# What size locusts for bearded dragon?



## rexasaurus (Jun 13, 2010)

Hi guys,

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this or the question has been asked before, but I am new to reptile keeping!

I bought a bearded dragon set up kit from a local retailer, I received the viv and associated paraphanalia yesterday, and will be getting the beardie himself next weekend. They say he is about 10 months old, and he looks almost fully grown.

In the kit were 2 boxes of 6 locusts, but they seem absolutely massive! I've put them in a little tauranium (?sp) thing and given them some porridge oats for substrate and some grapes & spinach to eat (is this ok??) as it's all I had in the fridge. They are at least 2inches long, and then wings on top of that - they just seem far too big for the beardie to eat! I've read that you shouldn't give them anything wider than the space between their eyes, but when I went to the retailer this afternoon to check the girl there said it's different for beardies and they'll be fine.

I just want to get a second opinion really, I don't want the poor thing to choke on his first meal!

Thanks very much,
Alex


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## woodrott (Sep 14, 2008)

rexasaurus said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this or the question has been asked before, but I am new to reptile keeping!
> 
> ...


 
if hes fully grown then the locusts are fine

he will eat 50 plus a week you need 3 or 4 different live foods

you shouldnt feed spinach to the live food

or your dragon

if you need a chat if you get any problems give me a call

01244382780


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## TheMetaphysicalNinja (Aug 18, 2009)

50 a week?!? Mine eats about 20 a week and wont touch more than that! xD


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## ..:: F1D0 ::.. (May 13, 2009)

Hi there and :welcome: to the foums.

The whole "food no bigger than the distance between their eyes" is a debate that has been going on for time, at the end of the day a reptile is not going to see prey that is slightly too big in the wild and say "damn, that wont fit between my eyes so i cant eat it"

It is just something which reptile keepers have been told in the past to do so alot of people do it. In regards to this, i feed Helio large locusts. As for the "wings" do they look those below? (look between the hind legs and head)










Or do they look like










If the locusts look like the first pic, these should be fine. If they look like the second pic then these could be a bit of an issue as the second pic is an adult (look at colouration, adults are more of an orange colour)

Below is a pic of Helio at feed time, this locust was close to being 2" in length and she was fine with it.


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## woodrott (Sep 14, 2008)

TheMetaphysicalNinja said:


> 50 a week?!? Mine eats about 20 a week and wont touch more than that! xD


that's an average my girls eat about 10 to 15 each a day


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## Emsylove (Mar 16, 2009)

:no1:any will do but my beardie loves the biggest u can get , and its good because if u give them 2 u dont have to feed them for the rest of the week


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## woodrott (Sep 14, 2008)

Emsylove said:


> :no1:any will do but my beardie loves the biggest u can get , and its good because if u give them 2 u dont have to feed them for the rest of the week


your having a giraffe
you need to feed a dragon every day


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## ..:: F1D0 ::.. (May 13, 2009)

woodrott said:


> your having a giraffe
> you need to feed a dragon every day


I was thinking the same but didnt want to say anything :lol2:


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## jaf2212 (May 10, 2008)

Emsylove said:


> :no1:any will do but my beardie loves the biggest u can get , and its good because if u give them 2 u dont have to feed them for the rest of the week



:lol2: as Woodrott said, you should be feeding the poor thing daily as 2 a week is nowhere near enough food unless you are feeding other live food?


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## HanRed (May 28, 2010)

i give mine crickets every 2-3 days. when i do give him crickets i usually give him them in the morning, he doesn't usually eat in the evening, but still put food down for him....just in case .
i feed skittles twice a day. i put veg down about an hour and a half(ish) after his heating and lighting go on, so i put food down about 10:30 and then i change it about 6.....could be a stupid question but should i put food down earlyer ?? i take it out about 8 so he's got atleast 3 hours to properly digest his food. 
sorry rex, didn't mean to steal your topic....i was just wondering.


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## jaf2212 (May 10, 2008)

HanRed said:


> i give mine crickets every 2-3 days. when i do give him crickets i usually give him them in the morning, he doesn't usually eat in the evening, but still put food down for him....just in case .
> i feed skittles twice a day. i put veg down about an hour and a half(ish) after his heating and lighting go on, so i put food down about 10:30 and then i change it about 6.....could be a stupid question but should i put food down earlyer ?? i take it out about 8 so he's got atleast 3 hours to properly digest his food.
> sorry rex, didn't mean to steal your topic....i was just wondering.


