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When I get my first BD, I am planning on feeding silkworms as a staple food. Is it ok to feed mostly silkworms instead of crickets? Also, how young can the baby be to start converting to silkworms (and what size should the silkworms be)?

And finally, is it much more expensive to feed silkworms instead of crickets?

Thanks in advance!

You should not feed them as a staple, and they are much more expensive than crickets. Also you would either have to have a big mulbery tree in your yard, or buy the dried formula of the net because silkwowrms ONLY eat mulberry. Plus if you plan on breeding them you have to keep their eggs in the frige for a month before taking them out and letting them hatch into tiny babies. Then you still have to grow them. Unless you have a petshop nearby it would be impossible to have a constant supply. If you ordered them off the net it would cost a lot to keep ordering them.

Anyways, they are a nice treat, but should not be fed as a staple.

they are an EXCELLENT FOOD SOURCE, better than crickets, ie more nutritious. They are, however, expensive, but CAN be fed as a staple given that you have the money. For just one baby, you could buy 1000 small silkworms, and a pound or so of silkworm chow, and you'd be good to go for a long while. The silkworms are allowed to be a little bigger than the space between the yes as they are so soft and flexible!!! good luck, keep us posted
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~David - KDRKreatures
My Main Herps-
1.2 Bearded dragons (Ralph, Artemis, Cheech)
1.0 Veiled Chameleon (Chiquito)
1.0 Black Racer Snake (Chong)
2.2 Eastern Box Turtles (Athena, Mercury, Gizmo, Galapago)
0.0.2 Leopard Geckos (Nee, Unnamed)
1.0 Ball Python (Carson)

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Silkworms are perfect as a stable for any dragon. For baby dragons you will have to get the smaller worms, 1" in size or a bit smaller. Silkworms grow pretty fast so I would recommend ordering small amounts (couple hundred or so a week..all depends on how many young dragons you are feeding). Keep in mind that because silkworms have no hard exeskeletons like crickets and other insects, beardie poo tends to be a bit more softer.

I probably would have to recommend waiting till your dragon is about 4-6 months old before using silkworms as their primary source of insect protein just because it costs alot to buy the worms and food. Since they can double their size in a few days they can quickly grow too big for a very young dragon to eat. Once the dragon is 5 months or so then it should be alright to feed them any size of silkworm because of their soft bodies. The dragons can chew them pretty good and they digest nicely. (be careful they can and do squirt when being eaten)

Silkworms are really easy to care for, not sure about breeding them haven't done that yet. I just keep mine on a paper coffee holder you get from any coffee shop inside a small rubbermaid container. This way to clean them up everyday I just pick up the coffee holder, turn it upside down to let all the poo and left over food fall out (some won't as the worms spin silk and the poo tends to stick to this). I pull off any shed skin and drop it to the bottom of the contain. Then all you need to do is pick up any stray worms that fell off the coffee holder and put them back on, pour out the poo from the container and put the coffee older back in. Another benefit of the coffee holder as it gives little crannies and holes to put the prepared food into. You only need to feed them once a day and a pound of food is really all you need to feed 500 worms from egg to nearly full grown.

Keep in mind that once the worms start getting past the 1 inch phase, the dragon won't eat as many. This is due to how filling the worms are. I started feeding about 8-10 one inch long worms when I first received my last order but now he only eats about 3-4 worms per meal. My dragon is a 7 month old bearded dragon. The worms now are about 1 1/2" and so fat they really fill up a dragon.

Not sure where kungfu is coming from but silk worms are an EXCELENT staple food for dragons they are way better than crickets but they are way more expensive. i would 50/50 if i could get them in smaller quanities.

Mat