Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When I feed my beardeds crickets I put them into an empty tank and add crickets. I did this because I found that the crickets were hiding in the driftwood I had in the tank and I was afraid of them hurting my bearded dragons. Am I causing too much stress by moving the beardeds to eat? In other posts I talked about my beardeds not eating consistently. Should I just drop the crickets in the tank? Should I get rid of the wood?

Thanks for any suggestions?

Brian

This is what I do and works for me..The older beardie I had needed to be fed out of a solo cup. She wouldn't EVER hunt her food. The 2 younger beardies (18 months) are savage hunters but I only drop in about 6 at a time, once those are gone I add another 6 and so on...I never have left over crickets in the tank. Hope any of this helps you.

In all the stuff I have read.
If your dragon is eating in the separate tank.
Then he is not being stressed by tranfering him.
And I preferr to feed this way. Because you can monitor
what thier intake is.
Radena

If they don't eat consisitently( every day or two) are they stressed? Mine will go foe over a week without a cricket - they will eat salad and worms during this time.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Brian

Personally, my dragons don't even see crickets. I use silkworms for their staple insect, with superworms, hornworms and butterworms occasionally. Salad and pellets too. They were 100% healthy at their last vet check.

dragons are easily spoiled by worms (they taste better and are easier to hunt). Dragons can get very spoiled...mine will currently only eat crickets and just the red repcal pellets (very few red come in a container). I need to try to work him out of this and into eating other stuff, and to do that I just have to wait until he gains a little more weight, and then only offer the food he should be eating. I'd say drop back on the worms (what kind of worms are they? mealworms are hard to digest and therefore shouldn't be offered too much and waxworms are too fattening and should be offered only occasionally) and just feed salad and crix for a while. How old are your dragons? If they are adults, they should only really be eating about 5-10 crickets every other day or so...the majority of an adult beardie's diet should be plant matter.

I feed mine in a seperate feeding container, and I think it works out better for the adult beardies, because they get lazy as adults and usually only eat crickets when they get close enough (in my experience, though I have seen a huge adult beardie just plowing through crickets). Feeding in a seperate container is the only way I'll go because there are risks when feeding in the living quarters, especially if you use a substrate that can (and will) be ingested. Also, like you said, crickets love to hide in cage furniture, and it would be more stressful to a beardie if you had to tear apart its home evertime you fed it. I think for most insectivorous reptiles it's just best to either feed in a seperate container, or out of a bowl (crickets can't get out of most slick-sided bowls, and they can't get enough grip to jump). Feeding them in a different place doesn't cause any stress unless it's a lizard that really doesn't like being handled. In that case, I would try the bowl method, and if all else fails, drop crickets in a couple at a time.

But it doesn't seem like you have a problem with feeding out side the enclosure. Just don't feed so many worms.

i put crix in a large tupperware bowl storage thing and put it under there basking stump and they go in and eat it and the crix cant get out cause it is too slick, the dragon hold on and go about half way into it eat there fill and get out.

ken
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0.1 Albino Cal. King (Fokker)
1.0 Reverse Okeetee Corn (trouble)
0.1 Creamsicle Corn (Spot)
1.1 Bearded Dragons (Bob & Margret)
1.3 Dogs(George, Sandy, Cookie and Ladybird) they are rescues, Lhasa Apso, Mutt, Boxer, and Daschund mix
0.0.22 Bearded Dragon Eggs...more to come
1.0 Betta
0.1 Wife
0.1 Kid

I never thought of tupperware - thanks for the great idea.

Brian