Feeding Live Food cost effectively

[lanky1980]

Hi,

I have a juvenile bearded dragon and have read that they eat around 20+ crickets a day. In NZ breeding crickets is harder than overseas (I am told) and we don't have the same varieties. Hence the cost of ordering these from suppliers is about $75 for 100.
This means crickets alone are over $100 a week.
Can anyone shed any light on how they feed their beardies cost effectively as this can not be feasible for most people right?

[goodwinb]

(20-01-2016 12:39 PM)lanky1980 Wrote:  Hi,

I have a juvenile bearded dragon and have read that they eat around 20+ crickets a day. In NZ breeding crickets is harder than overseas (I am told) and we don't have the same varieties. Hence the cost of ordering these from suppliers is about $75 for 100.
This means crickets alone are over $100 a week.
Can anyone shed any light on how they feed their beardies cost effectively as this can not be feasible for most people right?

They don't require anywhere near 20 crickets per day. For an adult you could expect to use around 5 - 10 decent sized insects per week, depending on temperature and the animals body condition. Flowers, fresh leafy greens, some vegetables and fruit should make up a large part of the diet. Younger animals will take less plant material (still offer it regularly, though) but insects of a suitable size should be offered more regularly, even daily if you can at this time of year. If it's not eating it's plant material then it's probably getting far too many bugs.

[PAUL DANVEGAS]

Babies are more expensive to feed. Once they are a bit older they eat a lot more veges etc.
Feed live food every second day.
You can buy pallets. They will eat them just not all the time.
Cans of grasshoppers are good too. They are bigger than crickets so go further.
Or feed them some insects and heaps of greens.
They are totally worth it.
If you still stressing the cost get a blue tongue skink. Cheap to keep and very cool.