Live vs. freeze-dried crickets

[Angiebeast]

Hey everyone. I work at a petshop, and we had a sub-adult beardie returned to us recently in pretty rough condition (broken leg, parasites--not sure what this poor beardie was put through, but it wasn't pretty). Fortunately, she's well on the mend, but she'll have to be adopted out as it's against the store's policy to profit from deformed animals. Many of the managers want me to take her, as I'm one of the more knowledgeable reptile people in the store, and I'll admit I'm getting tempted.

One thing I'm not sure about though is whether a dragon would do well if it was mainly fed freeze-dried crickets in addition to the vegetable component of its diet. There seems to be a lot of debate about whether freeze-dried crickets are comparable to live, and I was wondering if anyone here had any evidence or experiences to support either side of the issue. I have no problems with live crickets right now, but I know I'm not going to be working at the pet shop forever, and at that point it won't be easy for me to get to the store every other week. I suppose there's always ordering online, but I wanted to ask about this too just to be sure. This particular dragon I know will eat pre-killed crickets so it's not an issue of whether she'll take them or not. Thanks!

[babyknees]

I don't know if there's a reason not to use freeze dried crickets. My dragon won't eat them and I don't really feed crickets to him because I've also find that myself and my dragon prefer a variety of worms. I've found silkworms and reptiworms to be very easy to keep alive in mass quantities and both can be ordered online. Sometimes I pick up some superworms which are also easy to keep. Those are some alternatives to consider. I hate trying to keep crickets alive - they seem to die no matter what.