Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

I just moved to rural, high desert Nevada. I plan to order feeders. My husband and I are working on breeding crickets. House crickets don't tend to live as long as the wild desert house cricket, so we have one w/c female we plan on interbreeding with the regulars.

I plan on adding new variety to our lizards menu. Today I just fed Ezra and Annabella superworms, but they are to big for baby.

Please give me some information on feeders' lifespans and if there are particular bugs collared lizards love.

Thanks in advance

Nicole

Truthfully, I think crickets are the best food for the collareds. I tried mealworms, but they seemed not to digest all that well.
Collareds will try to eat anything that they can fit in their mouth, even other collareds. I recently bought the green giants, tomato worms, to add a different snack for them. They liked them and I am having them pupate into moths, even more fun for the collareds. I yet have found a way to breed the crix, but if you go to search engines, they have much info.
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Collaredkeeper

Hey Nicole,

Crickets probably are the best food for them that you can buy, but if you don't mind collecting inverts from safe places (ie not pest sprayed)then try these. Mine also loved mealworms, and had no problem digesting them, as I would find out every time I had to clean the pen =)

Not knowing the health benefits of all these bugs I'm only going off of how fast mine snarfed 'em down.

Their all time favorite foods, in order of most to least favorite.
Grasshoppers/Katydids,
Butterflies,
Caterpillars any,
small Beetles any,
Moths (especially Sphinx moths),
Roaches,
Spiders (wolf/jumping),
Wasps (Cricket Hunters/Ichneumons),
Bees (not honeybees),
Earwigs

I have also tried other inverts, that were eagerly accepted
such as dragonflies, June Beetles, Solpugids, and praying Mantids, but since these are rare occurances in my yard, I can't base any conclusive comparisons to the list above.

If you find any of these in your area, maybe give 'em a try....

My two pennies.

-Phil