Reptile & Amphibian Forums

they say horn worms, butter worms, silk worms and roaches are the best to feed your dragon, but in all honesty, I have only found one place that sells silk worms, and they only had three worms at the time, for 70 cents each, and the butter worms were 65 cents. With the ammount that most beardies can and will eat, this is neither convenient or economically sound.

"IF" there were a place where i could find roaches, (that werent being sold as pets for 15$ each) or any other of those bugs, at an affordable rate, I would definitely feed them to my dragon. But, even in a big city such as Calgary, I cant even find kale, mustard, collard greens or chard. So my lady gets spring mix, with some of the spinach taken out.

And ordering them online is an out, because i dont have a credit card or a paypal account.

It just kind of bugs me, cause none of the grocery stores will order in these greens. and even when you ask a pet store to order in bulk bugs, they dont drop the cost at all.

Thor, my bearded is currently on a diet of
crickets- maybe 10 or 20 a week
superworms- I buy a tub of 100 every month, dont know how many she eats a week.
Spring mix- She eats about a package of it every 4 days.
Veggies/fruit- I work at a grocery store, so i usually come home with carrots, squash, apples, yams, broccoli,beet greens, and such.

I would LOVE to have her on a diet of collard, mustard, chard, kale and other greens, with roaches and silkworms, and a few butterworms a month, But that just isnt going to happen.

Like most areas in Canada, crickets are the only thing, or mealworms, superworms. and the veggies arent easy to come by either. I mean, for god sake, i lived in cape breton, NS and the closest place that sold any bugs at all, was two hours away.

Not sure what grocery stores are common in Calgary but most discount stores carry collard greens etc. Endive and escaroli are also good choices as staples for a bearded dragon. Look for No Frills, Food Basics, some Independant Grocery's and produce specific stores (ie Produce Mart, Farm Boy, etc) may also carry more 'exotic' greens. Another option with greens, is to buy seeds and grow your own. Most do well in our typical Canadian growing season and many can be easily grown indoors.

As for insects, hornworms, butterworms and silkworms are easy to get online. Not all online feeder suppliers require a credit card or paypal. Some will except email transfers, money orders or certified checks. Some sites that accept these alternative payment methods are listed below:

www.bugorder.com/

www.canadianfeeders.com/

www.silkworms.ca

Another source for locally produced feeders is checking with your local reptile association. Often reptile groups have email lists you can post wants and you may be able to connect with people who breed their own feeder insects, have roaches available as feeders etc. Also, it may be possible you can combine orders with them, pay them cash and they can order using their credit cards etc.

A good feeder to get are silkworms as they are easy to care for, easy to breed and easy to raise. One order of 200 silkworms could last you indefinitely just by letting half of the order coccoon and pairing off the moths and collection the eggs.

Reptile shows also are a great place to pick up feeder insects in bulk and other supplies (such as silkworm chow etc.) I do know Calgary has a big reptile show during the summer, TARA I beleive it is called (stand for The Alberta Reptile Amphibian show, or something like that. Dates for this show usually are posted in the 'Events' section of kingsnake.ca)

Thanks for the bug info, But i'm still trying to find places in calgary that have good greens. we dont have any of the stores you mentioned, but we have superstore, sobeys, safeway, which are all kind of crappy for their selection.
Also not sure on any reptile groups except for taras in calgary....plus the taras site is down...
I'm going to keep trying.
by the way, what part of canada are you in?

Sobey's out here in Ontario sometimes carry collard greens etc, but not all of them do. You may have to just call around all the available stores in Calgary (yes, I know that will be a big task, LOL) to see which stores carry the greens you need. Even if one store near you doesn't sell it, the same 'brand' of store elsewhere may have it. For instance, the Independant Grocer near me doesn't carry the good greens for bearded dragons, but where I used to live further north, they did. I haven't checked all the Independants in the city I now live in, mostly because food basics, just a couple blocks down the road, does carry the good greens.

As for a reptile society in your area, I am sure there is one in Calgary. I did a google search for one and found an Edmonton Reptile association. Posted that link below. Edmonton is not all that close to you but contacting them may lead you to a closer group.

www.edmontonreptiles.com/

I did some digging and found TARAS's new webpage. Took awhile but here it is:

www.albertareptilesociety.org/

The TARAS site only works using Internet Explorer, thought I mention it as I noticed the splash page mentioning it won't support FireFox.