REALLY big feeders?

[nightanole]

So im thinking of adding a tegu to the family...

I dont want to feed it rodents, but after about 5lbs in weight, dubia are not going to cut it.

Any of the parson folk have ideas on BIG insects i can breed?

 

[NickTide]

Hissers are the biggest readily available feeders I know of. Get your colony started early, they aren't as fast to get started as reaching maturity takes longer than dubias. Did you research to make sure tegus do ok without rodents? I have no idea.... just throwing it out there. I imagine you have... I know you know your stuff with chams.

Orange heads are bigger than dubias but not huge.

Mantis would take alot of effort (separate cages and lots of flies) to get to a large size but would work.

You could probably also collect hellgramites (dobson fly larvae- they pinch hard) and dragonfly larvae and let them pupate. You need to check out if they have proper nutrition and if they are safe. both are water larvae so a clean stream is necessary for collection.

As a treat, it might enjoy Vietnamese stick insects. They take a long time to reach adult hood... 2-3 months to hatch then like 6 months to reach adulthood.

Not sure if I told you anything you didnt already know.

 

[laurie]

In addition to hissers, I use orange heads. My parsons loves them!

 

[NickTide]

How about snails. Andee has started raising them (I think) but I dont know if they are available for sale yet. I think people raise the escargot kind which are pretty big.

Will they take night crawlers? Supposed to be very nutritious and full of calcium.

Will they ignore dubias because they are too small or will they just need like 100 at a time? If they will eat them it may be easier pound for pound to raise dubias over other insects. Plus the males are bigger and there is always a surplus if you are raising large quantities. A 40 breeder could probably supply a good chunk of your needs. Maybe all of it... I don't know much about their diet.

 

[nick barta]

In Roaches, Orange Heads are 2-3 times heavier than Dubia, and produce as well IMO. Nick Tide was right on Hissers, they do take time to get going and are long lived, so small nymphs take time to become big nymphs. The Giant Cave Roach and the Giant Peppered Roach are as long as Hissers, but probably a smidge lighter, their advantage over Hissers is a softer exoskeleton.
If you have Blackberry or Oak available, I have 2 stick insects Calluma Keepers use for their chameleons, Australian Sticks and Diapherodes Gigantea.
Care sheets on all above are on my webpage fullthrottlefeeders.com, the roaches under "Care Sheets" the Sticks under "More."

CHEERS!

Nick

 

[NickTide]

Didn't realize the orange heads were that much bigger. BTW. I have ordered some bugs from Nick Barta. He took good care of me and sent me quality bugs at a good price.

 

[Fiona's Mom]

I know someone who has exotic pets and the will eat hard boiled eggs...I will check to see what else they eat.

 

[Fiona's Mom]

So im thinking of adding a tegu to the family...

I dont want to feed it rodents, but after about 5lbs in weight, dubia are not going to cut it.

Any of the parson folk have ideas on BIG insects i can breed?

I have friends that have exotic animals and one is a tegu. They do school programs with them. I called them and they said they feed their tegu hard boiled eggs during programs because people don't usually want to watch them eat rodents. Normally though they buy frozen dead rats and feed them those.

 

[nightanole]

Thanks for the ideas guys.

The idea was for a supplement for a few years once dubia are too small. Just looking for something alive that they can chase. Ive done the frozen rodents for a decade (peace and love mousefactory, we hardly knew you) but im not going to feed live "animals".

Yea i know about the mixed diet with the half cooked eggs etc.

Next question is after finding one, will it grow up to be a 10lb little female, or a 25lb bull male...

Some on needs to make a 5-7lb model of beardy and ill be set. Or i can just win the lotto and get as real Australian frilly and not the new guinea's.

