This is the exact beardie food I am recommending as an alternative to an All Purpose Poultry Feed:
Zoo Med's Natural Adult Bearded Dragon Food. It comes in small pellets.
Click:
Foods for Bearded Dragons: Zoo Med Natural Adult Bearded Dragon Food at Drs. Foster and Smith
I would not recommend Blaptica dubia as a staple feeder. Charts suggest that roaches contain too much protein. How accurate these charts are I do not know.
Check out: Causes of gout.
On the other hand crickets have much less protein and a reasonable amount of fat.
Don't know whether you guys have seen these. Kept in this manner cricket smell is quite minimal. It's very easy to keep them alive for up to about 3 months past purchase. Part of the smell is decaying vegetables and too much moisture.
Click:
http://www.geckosunlimited.com/comm...-feeding-issues/68574-cricket-guidelines.html
I do not think that chart is accurate at all Elizabeth. Was scrolling through earlier post about dubia roaches vs crickets and this is what Riverside reptiles had to say:
"This is false information. Please disregard. The nutritional values of a feeder are directly affected by the diet of that particular insect. Also, the nutritional needs of a "gecko" vary from species to species. So, to make a blanket statement such as "dubia are too high in protein" is ridiculous (especially when one doesn't know what species the insect is being fed to and one doesn't know what the feeder has been fed).
Dubia, IMO have a lot of benefits over crickets. They have much larger intestinal tracts which allow them to be gut loaded better. They live far longer than crickets. They have a much higher meat to shell ratio. And no, unless you live in a tropical area, they won't infest your house like a domestic roach.
Any insect that you use should be gut loaded prior to feeding. As mentioned, lateralis roaches (red runners, turks, etc) are another good alternative. They are more cricket sized and their high activity levels help to stimulate the prey drive in many geckos. THey also breed faster than dubia.
I suggest reading through the many older posts in this feeder section for more details as there are benefits and downsides to all feeders. I utilize dubia, lateralis, crickets, and lobster roaches with my animals. Each insect has it's ups and downs. There are also many older posts with good information pertaining to gut loading as well as proper feeding of your feeders."
I highly recommend reading this thread if anyone is debating on whether using crickets or roaches:
http://www.geckosunlimited.com/community/feeders-food-nutrition/70245-dubia-roaches-vs-crickets.html
