Can you feed Bearded Dragons freeze dried locusts ect instead of live ones?

Question

I want to get a bearded Dragon as my sister has one and I have looked after it on a few occations. But Im not too keen on the idea of having live crickets and locusts in my flat and feeding live prey to my dragon (if I do get one) I have seen on various websites you can get freeze dried locusts and crickets ect for lizards and was wondering if this would be an option I could use? Can anyone help? Or if you have any other ideas as to what I could do instead please let me know :)

Answer 1

I would suggest you get a veggie lizard instead eg spiny tailed lizards. Beardies go for movement and its part of their natural behaviour. Also I don't think dried insects have the same nutritional value as live ones.

Answer 2

No - they are not a suitable alternative.

Their diet is LIVE food and veg... there is no way out of feeding live bugs without compromising your beardies health and happiness.

You could minimise the amount of bugs by buying an adult bearded dragon that DEFINATELY eats its veg (some don't).

An adult beardie eats about 65% veg so you would only need to buy in the large bugs which you can get in smaller quanities and feed only a couple every day or so.

Larger bugs move slower and are easier to control and catch if needs be.

If this is still too many bugs for you liking - i suggest looking into a vegetarian lizard such as an iguanan... but these are not know for being as placid as bearded dragons.

Answer 3

No he probably won't eat the freeze dried locusts as normally the lizard has to see the prey move,though some are greedy things!

Our bearded Dragon would/will eat dead locusts,BUT you will need to make it move(the insect i mean..!) Like move it around in front of the beardie,this way he might be temped to eat it,he won't eat a still dead unmoving one,unless hes VERY hungary. Plus freeze dried ones will cost allot more than alive locusts,so sorry i would suggest live ones these are,cheeper,easier to feed & nicer for the lizard,but the way,i don't like feeding the bugs to my beardie,but its what they eat!! ewww..

To feed live locusts if you don't like to handle them just open the vivarium & tip a few locusts out,this way you tend to avoid touching the bugs!! Though it definately worth keeping a bearded dragon,even though they eat insects! You can easily handle them & They are very cute(well my one is!)

So just think(try to!) of the benefits of keeping him/her.

Hope this helps & you get a Bearded Dragon! Best wishes! x*x