Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

I am in the process of converting a 75g freshwater aquarium to a reptile habitat. I am interested in either a beardie or a uro. Everything I've read suggests that beardeds are a better pet, but with one big difference...keeping crickets. I have no personal problem with feeding live prey to a lizard, but beardeds require very frequent feedings and eat a lot of crickets. I would not have the tolerance for visiting a pet store more than once every 2 weeks or so.

Is there a way to manage keeping live prey animals without the smell and hassle? I have a spare 10g tank that I could dedicate, but the smell of crickets is really nasty. Also, I don't live in a climate where I could keep them outside as they would freeze.

I would like to get a beardie as something to help my son learn about caring for animals (I would be the primary caretaker) and because I am aware they tolerate handling very well. However, the cricket issue is a major stumbling block.

Thanks

Use a rubbermaid tub with holes cut low at the base and silicone window screen where the holes are and the crickets will get better ventilation and always sweep out dead ones from what I know dead ones put off an odor that kills more. My crickets don't die like they did when I used a 10 gal glass tank and the odor isn't as bad anymore

screen the lid too

Yea crickets are a pain. You will need to feed a baby dragon a lot of them for the first 18 months or so.

Maybe you should consider looking on craigslist or local rescues for an adult dragon that needs a home. Then you could feed it superworms instead of crickets. Superworms are much easier to care for and an adult doesn't eat nearly as much as a baby.

You should also consider a blue tongue skink. They are a good holding pet like a BD and are not near as flighty as a Uro. They also are easier to care for and their requirements are less demanding than a Uro. I consider a Uro a moderate experience pet. A Beardie or Skink is a good beginner pet.

As my handle says I prefer Beardies but some of the kids just love the skink. He is 11 now. They live significantly longer than dragons which is another thing to consider. Uro's don't live as long or so they say.

Thanks for the tips. I have some experience with reptiles: I presently have an 11 yr old leopard gecko and I once had a Veiled Chameleon. Also, I keep 2 tropical freshwater fishtanks which has taught me the importance of maintaining a stable environment for their inhabitants. I did consider the blue-tongued skink, but frankly my wife thinks they're too "snakey."

I plan to attend a few reptile shows in the coming months--this is something I really want to plan out well. Between the Uro and the Beardie there are small but significant differences in temp requirements and other housing considerations. I will also research other ways to keep crickets on hand. I may opt for a sub-adult that can eat small crickets that are locally available as opposed to a very small one that requires pinheads.

The great thing about Beardies are that they are relaxed. You can be watching T/V and they will stay with you often for hours. Even when they wander off they rarely get into any trouble. My Blue Tongue is much like this once he settles down.

I have 2 Uro's both rescues. One (Egyptian) I have had for about 1 1/2 years. He is very calm and can be picked up and held at anytime. It took him about 9 months to acclimate to this though. If not held he will sooner or later bolt under something annoying like the entertainment center etc. The other one (Saharan) has been here about 4 months and is completely terrified of me, he had gone from sick when he can to very health though.

Baby Beardies should be fed 1/4" crickets. Pinheads and 1/8" are too small. Baby Beardies grow fast under the right circumstances, often 1" per week. Adults can be fed Roaches, I've done it in the past but have always gone back to other feeders. Today I have crickets, silkworms and superworms. Silkworms are my primary feeder.

I like the idea of having silkworms on hand so I was wondering what are the basics on keeping and hatching silkworms. I think one of the farms sells petree dishes with eggs glued to them. Will you give me a quick fundamentals on having silkworms?
Thanks

In season I hatch about 1,000 per week. I used to go through the whole process in the past but now my needs are too great.

I buy the eggs in bulk, 25,000 at a time. I buy the powered food in bulk as well, 10lb. bags of dry food.

Each week I put eggs in a large rectangle Ziploc container and place them in an incubator set at about 81. In 8 days they hatch. Daily I grate food over them with a fine grater. In about a month from when they hatch they will be full size.

