BD question

[snakedude56]

I've been thinking about getting a beardie and I have some questions about feeding and enclosures. I read on the caresheet here that they(as juvies) will eat from 20-60 small crickets a day. There are factory made bearded dragon foods sold in the pet store I go to. Have any of you used them? They say they provide all the nutrition that a beardie will need. I'm guessing I would need a vibrating food dish for the beardie to be interested in it, because they are just little food pellets.
Would a 75 gallon tall tank be too large even if I littered it with hiding spots? The tank is also about 2 feet tall, is that too great of a distance from the uv heat lamp to the substrate?

[MATT FISHER REPTILES]

hi jack

ok first off YES i do use the bearded dragon diet food and it works great. and no you do not need a vibrating dish. they will eat it with out it.

as far as the tank goes. i need some dimensions. like LxWxH i would assume that it is about 4ft long 18inches front to back and 2ft tall?

a baby beardie should be in a 20L. they are only like 20 bucks at petsmart. this will keep them for about there first 8-12 months. after that you can then move them up to a bigger tank. rember they lobe co climb on logs so i keep a lot in my cages. just make sure that the highest point in the cage is right under the basking light.

[snakedude56]

thanks for the reply, yea those are just about the exact dimensions of the cage, I'll pick up a 20 gal instead. I'm gonna feed with the packaged food, because I have no where to keep a couple hundred crickets for every week, without going to the pet store every day.

[MATT FISHER REPTILES]

also try keeping a few meal worms around. they can be kept in the fridge for about a month with no care. all you have to do is pull them out and drop them in and put the rest back. also put some spinich and red leafy letus. i get the bags that say spring mix on the fron from my local food store. and rember to sprinkel some calcium on the letus. and mist him for about 25 secs a day. a water dish is not needed.

[recycling goddess]

meal worms can cause impaction. so only use the freshly moulted ones... they are softer. silkworms are an excellent alternative to crickets and mealies. you need to keep the mealworms out of the fridge for them to moult... they do well in a bucket of bran (make sure the bran is clean so you don't introduce mites to your collection - feedstore bran is full of mites a lot of the time) - give them banana peels, chunks of potato, carrots etc to eat. then just dig around and find the soft, white mealworms.

honestly, if you don't want to have crickets in your home that's totally fine but you really need to add another feeder insect. most people use silkworms cause there's no smell at all (except for cooking the chow) and as long as you keep everything nice and clean, they are easy to care for.

but you do need to add something other than those pellets.

[snakedude56]

I don't mind the crickets, I have about 2-3 dozen in my room at any time for my leo, it's just I don't have anywhere except for the garage where I could keep a couple hundred crickets for each week. I'll feed with an assortment of crickets, silkworms, vegetables and the pellets. Thanks for your advice, it'll be a while before I get one because I still have some more research to do and I want another large table for my room where I could set the enclosure.