# Bearded dragon - breeding our own live food?



## KathyM

Hi

I've only had the one thread on here so far and I'm really new to reptiles so will need you to go easy on me and treat me as a two year old (lol).

We're getting our first bearded dragon on Tuesday and were wondering if there was a way of keeping costs down on live food, also with an emphasis on knowing what we feed him/her better.

I was wondering if there is a live food suitable as a staple live element to his/her diet that I can easily breed at home? Not squeamish at all, have bred various species of snail in the past (moved on to rats now lol) and it's all educational for the kids too. 

It was just an idea and I want to stress that it's not a case of not being able to afford food, just that I'm one of those people who likes to know the insider's tips and not pay more than I have to lol. Plan to be growing a lot of the vegetable side of things too.

Thanks

Kathy


----------



## cathandtam

hi, 
i was wondering how old your dragon is going to be. 
if its an adult they only eat livefood 2 or 3 times per week but babies eat livefood 2 or 3 times daily. they are little munch monsters. we have also tried breeding foods for them quite successfully. haven't managed the superworms yet but i can give you advice on crickets or locusts if you want to try them. 
cath


----------



## KathyM

Thanks Cath - it's a young baby that's coming to us on Tuesday (very very excited).


----------



## cathandtam

ok, they are so much fun.you won't be dissapointed.

crickets are the easiest, although smelliest, so be warned. 

your baby will eat small crickets no bigger than the space between their eyes but if you pick up a tib of adults in the rep shop they will supply you with the free food. when you choose them pick a box with lots of females, they have a long tube protuding from their bottom. easy to tell the difference with them. 
all you do is tip them in a well ventilated deep plastic tub. the lid is aptional as they can't climb the sides to escape but they can jump so try to use something over a foot deep. take the empty live food container and fill it with damp compost, the cheapest you can find as you don't really want fertilizers added. give them egg crates to hide in and reat one over the side of the compost tub and you are away. in no time at all the females will be laying. too many males and they will eat the eggs. we changed the compost tubs every week to 10 days and fitted the flastic lid and waited on the babies. tons appear very quickly and just feed them up till they get to the appropriate size. 

there are 3 kinds of crickets available. 
banded, very fast moving and a bit noisey. probably jump the highest. 
brown silent, big fat and quiet but a bit nippy.
black field, fat and not so nippy but very noisey. 

(when we were breeding the blacks they were so noisey hubby threw a tantrum and fed all the adults to the turtles just to get piece and quiet, lol)


----------



## cathandtam

the locusts take ages to "get going" and are a little bit more challenging. 

we used an exo terra glass viv with a heat lamp. this sat on top of the beardie viv for the heat. they lay eggs on damp sand in containers about 4 inches deep. replace thes at least every 2 weeks and keep rotating them. 
the adult locusts are pink when they first become adults with wings and i find them a bit creepy to touch lol(gardening gloves on lol) after about 3 weeks they mature and the males go bright yellow. the females are a bit fatter and are a pinkish brown colour. they need sticks and egg crates to climb on and will join together for mating, soon after the female will go to the sand and bury her bottom completely to lay a tube of eggs, each tube will give 20 to 50 locusts so once they start they are fantastic. 
they will stop laying if they run short on food though, but as long as they are happy they are well worth the hassle. 
locusts don't nip the beardie either so are nicer to feed i think anyway.


----------



## KathyM

LOL thanks Cath, that's definitely something to think about. When you say tub I imagine one of the 70L Do It All tubs I used to breed snails in, but I'm assuming that might be a bit too big? The only other concern I have is ending up overstocked with adults for one baby and the baby crickets growing too fast - how fast do the crickets grow? 

Thanks ever so much, especially for being patient with me for not knowing much!


----------



## cathandtam

they don't grow all that quick. a hungry baby can scoff well over a hundred a day. 

last summer my daughter kept count and one baby ate 142 tiny crickets in one go. and they were getting fed 3 times a day. so i doubt you could ever have too many lol. if you had too many you could reduce the number of adult in order to reduce the number of babies if you know what i mean. 

and yes i think the 70l tub would be fine. we used tough crates for ours last summer when we had lots of babies. now that its just adults we are lazy and just buy in bulk. they do love the morio worms, avoid these till your baby is 6 months and at least 12 inches though. i just haven't managed to get them to pupate but i'm still trying. one day i'll have success. 

avoid mealworms as well they can't digest them properly. loads of people feed them though. our adults are well over 900g and they were all in the poo, yuck.

or you could try cockroaches. i'm seriously thinking about them but , i think its just because they are roaches i'm not too sure. 

anyway, good luck


----------



## KathyM

Cath, you're a star, thank you ever so much! :2thumb:


----------



## Juzza12

I would personally go for roaches. They are pretty much the best staple, good meat to shell ratio and are far more nutritious than crickets or locusts. Get a good colony going first before feeding and you'll have an endless supply. If you're looking to buy some look in the classified or i can recommend someone on here who i have bought roaches from. Meal worms are very easy to breed but until a beardie is about a year old they can only eat the meal worms that have just shed. I find it better to breed my own as shop bought ones are so big already that i rarely find shed ones. Shop bought Morio worms are huge lol, too big for a beardie till the beardie is about 15 inches long. If you wanted to feed these i'd recommend breeding your own so you have smaller ones. They're a little more difficult than meal worms to breed but i do it and don't find it that hard. I don't know how to breed anything else but if you want more tips on the three I've mentioned feel free to pm me or just post another thread