Cleanliness is extremely important. I use alcohol on everything that touches them or their food. I have been doing this for about 4 years. In the beginning I had some die offs, so it takes a little practice.

how long do they live when full grown and do they turn into butterflies or something?

silkworms turn into moths...about an inch long, males are smaller than the female moths. The moths don't eat nor do they live long, usually about 36 hours. Years of domestication have rendered the moths incapable of flight, at least none I ever produced could do more than walk around and flap their wings rapidly.

I can't remember exactly how long it takes for silkworms to go from newly hatched to the time they pupate, but its something like 6 weeks. The growth rate really depends on temperature and how much you feed. I never used an incubator, just room temperature (which for me is usually around 73-76F), but eggs typically hatch for me, within 10 days...9-10 usually and sometimes as early as 8 days.

Silkworms are easy to breed from egg to moth...but it takes alot of work to maintain a sterile environment for them. The worms will die fast if its too humid, if any mold gets into the food, or left over food gets moldy (never had troubles with food getting moldy, usually it is eaten far to fast for that, or dries out into hard bits). Use latex gloves when moving silkworms from (and not intended to be fed) when you clean their tray.
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

From true full size maybe a week but you can always feed them out along the way before they are completely full size.

If you want to know how to keep crickets alive for about 2 weeks or more, I can tell you from experience. First thing you need to remember is that: they do better if they are not crammed together in a small container. When they don't have enough room to establish their own territories they get stressed out and die quickly.... Second, they do well with a source of moisture available to them at all time. this is especially crucial in very, hot, dried areas. you can give them veggies, shallow dish of water, or water gel. And, lastly, feeding them stuff like chick mash and crushed, low-fat, dried, dog kibbles works well for me. Oh, and make sure you plenty of egg crates for them hide. "They love it! Hope this help!

You can visit the like below and learn from there how to keep prey insects alive....
www.anapsid.org

One way to avoid having to feed alot of crickets is buy an older dragon instead of a baby. Most pet stores sell small and very young dragons, often under 6 weeks old. These also are highly stressed, incorrectly housed and fed and often fail to thrive even when moved into a perfect setup.

Baby dragons need regular feedings, at least 2 a day but 2-4 times a day is better till they are about 4 months old, then twice a day with salad all day is sufficient. Crickets can be mail ordered online, often much cheaper than the local pet store. (a 1000 quarter inch crickets even with shipping is likely to cost about the same as maybe 100 crickets at a local pet store, or less).

Best way to keep crickets is in plastic tubs with screen lids (aluminum screen, as crickets can eventually chew through fiber glass screens). Have two tubs..filled with unused egg crate or those cardboard 'dividers' used in liquor bottle boxes (local liquor store should have these available, you can ask them to give you the inserts that come with the bottles, designed to keep the bottles from knocking together and possibly breaking in transit). I never used substrate for my crickets.

Feed crickets either a commercial gutload, or fish flakes, chick mesh, juvenile dragon or iguana pellets, crushed low fat dogfood or a combination of these. Also include a moisture source, be it gelled water (I don't trust this stuff myself so never used it), fresh greens (the same mix of greens you would feed your dragon), sliced potatoes, squash or similar.

The key thing to do to keep smell down is get rid of any dead crickets (not so easy if you have alot of crickets and they are small) and remove any uneaten vegetation in the cage (wet or damp greens that are no eaten can mold and kill off the crickets and smell like a compost heap). If you buy 500-1000 crickets every couple of weeks, the smell shouldn't build up to much. Every time your new order of crickets arrive. With two tubs, you can put the new crickets into a clean setup, then when the 'older' crickets are used up, clean that tub completely and disinfect, then set up for the next new order. This way by rotating you keep the tubs nice and clean and the smell doesn't build up if it will if you kept using the same tub all the time.

Also, if the 'full' tub starts getting smelly some time before you need to order more, you can transfer the live crickets into the clean tub and clean up the dirty one.

