Beardies, especially young beardies, are insectivores. As they get older, they switch to being primarily herbivores (75% veggies, 25% insects), but the young ones that are growing fast need mostly insects for the high protein content.
So I now have a bin of pet store crickets in my house, and a bin of cockroaches. You read that right, I actually paid real money and bought roaches off of Ebay to feed to Critter and breed as a self-sustaining food source. Roaches. Off Ebay.
These are dubia roaches, not the horrible house-infesting kind that I lived with in my cheap apartment in grad school. Gourmet roaches, as it were. These can't fly, can't jump, can't climb smooth surfaces, don't smell or try to escape or make noise like the crickets do (yeah, ugh, we won't be maintaining those in the house after this lot is eaten), and live quite happily in a plastic tub. They multiply easily but not too fast, and have minimal maintenance needs. Or so the internet tells me.
They are basically mobile protein pellets.
These are just half-grown baby roaches, the size to feed to a baby bearded dragon. When the roaches are full grown, they are about two inches long, and we'll see how I feel about holding them when that time comes. Right now, they aren't too squicky.
According to Critter, they are absolutely the most delicious, greatest thing ever in the entire world.
Ever.
He froze at the end because my cat walked into the room.
The roaches seem pretty harmless so far. But still, the fact remains that I am now raising a colony of roaches. Never thought I would say that.
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