----------



## KathyM

Thanks very much - I'd read people recommending roaches but had not seen them on the beardie care sheets, so wondered if it was a controversial issue. Would be very interested in hearing more about breeding them and stockists. Thanks! :2thumb:


----------



## Juzza12

I bought some recently to top my colony up from blatta. Do a search and i think the link to his shop is in his signature. Good prices and very good quality. I have lobster roaches, they can climb smooth surfaces which can be a pain but a layer of vaseline around the top of the tub stops escapes. Dubia roaches seem the most popular, they can't climb so most people prefer them, they breed slower and are more expensive than lobster though. I have mine in a storage tub with a heat mat underneath. They've got loads of egg carton as they like to hide underneath it. I feed them fresh veg everyday, anything that you can feed to your beardie is fine, i use leafy greens and then give carrot or potato for moisture. I also feed them dry cat food which i crush up into granules. As for the breeding itself you just leave them to it, they give birth to live so don't need anything to lay eggs in. If you want to know about breeding meal worms read the sticky, life cycle of a meal worm.


----------



## KathyM

Juzza, they sound fab, thanks for the advice. I shall look up blatta and check things out!


----------



## LoveForLizards

Definitely roaches, they are easy, dont climb, hop or smell and arnt to bad to handle : victory:


----------



## Issa

LoveForLizards said:


> Definitely roaches, they are easy, dont climb, hop or smell and arnt to bad to handle : victory:


Agreed, crix smell really bad!! And locust always seemed to die on me before they got going. I currently breed Dubia Roaches to feed to the beardies and ackie, they love em. Another plus is that they have a lower chittern count (softer shells, and easier to digest basically) and higher nutrient contents acordin to a few online studies availble.

One word of warning if you do get roaches though, research which species you wanna get. Lobster and Red Runners are cheap and quite easily available but I found they were acomplished escape artists, Dubias can't fly or climb smooth surfaces which I find a lot easier to manage. I'm also considering Giant Hissers at some point for sheer giggles vaue.


----------



## KathyM

LOL - would love to see them if you do get some.

Thanks for the tips - I can't get over how helpful everyone's been on here, getting me edumacated ready for Ronnie coming. You've all been fantastic!

I think I'm going to try and get hold of some dubias, but I was wondering if I could have some feedback on what kind of setup is best for them - I've read blatta's site and while I completely get the reasoning behind keeping them bare (having struggled in the past with mites on snails), I can't help but feel I have some responsibility to provide a natural setup for them. I'm quite happy to have my mind changed if the roaches aren't bothered and the natural look is just for us, just wanted to clarify!


----------



## LoveForLizards

KathyM said:


> LOL - would love to see them if you do get some.
> 
> Thanks for the tips - I can't get over how helpful everyone's been on here, getting me edumacated ready for Ronnie coming. You've all been fantastic!
> 
> I think I'm going to try and get hold of some dubias, but I was wondering if I could have some feedback on what kind of setup is best for them - I've read blatta's site and while I completely get the reasoning behind keeping them bare (having struggled in the past with mites on snails), I can't help but feel I have some responsibility to provide a natural setup for them. I'm quite happy to have my mind changed if the roaches aren't bothered and the natural look is just for us, just wanted to clarify!


If you want to make the roaches happier then you could get some fake silk plants (saying that, there is some cheap silk plants in home bargains at the moment !) and put them around the enclosure for them to climb but they are generally happy with egg crates, toilet paper rolls etc. Just a deep tub, egg crates, water crystals, food plate, will be fine for them just make sure they have plenty of "territorys" as males can get very dominant .


----------



## LoveForLizards

Issa said:


> I'm also considering Giant Hissers at some point for sheer giggles vaue.


Madigascan hissers are good. They are also crap at climbing like the dubia's and arnt as fast moving so more handleable.


----------



## Issa

LoveForLizards said:


> Madigascan hissers are good. They are also crap at climbing like the dubia's and arnt as fast moving so more handleable.


Yeah I've done a fair bit of research already on them and they seem quite a cool low maintainance big bug. Just gotta convince the g/f which is proving tricky as she isn't too keen, I'm leaning towards their lack of houdini ability and that her beardies will see the benefit of any overpopulation arguements.


----------



## KathyM

Thank you very much for your help, it's much appreciated. Everyone's been lovely helping us get ready for Ronnie coming. :notworthy:

How many roaches would I need to establish a breeding colony?


----------



## LoveForLizards

KathyM said:


> Thank you very much for your help, it's much appreciated. Everyone's been lovely helping us get ready for Ronnie coming. :notworthy:
> 
> How many roaches would I need to establish a breeding colony?


This depends. You could start with a small colony of say, 8 males and 25 but you could not feed from this. Best start off with 25 males and 75 females. All of various ages as then you can feed from these.


----------



## Juzza12

To start feeding straight away you would need a lot more than that, especially with how much baby beardies eat. If you started with 100 you'd have to leave them for at least 3 months before feeding. I'd start with 200 to 250 if you want to feed from the colony straight away


----------



## KathyM

Thanks - thought the best way to test the water is to see if she'll eat them before shelling out for a colony lol, so have ordered her some small ones off ebay that should arrive tomorrow. 

Thanks for the help, I'll report back when she's taste tested them lol!


----------

