New feeding strategy

[NickG1987]

So pretty much up to now my baby beardie Gojira has been eating pretty solidly, about 25-40 crickets a day and a nice big salad. Recently I decided to treat him a little better and bought him some phoenix worms which he absolutely loves! Today, I happened to run across (quite literally) a reptile supply store only 1.5 miles from my house which I had no idea existed. I walked in and was shocked. Everything a beardie could ever possible want! Phoenix, supers, wax, silk, hornworms. Crickets, discoid, and dubia roaches too! So I bought him some dubias to try and he loves them. Then I checked up on it and phoenix worms are super high in calcium and not great in protein. The dubias are high in protein but lack substantial calcium. I've been feeding him a little of both, usually 5-10 phoenix worms and about 5-7 small dubias per feeding. I was curious as to whether this is a balanced diet for him, with a salad of course! Also, with the super high calcium in the phoenix worms, combined with the amount of them he eats, should I still dust the dubias? Bear in mind I feed him 3x a day so it's usually around 15-30 phoenix worms and 15-21 small dubias each day. I dust his salad with the multivitamin 3x a week, but I don't want him getting too much calcium to the point it hurts him. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[jarich]

No need to worry about the extra calcium unless the calcium you have has Vit D3 added to it. Extra calcium is simply excreted in their wastes rather than absorbed, unless it is paired with too much Vit D3. The roaches you can gut load with a good high calcium feed like spaghetti squash and alfalfa if you dont want to dust them.

Thats great that you have a place with such variety just down the road. Dont worry about the protein levels in the phoenix worms. All insects have more than enough protein requirements for your dragon, so there is no bug that is lacking in that department. But keeping up the variety will ensure that you dont have nutritional shortcomings that come from just using one or two insects.