Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I have been seeing a lot about repcal pellets, are these really truely a good susbstitution to crix?? I feed standard greens and crix and some worms, and while I am completely ok with crix I just dont like having a lot a round. Lately I have been buying from Reptilefood.com and the adult crix are just dying like crazy, more than usual. I am sick of spending money on them if they are gonna croak befor I feed them out.

I use rep-cal with D3 and Herptivite religiously and my kids are healthy. If I could first, get them to eat these pellets, and keep them healthy on the pellets I would LOVE THAT.

So here's a poll, who thinks they are a good idea, how do you switch them over and any other suggestions would be Very wonderful!!

Thanks!!!!
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DogStar

"Many have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You remain responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." --Antoine de Saint Exupery

im not a believer in a non live food diet, espeically for babies and juvi's, they need the proteins to grow (i know pellets offer protein) and i beleive that hunting is a natural part of a dragons existance that we shouldnt take away from them, as a horse loves to run, a dragon loves to hunt, its natural and tehy are born with the instinct, we need to think about their mental health along with the physical. a main diet for adults of salads and pellets seems fine with the 3 times a week feeding of live prey of your choice, all my dragons still get crickets, supers, butterworms, silkworms, roaches and the odd green giant as a treat, my adults get a small amount of live feeders each day, its what they look forward to, their eyes brighten as soon as they know its feeding time. my baby lives for his crickets, although he eats a ton of pellets also, along with the pellets (eating about 4 adult pellets and 20 juvi on average) he eats about 60 - 80 crickets a day, along with salad. i know live feeders are a pain in the butt, but what would our lives be without ice cream? or our favorite food? what if we could only eat a dish of soaked pellets each day, it would be pretty drab. as for parasites in live feeders,with a little more effort on our part we can control these parasites,(parazap, probiotics, etc) its well worth it. this is just my opinion, its really up to the individual and what tehy think is best for their dragon.
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reiko
photos

My goodness, my juvis eat like 10 or so then let all the other crix just crawl around. I always thought mine ate a smaller amount. The last time I fed a TON of little crix (to me this was like 50 or so crix for two 3 month dragons) they ate a little more than their usual then wouldn't eat for another two days. They are growing very fast, all nice and "fat" and healthy, eating greens. Not sure what else to think but that is normal for them.
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DogStar

"Many have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You remain responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." --Antoine de Saint Exupery

yeah he eats a lot.. from monday this was his gain

109 grams monday
130 grams today

10 1/4 inches monday
11 inches today

he is about 3.5 months old but has a 1 inch tail nip, so he would be about 12 inches

he eats a ton of food, will eat any kind of squash youput in front of him, a whole bunch of greeens, lotsa pellets, i dont count them but give him a small handful, he eats about half-3/4 of that handfull plus a few adult pellets and then gets crickets 3 feedings a day, eats about 20-30 or more a feeding, he just has a really great appetite, eats better then carrick did at this age..
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reiko
photos

this year from breeders trying the all pellet diet, cant stop those lil babies from that instinct to grab up what is moving, sure there are other factors that play into this and it can happen on a diet of live feeders too, bullies, too large of feeding groups, not enough food etc, even some clutches are just super aggressive and cannabalize each other, wish i could find that reading again, but in some of the situations pellets were the problem. for those that use them with success for babies, great, i think babies should be fed crickets, even the big breeder that started all of this feeds crickets to the babies, not all pellets, they are weaned as juvi's. just a little more information to chew on its all a matter of opinion and what you feel is right...
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reiko
photos

I use pellets, not solely. I think they are great as a thing to nibble on during the day. I feed crickets at night. A few comments on crickets, "adult" crickets are only supposed to live for a week. You are better off with 3/4" crickets. I also jump from cricet provider to cricket provider. In my experience reptilefood crickets tend not to molt (shed their exoskeloton). Others I know have said the same. When you get crickets from a company that they molt you know it. You will have to clean the cricket bin of little shells like with mealworms. I would try wormman or I have been pleased with crickets from is superwormfarm.com mattman had a bad experience the boxes i got were packed with live crickets and they all molted and the crickets sruvived. they offer 1 or 2 day and are just a little bit cheaper than reptilefood, on par with wormman.
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Derek Affonce
DeKeAff Exotics
dekeaffexotics.com

I agree Reicko, dragons need to hunt on a occasion. Its actually very fun to see how skilled they are at catching crickets in mid air when they try to jump =) LOL all this talk about food makes me wanna go back down stairs and go give them some more silkies.

