Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My mom has alot of butterfuly plants here at my house, specifically scalet milkeweed. i was wondering if its possible to feed the caterpillars of the monarch butterfly to my dragons. since i literally have hundreds!

Any wild caught insect has a high risk of giving your dragon parasites.

yea thats what i thought too. just wanted to make sure.

I just got me some silkworms!!! my dragons ate them right up!

they gave me a cup of small worms and some largejumbo ones. i gave them the large ones right away and they went for them no problem.

I had a cup of hornworms (all gone now) so i got some of the small silkworms and spread them out btween the two cups.

>>yea thats what i thought too. just wanted to make sure.
>>
>>I just got me some silkworms!!! my dragons ate them right up!
>>
>>they gave me a cup of small worms and some largejumbo ones. i gave them the large ones right away and they went for them no problem.
>>
>>I had a cup of hornworms (all gone now) so i got some of the small silkworms and spread them out btween the two cups.

Um.. if you do a little basic research you will learn that monarchs are highly toxic.
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PHWyvern

>>Um.. if you do a little basic research you will learn that monarchs are highly toxic.
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>>PHWyvern

You beat me to the punch. Monarch butterflies are deadly to animals, and even their larvae are highly toxic. Definitely do your homework before feeding your beardie anything not considered staple, which is why you get kudos for asking questions here.

Personally, I wouldn't feed mine anything found outside, and when I let him out on his leash, I carefully monitor the area he'll be in for signs of bugs he can get at. Better to be safe than sorry!!!

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Dl

>>Any wild caught insect has a high risk of giving your dragon parasites.

I have been breeding dragons for 16 years now. Got some of the first ones produced in the USA many years back.

I am a cheapskate and kept them out of doors, here in SoCal, to avoid electrical bills and also to make sure they got UVB. No 5.0's back then! Only "vitalites" that did not make enough UVB to be helpful.

I grew dutch white clover on the floor of the enclosures. The flowers attracted many many wild insects. Bees, wasps, butterflies and probably others I did not see or don't remember. The dragons relished them. The dragons poops were green with clover. Females produced 6-8 clutches a year, my food bill was near nil. I did this for 4 summers. No health issues, nothing to indicate parasites came from any source!

There is absolutely no reason to believe that "Any wild caught insect has a high risk of giving your dragon parasites". None.

While it is POSSIBLE to get some parasite that way. It is certainly not high risk. Perhaps a different wording was appropriate here.

FWIW
Yes. I did see them eat bees and wasps with my own eyes on hundreds of occasions. Imagine the shape of the insect after it a 25" male beardie crunched on it for a few seconds! They knew EXACTLY how to eat a bee or wasp!
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