Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a silkworm question for you all. I have a bearded dragon that is one year old. For the last month or so I have been feeding him silkworms because he won't eat crickets. Yesterday I received some large silkworms for him to eat. How many of these bad boys should I feed him a day? They are pretty big in size.

My bearded dragon will eat superworms, silkworms, and pinkies (once a week on the pinkies) but will not eat his veggies. What is the deal? Is he holding out for the worms? I can get him to eat some veggies if I place the worms in his dish. I am feeding him parsely, turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, endive, ect... I will even mix some strawberries, rasberries, and butternut squash in with his veggies and he still won't eat. Is this anything to be concerned about?

Thanks for your assistance.

the whole non-veggie eating thing... BOTH of mine are like that. And yes, adding worms to a bowl of veggies will help. First of, the worms will get hungry and start to eat the veggies(if not each other), and second, at some points in time the beardie(s) will have to eat some veggies to to also get the worms. What i do is get my veggie mix and put some of the small mealworms on top, kinda like a salad topper, toss in some supers and put the bowl in for them to eat. I get about half if not almost all the veggies eatten that way. You just wanna make sure that the bowl is high enough and that the veggies aren't up on the edge for the worms to crawl out.

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1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Rex- "normal" orange fire)
1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Glutany- German Giant Mix)
0.1.0 Okeetee Corn (Okatee)
1.1.0 Spotted Python (Hotdog and Shoelace)
0.1.0 Jungle Carpet (Teprak)
0.2.0 Dwarf Hamsters (Tipsy and Bubblegum)
1.0.0 Rose Hair Tarantula (Goopy)
1.0.0 Boyfriend (Brian)

As your dragon is a year old, it would be best only to feed 2-3 large silkworms a day at the most. Mix them into your veggies, this way your dragon will eat greens with the silkworms (silkies have a great habit of getting greens stuck (or held on by) their feet so these greens get swollowed as well). Also, I suggest cutting out the pinkies completely, there really isn't need to feed a pinky once a week. Unless your dragon is under weight, recovering from parasites/illness or gravid/just laid eggs, there is no need for the extra fat from pinkies.
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PHLdyPayne

For a one year old bearded dragon is there such thing as too big of a silkworm to feed? I fed him a rather large one today and he closed his eyes and held up his head as if he was slightly struggling with it. In about three chomps it was gone. I know the rule with crickets but was unsure with the silkworms. My bearded dragon is 19 inches in length.