Advice For Beginner

[Lesreg]

Hi

My son has just bought 2 bearded dragons. They are 8 weeks old and any advice would be greatly appreciated. What is the best way to keep/feed crickets. They are just in the box they came in at the moment. Are we better buying a cricket keeper but can they escape from those? What should we feed the crickets?

We have offered them veg as well as crickets but they don't seem particularly interested yet. They will eat the crickets though.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

[bendigo]

heya, yeah im just starting out with 2 beardies of my own so am reading up on all this kinda thing, "Feeding crickets is pretty simple. 'Bug grub' is available which contains bran, calcium and other minerals but no moisture. Alternatives include bran, cornflakes, bread and digestive biscuits. Moisture should be provided in the form of fruits like grapes, apples or vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes and cabbage. Alternatively it can be provided in a small dish filled with small pebbles and topped up with water, the reason for the pebbles is that crickets and the worst swimmers in the world and will easily drown if the fall in." that should help you.

sometimes reptile will take time to settle into there eating patterns so i wouldnt worry hugely right now if they are ignoring vegtables, just keep offering them pieces.

also if your feeding crickets to your bearded dragons check if they have eaten them all, its best to put some veg in over night time as even if your BDs arent eating the veg, if there are left over crickets they could become hungry and nibble on ur beardies!!

[Lesreg]

Tnx, will keep trying with the veggies. What do you keep your crickets in? Think I will try the cricket keeper but am a bit scared they might escape Never thought I would like lizards but I am fascinated by them, they are adorable! The pet shop gave us some powder to put on the crickets. How often do I put this on?

Thanks

[DeanThorpe]

hi.
I wont even make any mention to the problems that may occur as the 2 beardies get a little older in regards to the problems you may have if they are both male or even 1.1.

Offer a selection of leafy veg daily or even freshen up twice a day.
Little and often is fine but at all times there must be soem fresh veg in a bolw in the vivarium.

There is a decent thread with info on food for beardies here as well as the food chart at the top of this forums page.

Crickets are best kept in things like the cricket keepers, but there are better and cheaper alternatives, any plastic tub with a well ventialted lid will do.

Within the tub thier should be pieces of egg carton, or my personal preference toilet roll tubes [or kitchen towel] for the crickets to hide in and generally do thier thing on.

I crush up wheatabix [shop brand is fine lol] in the bottom and offer the same leafy veg to the crickets as i do to the beardies.
With leafy veg almost always the hole lot will be eaten so theres no need to remove dirty mucjky stinky rotten left overs, obviously if there is any you must.
For this reason we avoid using fruit or anything like potatoe or carrot for the crickets.

If you do not currently know about proper supplementation for your beardies [such as calcium and multivits] please ask, same applies to methods for getting your beardies to drink.

best of luck to both of you.

[bendigo]

nah there designed so ur crikets are housed all nice and safe till there big day comes lol
if you look on this link below you'll find an execellent feed chart - its also in some other threads on this site as well.

your supposed to dust your crikets daily but as i said have a look at this link as theres even a chart to tell you how many times a week you should do this.

hope all this helps, what phase are your bearded draogns by the way, also you got any idea of sex? - this had nothing to do with the food im just being nosey



Nutrition Content

[DeanThorpe]

Originally Posted by Lesreg

Tnx, will keep trying with the veggies. What do you keep your crickets in? Think I will try the cricket keeper but am a bit scared they might escape Never thought I would like lizards but I am fascinated by them, they are adorable! The pet shop gave us some powder to put on the crickets. How often do I put this on?

Thanks

depends what the powder is, id say theres a 95% chance you have not been given the best one...furthermore..no "one" supplement alone is enough.

A pure calcium dust [such as calypso] should be used on half of the food items [atleast] 4-5 times a week with a multivits such as nutrabol being used in the same way 1-2 a week.

[fastbaz]

dont forget that you should only place them really on kithcen towel as a substrate to remove the risk of impaction.. get a good quality 10% uvb tube which should be around 12/15 inches from the beardies and only use a white light for the basking spot as bd's cant detect red lights keep it simple as they are younger and most important of all only feed them as many crickets as they wil eat in around 10/15 minutes if there are any left in the viv after this removee them as crickest will take a bite out of the babies.. which could become infected.

[Lesreg]

Hi

They are 8 weeks old and haven't been sexed yet. The powder we were given was Nutrabal. I shall get some calcium powder as well. Thanks for all the advice, there is a lot to learn! Will look at the food charts.

Thanks again.