I have been getting crickets from them for a long time, and only the past two shipments of crix have been like this. I get little crix too and they are croaking as well, I have changed nothing in my care of them, they just aren't surviving as long.

To tell you the truth you are the third person to confirm that the reptilefood crickets just aren't lasting. I asked Chris Allen the same, and he is having the same problem. I'm thinking it's the time of year, or the weather. I've tried three different places in the last month and it seems it is a problem with all the places I ordered from on the east coast. I don't know, but it seems they are getting moist and all dead around the veggies, and in the morning there are large numbers dead around the egg crates as well. Maybe it's just a seasonal problem. I hope so anyway cause this really stinks.

As for feeding a pellet diet alone, I have to agree with with Reiko. Seems the dragons given large varieties of live feeders just seem to grow faster, and bigger. I would say to feed live feeders heavy the first year or so. Once they really max out in size, I go ahead and offer more greens/pellets and one feeding a day for my large adults. Of course it all depends on the dragon really, and where they are weight wise and growth. Just why change what has been working great so far. I have 5 adults all over 18 inches and 500 grams raising them this way, 2 of them over 20-23 inches and as large as 760 grams. I do use pellets for variety. I think A large varied diet of greens/pellets and live feeders is the best you can do for a growing dragon.
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Mystical Dragons

this week they sent me 1/4 inch crickets, wrong size, so they resent another box of the correct sized ones no questions asked. 2 times ago my order arrived damaged some of the crickets escaped, they sent another right out to me no questions asked. they answer their e-mails quickly and always resend and send quickly, they are awesome and would reccomend them to anyone. bare in mind it helps to use a provider that is close to home, they are located in san diego CA. anyone in san diego or just in CA or surrounding area, i highly reccomend them, their customer service is A
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reiko
photos

They're fast and they have very healthy feeders that last a long time. They also have good prices. At a reptile show, I went to their booth, or w/e they call it, to buy some crickets. They had the size I wanted out, so they told me to call and they would give me free shipping since they ran out. And this was from the owner. Great place to deal with!
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~Julie~

I do feed some live foods, just not every day... I have even said I feed live foods in my other posts, granted only 2 - 3 times a week. The pellets and veg makes up probably 90% of their diet.
The ONLY ones here on a strictly pellet / veg diet right now are the babies. They are under a week old and I can not feed supers or mealies to them yet LOL

>>So I have been seeing a lot about repcal pellets, are these really truely a good susbstitution to crix?? I feed standard greens and crix and some worms, and while I am completely ok with crix I just dont like having a lot a round. Lately I have been buying from Reptilefood.com and the adult crix are just dying like crazy, more than usual. I am sick of spending money on them if they are gonna croak befor I feed them out.
>>
>>I use rep-cal with D3 and Herptivite religiously and my kids are healthy. If I could first, get them to eat these pellets, and keep them healthy on the pellets I would LOVE THAT.
>>
>>So here's a poll, who thinks they are a good idea, how do you switch them over and any other suggestions would be Very wonderful!!
>>
>>Thanks!!!!
>>-----
>>DogStar
>>
>>"Many have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You remain responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." --Antoine de Saint Exupery
>>
>>
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Lisa
www.beginnersbasics.com

The pellets were formulated to be 100% nutritionally complete. I know this for a fact because I personally know the person that formulated them( they do not work for rep-cal). They are a couple breeders on here who raise dragons on them exclusively with no problems that I know of. If your dragon accepts them and eats them regularly, it is all they need. Reiko brings up an interesting point, that of mental health. Does a dragon who has never seen live prey feel like something is missing from his life. Can they get depressed over something they have never known? Does a dragon that used to be fed live prey but no only gets pellets sit around and think about how much they miss hunting? These are questions I certainly do not know the answers to, but I tend to think it does not make a difference whether they get live or non-live food.
good luck
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Bill DiFabio
Azteclizard.com
Email Me

i dont think its a matter of getting depressed over something they have never known its a matter of giving them variety, satisfying the instinctual need to hunt that i strongly feel that they have. giving a dragon anything you can to ensure mental and physical health, like any living creature they need stimulation, a large part of a dragons life is feeding, that and laying in the sun, i try to provide the best of what they love to do which includes wriggling worms and crawling critters that make their eyes wide and bright and make my big adults run and jump like 3 week old dragons. perhaps its hard to explain but i feel they have emotion like we do, maybe not as complicated but i know they can feel happy and sad, i beleive all animals can, i have a huge world to wander, my dragons have a 4x2 cage, anything i can do to make their lives more interesting, i will . i do respect your opinion, husbandry does differ between keepers, whatever works for one will not for the other, we all have to do what is best for us and more importantly our dragons
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reiko
photos

My female laid 6 clutches and this is her first year at that.
I think that speaks for itself.

