Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok....I finally found a local breeder. He has babies, juveniles, and retired breeders for sale. I think they are fed crickets as a staple food, but I don't want to feed them that. I would switch them over to a diet of pellets and greens, would they take to this idea or would I have to feed them crickets? If the chances that they start eating the new diet are good then this is the person I want to buy from. Would babies be more willing to start eating pellets than an older dragon? I'm supposed to get back to the guy in the next couple weeks so any help would be appreciated.

Just my experience. Out of the nine dragons I raise. All my adults who never had a pellet as youngins will not touch them. My babies and juvi's with some work are starting to taste them, and eat a few along with their varied salads. There is one breeder on this forum Joel R. that only feeds pellets, salad, and once in a while small mealworms for added protein to his babies and juvi's. If crickets were that big of a concern to me I would have bought from him they have a head start on a pelleted diet. I personally think IMHO I believe babies need the high protein crickets and live foods supply for them. I think a wide variety of feeder insects is important for maximum growth. Best of luck, but some dragons just don't like them. And an all salad diet is not all that healthy. Bottom line you might have to supply some live feeders be it crix, silk worms, superworms, meal worms, wax worms once in a while for the added nutrients and for them to get the thrill of the hunt. It's healthy. If your against the chirping and the smell ZooMed offers crickets in a can. My dragons just go nuts for prekilled canned crix. They must have some scent to them that they love. I take them dust them and waive them in front of them and they eat them one right after the other. Either way always use supplements Calcium with D3 for babies or juvi's 6 days a week and a multivitamin once a week. For adults you can cut down the supplements to every other day cause they have slowed down on growth by this age. Good Luck.
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Mystical Dragons

I think you would have better luck with a juvi or adult. If your dragon readily accepts the food you don't need to worry about live food at all. The rep-cal pellets contain more protien by weight than crickets do. You can also look ing the sandfire superfoods powder(distributed by t-rex to add to your salads. It is also a conplete diet that uses the salad as a delivery medium, so it really doesn't matter what you use in the salad. It is high in protien and contains all the calcium and vitamins your dragon needs as do the rep-cal pellets. I have been using the Crested gecko diet on my Rhacs with great results. The product you want to look for is the dragon veggie maintanance formula.
good luck,

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Bill DiFabio
Azteclizard.com
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