 

[Andee]

I feed some interesting things to my blue tongue who eats like a Tegu. I feed meat, raw, and from frozen but thawed to room temp, fuzzies, a full grown tegu could do young rats or adult mice I am sure. But my blue tongue, gets beef heart, rabbit hearts, rabbit kidneys, and beef kidneys, sometimes pork, he gets meat from the listed animals. He also gets whole insects. Veggies and fruits. Eggs in both hardboiled form and scrambled. Then he also gets his insects dusted regularly and then since he only gets meat and whole mice about 1 meal out of the week he gets dusting on about 4 of his other meals.

 

[Andee]

Btw I haven't got my snails to hatch yet that have been laid. But I do likely have eggs from the way the adults have been acting I would usually seperate the eggs but I have learned some things about snail eggs recently so I have checking the snails every day and once I see babies I will be separating them. My bluey does not like night crawlers but he wasn't offered them until older, so he could just be picky with them. There are several eublaberus species that get HUGE but they can also have some pretty strong defensive odors.... as your Tegu turns to an adult I think they must have a 75% vegetation diet in captivity depending on how big the enclosure is, how often you feed it, how much you feed it, and how much exercise it gets.

 

[nightanole]

Btw I haven't got my snails to hatch yet that have been laid. But I do likely have eggs from the way the adults have been acting I would usually seperate the eggs but I have learned some things about snail eggs recently so I have checking the snails every day and once I see babies I will be separating them. My bluey does not like night crawlers but he wasn't offered them until older, so he could just be picky with them. There are several eublaberus species that get HUGE but they can also have some pretty strong defensive odors.... as your Tegu turns to an adult I think they must have a 75% vegetation diet in captivity depending on how big the enclosure is, how often you feed it, how much you feed it, and how much exercise it gets.

Hold the phone...

75% veg? I heard it was the opposite, a mostly meat diet (henz the extra stinky poop like monitors). You make the claim you feed them like bearded dragons. Im going to have to look into this.

In my youth i raised a beardy on just pinkies, it never ate veg for some reason...

 

[kinyonga]

You might like to read these..
http://tegusfromaroundtheworld.weebly.com/food-list.html
https://thetegutupinambis.weebly.com/what-will-my-tegu-eat.html

 

[Andee]

@nightanole I know onnthhe wild Tegus are mostly vegetarian but in captivity they prefer protein. I am not sure if feeding a high protein diet is what they need (just cause they prefer it) might need to watch what your Tegu looks like as far as weight gains and adjust accordingly? Have you joined the Tegu forums? They might be able to help more than I can since I have never personally kept a Tegu just done the odd research here and there. Chronos I feed more a 50/50 diet of meat and veggie because he isn't a chunky blue tongue. But I don't feed him a staple diet of cat or dog food like most bluey keepers do, I just don't think it's smart. He actually keeps a more muscular body shape with his diet the way it is. So I just adjust if I think he needs to put on weight or not. Sometimes it really depends on individuals <3 lemme know what you find out. I would love to know for certain ^^

 

[Goose502]

I have heard of tegu keepers who utilize a bioactive enclosure placing dozens of adult Dubai roaches in as part of the clean up crew. The adult tegus will snack on them, and the nymphs will help get rid of poop, and any food left around the enclosure. Also saw a guy who had a few dozen anoles in the enclosure too, his way of population control on the roaches, and the tegu would occasionally snack on the anoles. Personally, roaches freak me out and I would never do that though.

 

[nightanole]

I have heard of tegu keepers who utilize a bioactive enclosure placing dozens of adult Dubai roaches in as part of the clean up crew. The adult tegus will snack on them, and the nymphs will help get rid of poop, and any food left around the enclosure. Also saw a guy who had a few dozen anoles in the enclosure too, his way of population control on the roaches, and the tegu would occasionally snack on the anoles. Personally, roaches freak me out and I would never do that though.

Thats pretty horrifying....

Thats 1 step away from having an ingress of dubia in the house. Some people quiver at the idea of only a few feeders escaping.


Eh still it appears you can feed them like beardies, and as they get older you should feed them more and more veg. And like beardies, they will eat more live food vs veg, if given the opportunity.