If you buy an older dragon, say a 6 month old juvenile...they don't need to eat quite as much crickets (2 meals a day with salad daily) and can eat larger crickets, which are easier to keep clean. Also, being bigger your dragon doesn't need to eat as much to get all the food they need. Also, an older dragon (if over 14" can be offered more of a variety of insects, such as superworms, silkworms, butterworms and smaller hornworms.

Older dragons are also (if under good care with their previous owner) are more hardier, adopt to a new environment quicker and are not as flighty as babies can be. They are also less fragile than a baby and can be held without risk of it skittering off and falling onto the floor.

As for uromastyx...I don't think they are any more difficult to keep than bearded dragons. Their care is almost identical, they just need a slightly higher basking temperature (115-130F as opposed to 110-120F which dragons need). They also don't mind handling too much once accustomed. There are more and more uro's bred in captivity so definitely ask about their origins, better yet buy from a breeder to ensure they are captive bred and not just captive hatched or wild caught as babies. Wild ones can be more difficult to acclimate to captivity, likely to have parasites which will need to be treated, tend to resist handling more aggressively. The spines along the tail of the uromastyx can hurt if they are lashed against you and they can bite and scratch as well.

Other than making sure you have captive bred uro, from what I know about them, they make just as much as a great pet as a bearded dragon. They may cost more to initially buy the animal and may be a bit more difficult to find but other than that, they are good pets too. They also have the bonus of being completely vegetarian. Dragons are omnivores and need much more insect foods as young then when they are adults
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

Thanks for all the great info. One of the reasons I am somewhat concerned about going with a Uro is that I have read conflicting information about the impact of handling on them. I see that they require quite high temperatures and some caresheets suggest that a Uro is a "look but don't touch" animal. They go on to state that uros become stressed from even a little handling and cannot tolerate being out of their enclosure.

Other sources disagree, and the guy at my local reptile store also said that handling for short periods would have no ill effect. My common sense tells me that a uro in its natural environment may go in and out of the sun and be subjected to different temps in its travels, and some variation in temperature will be tolerated.

I have also been thinking about the cricket situation wrong, it seems. I have been thinking that the point of keeping them is to create a breeding population that is self-sustaining. However, it seems that I need to think of it more as a holding tank that will be replenished when it gets low. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I would probably need a huge number of crickets to reproduce enough to feed even one dragon. Have you had any experience with roaches? I read that they are a fine alternative and have no odor.

For one dragon, its not worth the trouble to breed crickets. Though it doesn't take too long to get eggs and for them to hatch and grow, the rate a baby dragon can eat 1/4" or smaller crickets, will mean breeding alot of crickets initially...then as the dragon gets bigger, it can eat larger crickets but won't eat quite as many and they only need a heavy insect diet for about the first 8 months of life, after which one insect feeding a day (with salad for the rest of the day) till about 14 months old...after that they are full adult and only about 10-20% of their diet should be insects, the rest salad.

So its alot of work breeding crickets for only a short period of time.

To breed crickets, you don't need alot of adults...unless you want thousands of crickets. I think a single female lays about 100-300 eggs. The show 'Dirty Jobs' had a great episode on Ghann's Cricket Farm awhile ago...when through how Ghann's produce crickets in mass numbers...very interesting episode. The steps taken can easily be reproduced privately...just reduced in scale. Ghann's used huge tubs...but a smaller shoebox or sweater box sized tub with screen lid can be used (though I prefer deeper tubs for crickets, to keep them jumping out when I open it up...so 55 liter tubs would work.
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

Forget crickets, go with Dubia roaches. Cleaner, quieter and easy to breed.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

Every bug has a down side. There is a lot of shell in a dubia roach so some dragons don't digest then well. I've had them in the past but always went back to crickets.

Smell is really not a problem with crickets as long as you keep them dry and clean. It's the dead crickets that smell and if you have dead crickets you need to figure out why.