Give them salad in the morning, the same as you are so it is there all day for them to pick at and feed the live food daily


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## HanRed (May 28, 2010)

but i've heard your not supposed to feed them live food daily. he's 3 years old. and when they're that age their diet is 30% live food and 70% veg.


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## jaf2212 (May 10, 2008)

This seems to be the rule which most keepers in the UK go by, but after speaking to Woodrott i was advised to feed my daily and up the ampunt off food and after 5/6 weeks can see big differnces in doing so


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## HanRed (May 28, 2010)

i'll feed him crickets more often then. 
my dads cousin used to have lots of reptiles...used to breed them aswell.....he can't now, cos he had a huge motor bike accident. i get a lot of my advice from him.
i'll move it up to every other day for crickets...see how that goes. he's healthy but he could use a bit more fat on him,lol.
his last owner never used to feed him crickets. i was horrified when i found out


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## woodrott (Sep 14, 2008)

HanRed said:


> i'll feed him crickets more often then.
> my dads cousin used to have lots of reptiles...used to breed them aswell.....he can't now, cos he had a huge motor bike accident. i get a lot of my advice from him.
> i'll move it up to every other day for crickets...see how that goes. he's healthy but he could use a bit more fat on him,lol.
> his last owner never used to feed him crickets. i was horrified when i found out


there's hundreds of reasons why you need to feed a dragon every day
and over 15 easy live foods you can get to do this
if you need to know any more give me a call

01244382780

cheers mark


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## rexasaurus (Jun 13, 2010)

..:: F1D0 ::.. said:


> As for the "wings" do they look those below? (look between the hind legs and head)


They look like the 3rd picture, they have really long wings. Will they fly about if I let them loose in his viv? 

Thank you all for your help and advice. I just wondered why it is that they can't have spinach? I would have thought as it is dark and leafy and rich in calcium that it would have been quite a good food. If I make sure the locusts don't have any more spinach now, do you think they'll be ok to feed to my beardie next week?

I didn't realise he'd eat so many of them! I've grown quite attached to the little fellas now, I think it will have to be Mr. Rexasaurus who is responsible for feeding him the livestock, I'll just stick to chopping vegetables!! lol!

Thanks again,
Alex


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## jaf2212 (May 10, 2008)

woodrott said:


> if you need to know any more give me a call
> 
> 01244382780
> 
> cheers mark



You getting lazy with your replying Mark, as this seems a more common answer from you, tho as i found out the easiest way to learn so much


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## auntiesocial84 (Oct 7, 2009)

sorry to crash the thread but i feed my beardie locusts everyday as she wont touch crickets. i also feed her butter worms and will give her waxies every so often. she has fresh veg in her viv eveyday. the other week she ate 50 locusts in less than a wk. shes slowed down abit now tho lol. shes 7months old and weighs 60g


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## woodrott (Sep 14, 2008)

auntiesocial84 said:


> sorry to crash the thread but i feed my beardie locusts everyday as she wont touch crickets. i also feed her butter worms and will give her waxies every so often. she has fresh veg in her viv eveyday. the other week she ate 50 locusts in less than a wk. shes slowed down abit now tho lol. shes 7months old and weighs 60g


hi there

if your dragon is as old as you say????

there's a chance it has an under lying problem as that's very small

an average baby is 60g at 8 to 9 weeks


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## Jeffers3 (May 18, 2010)

My beardie used to eat 10-15 stage 4 crickets at a sitting, sometimes twice a day. i moved up to stage 5s when he was about 3 months old and he carried on scoffing these at around 10 a time. He's now coming up to 6 months old and is happy to eat just about any sized cricket and fairly large locusts, but he eats a lot less insects generally. i put this down to the fact that he is growing a lot slower now. He has also started eating far more veg than before.
I put fresh mixed veg in before i leave for work and replace it when i get home. he is also offered crickets at these times. Sometimes he'll eat a few, other times he won't. On the positive side, a tub of crickets now lasts almost a week!


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## Alexandaand madam (Oct 3, 2021)

TheMetaphysicalNinja said:


> 50 a week?!? Mine eats about 20 a week and wont touch more than that! xD


Are you over feeding. My 2 beardies died this year of old age. 13yrs plus they only had 3 hoppers every 2 days. And a few Mario's a week. They didn't realy eat anything else.


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## murrindindi (Feb 19, 2009)

Alexandaand madam said:


> Are you over feeding. My 2 beardies died this year of old age. 13yrs plus they only had 3 hoppers every 2 days. And a few Mario's a week. They didn't realy eat anything else.


This thread is 11 YEARS old!?


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