Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can dead canned crickets like "zoo meds can o crickets" replace live crickets. Is the canned food just as nutritional and serve as a bearded dragons main source of insect feeding.

they can, just make sure to keep dusting the canned ones like you do with the live ones
BUT CHECK THE EXPIRATION DATE ON THE BOTTOM OF THE CAN!!!
Most of the ones i've gotten have already expired
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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)

Personally I don't recommend the canned crickets (or other freeze dried insects for that matter) as a staple. They are ok as an occasional treat or for an emergency but not to feed every day as the only source of insects.

They are dry, often adult crickets with a bunch of preservatives that may have long term effects on your dragon (or none at all, I doubt any real testing was done anyway). Thus, if your dragon is not a big green eater (or still too young to want to eat mostly greens in their diet) they won't get much if any moisture. Thus, higher risk of impactions/constipation.

Using some when the store is out of crickets or your mail order is late, to ensure your dragon has protein for a few days, is fine. However there are plenty of other insect foods available that are live, and better for your dragon than something that is bone dry, hard and filled with preservatives.
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PHLdyPayne

Thanks for the information on the vegetables but my main problem is I am not sure about the keeping of live crickets. I want a bearded dragon not crickets. If there is no exception to crickets then i will just suck it up and take care of the little insects, but if you can think of anything please tell me.

Thanks a lot

I'm sort of in the same position as you. I have gex that like mealies, but BD people seem to think they aren't as healthy.

I guess keeping a 1000 crickets for a few weeks isn't so bad though.
I'd be curious to hear if people had alternatives.

I've tried canned food for my beardie but she doesn't care for them at all. I'm not fond of live crickets either- one always manages to escape and it drives the cats nutso, and then it grows wings and chirps all frikkin nite long! But my beardie likes 'em so I put up with them.
There's alternatives to "keeping" them-- I buy mine weekly or every other day or whatnot which gets a bit expensive, but eventually you can feed them things other than crickets, like silkworms and such. So it's not a lifelong cricket commitment, just a few months

>>Thanks for the information on the vegetables but my main problem is I am not sure about the keeping of live crickets. I want a bearded dragon not crickets. If there is no exception to crickets then i will just suck it up and take care of the little insects, but if you can think of anything please tell me.
>>
>>Thanks a lot
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0.2 cats (Pandora & Journey)
0.1 bearded dragon (Kleio)
0.0.1 green tree frog (Squishy)
0.0.1 goldfish (Namoli)

There are so many different alternatives to crickets. There are small silkworms, which are quiet, the perfect food, and don't smell. Phoenix worms are on the market now, and those are supposed to be really healthy for dragons too. I would suggest checking out a website like Mulberryfarms.com or Armstrongcrickets.com and seeing all the different feeder insects they carry. Variety is the key.

Jessica
www.yellowroomreptiles.com

There are plenty of other insects that can serve as staples for bearded dragons. Silkworms, butterworms, phoenix worms, various species of roaches, (some are too big as adults but their young are perfect to feed to dragons. Most are non climbing and/or non flying and easy to raise) and there are always new insects coming available to use as feeders as well.

I do agree crickets are a pain to keep, even for a short period of time. I hate keeping them, they stink, they make noise and always seem to find a way to escape. Fortunately, they are short lived, so even if a few adults escape, they will die in a few weeks or a month or so. Males are the only ones that chirp and are easily to pick out of a bunch of crickets, even before they grow wings. Females have a long black central 'spine' coming out of their back ends which typically is dark brown or black in color. This is the ovipositor, what females use to lay their eggs. Thus, once the females start to develop it, they are easy to tell apart from the wingless males. By the time the crickets are about half an inch long, it isn't difficult to separate all the males from the females (basically feed off the males first). The females as adults are bigger than males as well.

Buying small amounts of crickets at a time is good, though you do need to feed them well at least 24 hours before you feed them to your bearded dragon. Most petstores don't feed their crickets, so they live on stored fat till they die or are fed off. Thus, when you buy them at the petstore, they are half starved and not as nutritious as they could be, when fed properly.

Crickets are often said to be the staple insect for bearded dragons more for the fact they are easy to get in just about any place that sells live food for reptiles and other insect eaters. However, nutrition wise, they are only as good as what they are fed. If fed poorly or not at all, they are almost worthless as feeder insects.

Mealworms are not as good as they tend to be covered in hard exoskeletons that cannot be digested. With young bearded dragons, these can cause impactions. Newly molted (white or pale looking worms) are better to offer but it can be a pain trying to find sufficient numbers of newly molted mealworms to feed a ravenously hungry baby dragon. Superworms are better mostly because they have a higher 'meat' ratio to exoskeleton but again, shouldn't be fed to baby dragons, as they can be too big to eat.

Waxworms are soft bodied but are much higher in fat than say, a silkworm or butterworm. Thus waxworms should only be fed as treats, not as a staple.

Phoenix worms are great feeders. They are the larvae of the black solder fly and have a high calcium content and a very soft body. They are also very lively and stimulate a dragon to eat it very nicely. They are a little expensive, 100 costing about $10 (at least up here in Canada anyway), are a bit of a pain to get out of the substrate they are shipped in but I don't think the substrate itself will be harmful to dragons if eaten accidently. From the look of the substrate I think it is finely chopped straw or wood sawdust. Most likely straw as these worms do eat vegetation as well as carrion and animal wastes in the wild. Farmed phoenix worms are not fed carrion or animal wastes though, but they are used in agriculture to break down pig and cow wastes and the left overs are used as fertilizer, if i recall correctly.

Various species of roaches are available now as feeders. Madagascar roaches (hissing roaches) are large as adults, too large to feed to bearded dragons, but the young are small enough with a soft enough exoskeleton to make excellent feeders. There are other roach species that are great as well, lobster roaches, orange heads, deaths head, discoids and many others.

However, if you are uncomfortable with crickets in the house, I bet the ideal of having roaches won't appeal to you. For the most part, roaches used as feeders are not considered 'pests' and most won't survive outside the house in most areas of the country. But they can escape and breed in the house, so there is that risk. But many are not big escape artists and the non-climbing/non flying kinds are much easier to keep in a container. But if dropped, they can be very fast.

Silkworms are easy to keep, get to be about 3-4" long before becoming a cocoon, don't stink (well if they die, they can stink but are not prone to dying really quick) and are easy to feed and breed. Silkworm chow is easy to provide as food for the silkworms. Typically the chow comes as a dry powder which is mixed with water and baked in the microwave. Once cool, you just cut it up and give to the silkworms, or shred with a cheese grater. To breed, just let 10-20 or more big worms become cocoons and they will hatch out in about 10-20 days as moths. Let the moths pair off, the female will lay eggs a day or two after mating. The eggs should be left out at room temperature till they become a dark purplish color. Then refrigerate for 2-4 months (up to a year). Remove from the fridge and the eggs will hatch in about 8-12 days depending on your room temperature. (about 10 days at 70F, sooner at 75F). Feed the tiny black silkworm babies grated chow and in a couple weeks they will be big enough to feed to your young dragons.

Silkworms have a pleasant almost 'non' odor. The majority of their smell comes from the mulberry based chow fed to them. If you have access to fresh mulberry leaves, these can be fed to the worms directly (wash first of course, to remove any insecticides and bacteria off the leaves).
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PHLdyPayne