So while I've always been very interested in researching as much as possible about the dietary needs of any animals I have had in my care, over the past couple of years I've started to feel more and more strongly that when trying to provide the best possible captive diet for herps in particular, that providing not only appropriate foods, but making a concerted effort to provide a very wide variety appropriate foods is also necessary for a truly optimal diet.
While I am trying to apply this concept to all the diets of all my pets, lately I've been considering the best way to achieve this in the current and future diet plans of my new baby beardie. He/she (I've this little booger for about 3 weeks now and I still can't decide on a name--I feel like such a horrible beardie mama!) is currently about 6-7 weeks old so while greens will be offered, right now we're looking at a diet mainly consisting of live invertebrate prey. I currently have two feeder roach colonies--a Lobster roach colony that is breeding out of control lol and my Dubia colony that I've had for a while but made the mistake of feeding out of before giving it time to really get established (several times :/--oops) so I'm trying to give it some time to get going again although as long as I only feed sparingly from it from now it should be fine. So I currently have 2 different species of roaches readily available. I also decided to try my hand at starting a small mealworm colony since they're supposed to be extremely easy. These would be used very sparingly with my beardie, and only when older just to be on the safe side. While I have no desire to breed my own crix, I would like to have them available to rotate in regulary with the roaches. I'm thinking of ordering them once a month online, enough to make up a decent part of the live prey part of the diet but only as many as I can expect to keep alive long enough to feed most of them before they croak. Also considering adding starting a feeder colony of one more roach species down the line--I'd like to try my hand at P. nivea (Green Banana Roach) or maybe discoids. While I don't want to use any of the feeder worms as one my "staples", I think they definitely would be useful in small amounts as another way of providing more variety. It will be a while before my little one is really ready for the larger worms, Reptiworms/Pheonix/Calci-worms are small enough to start using now and being soft-bodied don't pose the impaction risk of some of the larger worms.
So I already have the dubia and lobster colonies going, some small waxworms in my fridge to be used sparingly as treats, am hoping the mealworm colony starts producing, and then I'll be ordering appropriately sized small crickets this week also--well, that might have to wait a bit due to stupid high temps here right now that sadly probably won't be improving any for a a couple of months at least. Maybe I can find a local cricket breeder to purchase from in the meantime as well as someone local I might be able to get some Calci/Phoenix worms from.
So my staple feeders would be the dubias, lobsters, and crickets, with the waxworms, mealworms, and BSF larvae offered sparingly to provide even more variety. Once my beardie is large enough for them to be safe to feed, I can also rotate in supers, hornworms, and silkies along with the other worms. With the plan to start colonies of at least one (hopefully 2) more species of feeder roaches also to rotate in as staples that would give me 5 different "staple" insects and possibly 6 different types of feeder worms to be used in careful moderation as treats and to add yet more variety.
If anyone else has tried (or is currently doing) something similar to this I would love to hear from you! Would also appreciate any ideas, suggestions, input, etc. from all the other keepers on here regarding this plan.
And yes, I plan on providing as much variety as possible with the greens and veggies that will be making up more and more of the diet very quickly. I won't get into all that right now though
While I am trying to apply this concept to all the diets of all my pets, lately I've been considering the best way to achieve this in the current and future diet plans of my new baby beardie. He/she (I've this little booger for about 3 weeks now and I still can't decide on a name--I feel like such a horrible beardie mama!) is currently about 6-7 weeks old so while greens will be offered, right now we're looking at a diet mainly consisting of live invertebrate prey. I currently have two feeder roach colonies--a Lobster roach colony that is breeding out of control lol and my Dubia colony that I've had for a while but made the mistake of feeding out of before giving it time to really get established (several times :/--oops) so I'm trying to give it some time to get going again although as long as I only feed sparingly from it from now it should be fine. So I currently have 2 different species of roaches readily available. I also decided to try my hand at starting a small mealworm colony since they're supposed to be extremely easy. These would be used very sparingly with my beardie, and only when older just to be on the safe side. While I have no desire to breed my own crix, I would like to have them available to rotate in regulary with the roaches. I'm thinking of ordering them once a month online, enough to make up a decent part of the live prey part of the diet but only as many as I can expect to keep alive long enough to feed most of them before they croak. Also considering adding starting a feeder colony of one more roach species down the line--I'd like to try my hand at P. nivea (Green Banana Roach) or maybe discoids. While I don't want to use any of the feeder worms as one my "staples", I think they definitely would be useful in small amounts as another way of providing more variety. It will be a while before my little one is really ready for the larger worms, Reptiworms/Pheonix/Calci-worms are small enough to start using now and being soft-bodied don't pose the impaction risk of some of the larger worms.
So I already have the dubia and lobster colonies going, some small waxworms in my fridge to be used sparingly as treats, am hoping the mealworm colony starts producing, and then I'll be ordering appropriately sized small crickets this week also--well, that might have to wait a bit due to stupid high temps here right now that sadly probably won't be improving any for a a couple of months at least. Maybe I can find a local cricket breeder to purchase from in the meantime as well as someone local I might be able to get some Calci/Phoenix worms from.
So my staple feeders would be the dubias, lobsters, and crickets, with the waxworms, mealworms, and BSF larvae offered sparingly to provide even more variety. Once my beardie is large enough for them to be safe to feed, I can also rotate in supers, hornworms, and silkies along with the other worms. With the plan to start colonies of at least one (hopefully 2) more species of feeder roaches also to rotate in as staples that would give me 5 different "staple" insects and possibly 6 different types of feeder worms to be used in careful moderation as treats and to add yet more variety.
If anyone else has tried (or is currently doing) something similar to this I would love to hear from you! Would also appreciate any ideas, suggestions, input, etc. from all the other keepers on here regarding this plan.
And yes, I plan on providing as much variety as possible with the greens and veggies that will be making up more and more of the diet very quickly. I won't get into all that right now though
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