Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i fed my beardie meal worms today and then i got on and someone here said that they were bad and would block and he could die. Will he be ok? he is 6months old and happy and healthy. he poop a little after. plz!!!! let me no he had about 20-30 mealworms maby not sure?

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t175/B_Dragons/m9d1.jpg

that is him. plz help!!!

or here.
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Mealworms have a hard exoskeleton that beardies can't digest. Therefore, I never feed them. There are just better options available. But, impactions are not as easy for beardies to get as some say. So I think she'll be fine. I just would not feed 20 at a time anymore.

Oh and here's your pic.

Hi
i never give them to my adults .
they r hard to digest and can lead to impaction .
but if you have a high temp to digest like 110 then it wil reduce the cnage of impaction .
low temps and mealworms is bad combination .
how ever i never give them to my beardies even not to my adults.
i give them superworms they r better to digest .
the look bigger and scary but they r better .
they r like say 4 centimeter .
if the space between the eyes is 2 centimeter then i give them say 2,3 a day .
now my beardies r round 3,4 months old and now i can already feed those.
i meainly feed grashoppers i breed myzelf .
even de babies get very tiny grashoppers 6mm big.
and crickets gutloaded i feed to my babie beardies .
and buffalorms but they r not avaible in usa .
and once a while waxmoths.
whe have how ever now silkworms yet in europe but i have heard they r also good food.
byeeeeeeee
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www.dragoncave.nl

Yes, I personally don't feed mealworms at any age either. Just crickets, silkworms, and occaisionally phoenix worms or roaches.

One feeding of mealworms isn't likely to kill your dragon with impaction. I wouldn't worry about it too much, especially if he has pooped already. Though most likely the poop that came out was old food, not the mealworms.

The danger with mealworms is feeding them almost exclusively on a very regular basis, then they have a much higher chance of causing impactions. The risk is also higher in small dragons more than with adults. Adults don't seem to have as much problem than young dragons.

Another problem is mealworms really do not have enough nutrition to be a stable insect diet, nor are they a balanced nutritional food source. They are also rather high in phosphate which dragons should not get too much of. Superworms are better as they are more meater and a bit more balanced but are just too big for very small dragons which is why I don't recommend feeding superworms to dragons under 10" snout to tail tip length.

Overall, better to stick with crickets if the more expensive insects are not available to you or outside of your price range for regular feeding. Mealworms as a treat are fine as well. In the market today, there are many more healthier insects available, such as phoenix worms (great for small dragons, very wiggly, high in calcium and protein, soft bodied so they lack the hard exoskeleton that can cause problems with small dragons, are not too expensive and easy to keep and pretty easy to find online now.) Other insects are silkworms, hornworms (feeders only, wild caught hornworms will kill your dragon as they are toxic due to their diet (tomato and tobacco leaf eaters. Hornworms sold as feeders are fed a special diet lacking the toxins which make these worms deadly), butterworms, many species of roaches. The bigger roaches only their young should be fed to dragons.
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PHLdyPayne

I feed mealies as a treat to my dragons maybe about 2 times a week and they get about 7 of them. They are not fed as a staple. Used only as treats. I feed crix and of course veggies as a staple to them.

I feed my adult mealworms about once a week.
He absolutely LOVES the pupae. However, I would not feed mealworms to juveniles. I try to stick to newly molted meal worms, but not exclusively.
I feed a variety of prey items, including zoophobas, mealworms, various roaches. He LOVES full sized adult discoids and will literally tear them apart. Seasonally, I also feed silkies and hornworms. Rarely, if ever, do I feed crickets.
Personally, I do not like crickets. I find their odor to be offensive, and too much trouble with coccidia. Best to just leave the crickets to the singing, and away from my beardies!
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com