Live Feeder Insects for Bearded Dragons

The major food for bearded dragons as diet are live insects, typically ranges from crickets, mealworms, waxworms, superworms and other insects; as crickets being one of the commonly available source of food for them. They like live insects.

As mentioned in “Feeding for Bearded Dragon Across Different Ages”, please be careful when feeding little baby bearded dragons. It is not recommended to feed them with mealworms due to the hard shell that may cause impaction. Small crickets are recommended; you can buy it from the nearest pet stores or breed yourself.

Some dragon’s owners will try to catch several types of insects to feed their bearded dragons. However, you can’t be sure that the insects are safe for your pet especially the cleanliness, parasites or bacteria infected, or might be toxic to pet dragons due to chemicals such as herbicides. In captivity, it is the better practice to feed them on raised insects. You may inquire from pet store before purchasing. The best way is to breed the insects yourself. Cricket is the easiest to breed. Crickets Breeding Made Simple is the best book I’ve ever read, and I’m breeding my own crickets now.

It is easy to pass the nutrients to your bearded dragon through food feeding. Simply gut load the prey. Crickets are one of the easiest insects for gut loading. They will eat everything that is fed to them. This makes the gut-loading easier through crickets. Rep-Cal, ESU, T-Rex, oatmeal, wheat bread, oranges, apples, collard greens, kale, and collard greens are some of the good food for crickets.

It’s harder to gut load other insects such as mealworms, superworms or waxworms compared to cricket but it can be done as well. You can gut load mealworms with bran, oatmeal, vegetable or fruits. However, sometime you may find it difficult.

Many bearded dragon owners have confirmed that the cricket is the main source of diet for bearded dragon as the crickets simply eat everything and gut loading them is easy. It should be reminded that gut loading to cricket should be done night before feeding them to your bearded dragons because high nutrients and vitamins consumption in fact kill the crickets. Make sure the gut loading to crickets is done properly.