day along with greens/veggies every day. I am transitioning to superworms since he finally hit 16 inches and would like to know what the equivalent is so I know about how many supers a day to feed him. I know they can and will overeat on supers, and so far he is up to 5 a day as his second feeding of the day. Large salad with dusted crickets in the morning, supers in the evening 2 hours before lights out. He is digesting them well, I started with just one superworm a day and every 2-3 days I add a superworm and he is up to 5. He loves them and they are really convenient.

 

[vampy]

the ratio I've seen used here is that 35 supers is equivalent to about 50 large crickets.

If you wanted to be sure you could weigh them and crickets and work out the amount of protein using the percentages in the nutrition chart, but that seems like a lot of work to me!

 

[ashleyelsha]

I thought it was like 5 crickets to 1 superworm?

 

[jsnsan]

Interested in knowing this as well.

 

[Claudiusx]

I wouldn't feed any more than 6 or so supers a day. If your dragon needs more protein than that, add another insect(s) into the diet.

-Brandon

 

[jsnsan]

Brandon. Do you know what the ratio is? I can find the hornworm ratio. But not "how many crickets equal 1 superworm" kind of thing.

 

[jsnsan]

I found one site that says 4:1. But..that's only one site.

 

[Catalyst]

When feeding an adult dragon you give them 25 feeders a week if you're using superworms, and 50 a day feeders if you're using crickets, so I would say it's safe to say that one superworm is the equivalent to 2 (maybe 3) crickets. When I switched my dragon over to superworms around 10 months of age she got 15-25 worms a day and did great on them.

 

[Claudiusx]

There can never be an accurate ratio because they are not comparable in nutrition facts, namely protein:fat ratio.

That's why I don't recommend feeding more than 6 or so supers a day as anything over than that is just too much fat in the diet. A growing dragon needs more protein than the amount that 6 superworms can give, so it would have to eat more than 6 to meet its protein needs. However, meeting protein needs with superworms would add much to much fat in the diet.

Superworms are fine in the diet for younger dragons, as long as they are mixed in with other insects so that the growing dragon can still get the needed protein without having too much fat in the diet.

I hope that makes sense.

-Brandon

 

[ashleyelsha]

Thanks for the discussion, it really does help. I do understand that different feeders have different ratio's of protein, fat, etc. I was just looking for an approximation. If one superworm is close to 3 crickets then 6 superworms would be about 18 crickets, So a diet of 20-30 crickets in the morning and 6 supers in the evening would be ok until my bearded dragon reaches a year. between a year and 18 months I can start tapering down on his bugs to once a day feedings and at that point 5 supers a day should be plenty for him as a basic staple.

This doesn't mean I won't add variety. I will order different kinds of bugs, silkworms, hornworms, etc to add variety. But those other feeders are expensive so I need a cheaper daily staple.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Claudiusx]

Well lets do some quick math.

Going off the assumption that the crickets you are feeding are .333g's each and your superworms are .595g's each, that means a little less than 2 crickets (1.7 crickets) equals the protein of 1 superworm. However, 1 superworm has the fat of about 6 crickets.

Which means if you were to completely switch your 50 crickets a day for superworms, you'd need around 25 superworms to meet the current protein consumption. However, those 25 superworms would equal the fat of feeding 150 crickets, a 200% increase in fat consumption.

For these large discrepancies between fat content and protein content, there can not be any general rule of thumb that says 1=3 or any other ratio.

Your plan of feeding crickets and then 6 superworms is fine though. I just thought i'd do some math for anyone else looking at this thread.

-Brandon

 

[ashleyelsha]

But there are many that feed their adult dragons supers as a staple, so how many a day would one feed, for example a 9-12 month old subadult that is 17 inches long? I have quit a few crickets left in my freezer. but I really don't want to buy any more live ones. I hate hate hate them. I was thinking of buying a handful once a week as a treat but doing the supers on a daily basis once I run out of crickets.

 

[vampy]

When you're feeding an adult them as a staple, they will eat around 5 a day because their protein needs are lower. As said above, feeding more than about 6 a day would give the juvie too much fat, so to get his protein requirements you'd need to add another live feeder with lower fat content. A 9 month old will still be eating about 80% protein, so he'd need lots of crickets too, a 12 month old will be starting the transition to a lower protein diet, so while he'd still need additional live feeders, it wouldn't be as many.

Your beardie will need way more protein that he'd be able to get with just supers if you want to keep the level of fat in his diet reasonable, so you're going to have to use some other sort of feeder until he is able to eat 20% protein, which will be at around 18-24 months. If you hate crickets you can use calciworms or roaches or silkworms.

 

[ashleyelsha]

Ugh... Other feeders are expensive. And I live in FL so definitely no roaches, I won't even do discoids because I have asthma. I suppose I will suffer with crickets until he reached 12-18 months, and occasionally order some phoenix worms. I want to try butterworms and hornworms as well.

 

[Claudiusx]

Vampy hit the nail on the head. Supers are on ok staple for ADULTS, not young growing dragons who have higher protein needs.

-Brandon