All the babies I have posted (other than cuddles) are cricket free and are fed Rep Cal pellets as a supplement over the veggies. I also feed Mealies and or super worms every 3 days or so (Size and portion very closely monitored)

I don't think I need to say more?

Joel R

WE got CC (Carbon Coby) from Joel, she's great size, just weighted her tonight and she is 178grams at age 5 months, very tame, calm and just a sweet dragon, raised on pellets alone.

NOW... the confession, she was in a tank along side another one about the same size that DOES east crickets, I did not realize she could leap as high as she did and after feeding him in his tank (he gets a bowl of crickets) I came back in the room just like 2 minutes later and no CC in her tank....... you guessed it, she was in his tank, no crickets left, he was still on his basking platform watching her......and, there was a cricket leg sticking out of CC's mouth!!!!!

Talking about catching the kid in the cookie jar! SO I can't say she has never had crickets before anymore

I am very interested in trying the pellet/salads only on the next group of babies, there is no doubt that they seem to grow and thrive well on them. My only concern was that in the past out babies were not big salad and pellet eaters til they were in their second month, most our adults gave up crickets by 6-8 months of age.

Just Kidding.

Cheri, I believe that the problem with Crickets/Parasite issue arises with shipment & the transition to a new home (stress)for the most part.

I do not see a problem with feeding crickets once a dragon has been acclimated etc. and is done with their big journey. (Well, I do, but it is not as risky once they are settled)
(I have to get two fecals done due to runny "STINKY" poo. Both dragons are ones I bought and were fed crickets prior to coming here. I can not prove that the crickets are the reason but that is my first thought)

Now,, to the "Not big veggie eaters" for the first couple months.
I can guarantee, my kids would not eat good meals if I offered Cake or snacks all day. I know that for a fact! I also think that is why most young dragons don't much care for the veggies as youngsters. When they are not exposed to them (crickets), they will eat the veggies/pellets.

Keep in mind,, this is just my opinion and I am entitle to it. LoL

Later.
Joel R
***NOTE***
I must add,, Not feeding crickets does not 100% prevent parasites. I just don't want someone coming back to me and saying, "I didn't feed any crickets and they still got pin worms. etc. "

I looked into Reptical pellets. I did not find one just for Beardies. Do they make it or is another formula used for Beardies?

I am using Zoo Med juvinel pellets. On the package it claims to be soft and moist but it is a hard pellet. When I called the company, they said that it has a higher moisture content then other pellets. (still can't see how if it is a dry pellet) They are sending me the canned food to try. He also said that the canned crickets are soft and moist because they are cooked in the can and not freeze dried.

I also bought Ecoto, which states it has crickets in the formula. So far he hasn't eaten it but I mix it in with the greens anyway so he can get a taste of it.

I was reading some of the formulas for other foods for turtles. One company had a jell that looked interesting but there was alot of fake ingredients.

by the way, I STILL cannot post a picture.

Here is a link to the pellets that everyone is talking about.

http://www.reptiledirect.com/product.asp?0=222&1=250&3=193

Enjoy and good luck...
Steve

PS I use only the juvenile pellets...

Follow this link,, it's probably the same one that Golddragon tried to link to.

But yes it is a Dragon specific pelleted food. They have Juvenile and Adult formulas. I use the juvie for the youngsters and so on.

I do use Juvi formula on my female when she is gravid though! I think it's like feeding a pregnant dog, puppy food. It has the extra protein, etc. to help keep her tip top shape with all the extra work she is doing.

You also need to soak them prior to use. I put mine in a cup and add warm (NOT HOT) water. If you use hot, they get a smell to them??? Anyway, once they are spongy all the way through, drain the excess water and put them over the veggies.

Hope that helps.
Joel R
Rep Cal Dragon food