Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I read about the topic on frozen greens. But and about freeze adult crickets and thaw them before give to the beardies like people do the pinkies.
It may sound stupid but my beardie feeds more easily on canned crickets ( which is hard to get here ) with his salad and the most important, it's easier to someone else feed my beardie with frozen and thawed crickets if Im away on vacation. ( I live in Brazil and will visit-again- the USA in sept/oct.)

freezing crickets yourself probably will result in squishy icky crickets. Not sure if your dragon would eat them that way. I can't see of any other reason you can't do this, so give it a try.

You can also try silkworms, horn worms (not wild caught ones though, as these will be toxic. Farm bred horn worms are fed a special diet which doesn't contain toxins). Butterworms may be very easy for you to get in Brazil, they originally come from Chile which is much closer to you than it is to us in North America. Normally the butterworms imported into the states are specially irradiated to prevent them from pupating and thus, becoming adults. These are great feeders. Often they are sold as fish bait but now have been added to the reptile feeders. Other good worms are fly larvae, such as phoenix worms (black soldier fly larvae) or other 'maggot' type larvae, as long as they have not been harvested from meat products, which may pose a risk of contamination to things such as salmonella, e-coli and other harmful bacterias. Most comercially farmed maggots are safely raised on non animal products (ie mulch) or sterilized feed.
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PHLdyPayne

>>freezing crickets yourself probably will result in squishy icky crickets. Not sure if your dragon would eat them that way. I can't see of any other reason you can't do this, so give it a try.

Freezing isn't per se that. With canned crix it is freeze DRIED.
Odd bit of info. I took crix that I was making chocolate covered candies out of. I put them in the freezer to slow them enough to dump them on a cookie sheet and toast/ roast them in the oven. So the info on preserving them is likely available if you look up making them edible to people. I can't remember specifics as it was a couple 5 yrs ago but I know if you freeze them solid they will thaw into foul mush.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Thanks for all the information!
So if I got it right it's best to pre cook the crickets and only then freeze them- I'll give it a try...
About the worms, they are not comercialy available here.
We only have live mealworms ( the one I use once a week or so) and giant mealworms that I believe it's too hard to digest, so I don't use.

the giant mealworms are probably superworms. These are find to give to older bearded dragons and are actually easier to digest than mealworms, as they have much less exoskeleton compared to 'meat' than meal worms.

Commercially prepared crickets are freeze dried, which basically sucks all the moisture out of them using some process I am not familiar with (not sure if they cook at extreme heat, or some sort of moisture extraction system... I don't think they use dried ice for it, but maybe they do). Cooking them yourself may be fine...though I suggest cooking wingless crickets if possible, instead of adults. These are a little softer bodied than adults. Though the crickets you can buy cooked in a can are prepared differently than spreading them out on a cooking sheet. This method probably dries them out more than cooking in a pot.
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PHLdyPayne