I’ve been trying to switch my bearded dragons and water dragons to freeze-dried crickets rather than live ones. For the last few years, I’ve bought crickets by the carton (1000 per) and kept them in a 10 gallon tank. They aren’t much work to maintain, needing only a dish of cricket bites and some old paper towel rolls to climb on. And, even though they don’t escape from the tank, they always manage to pull a Houdini from the dragon cages.

My family is rather patient with my hobby and tolerates the occasional cricket hopping across the living room. I don’t mind all that much stooping to pick up the wandering insect and dropping it into a cage. I have reached a point in my herp collection, though, where convenience is starting to become a factor.

Last week, I decided to give freeze-dried foods a chance. I read the suggestions at Fluker Farms and it sounded like something I could easily handle. My dragons, on the other hand, were not as excited at the prospect.

After some trial and error, I was finally able to convince Neo and Trinity to try the crix. I put them in a dish with a handful of small mealworms. In their efforts to eat the worms, they would grab the occasional cricket. They are now eating an 80/20 mix of mealworms/freeze-dried crickets.

I’ve tried this technique with Morpheus and the water dragons (who still don’t have a name), but they are not interested in the non-moving food at all. They will use their nose to move the dead things out of their way to get to the worms.

So, today at PetsMart, I saw what I thought was the ultimate solution — a vibrating feeding dish by Exo Terra called the “Vivicator”. The box says “simulates insect movement” and “triggers feeding behaviour”. Excellent! I picked up one Vivicator and headed home.

The dish takes 3 AA batteries, which were no problem. I installed those, placed some freeze-dried goodies on the dish and placed it in Morpheus’ cage. Then, I pushed the remote control… and oh my… how loud the dish was! Morpheus looked at the dish and then looked at me as if to say “You’ve GOT to be kidding”. I wasn’t even going to give it a go with the water dragons - they’re even pickier than old Morph.

Needless to say, I cleaned the dish, removed my batteries and put it back in the box to return to the store. I’m disappointed that it wasn’t the answer I thought it was. But, I’m even more disappointed at the sales guy who said “it’s whisper quiet”. Either he didn’t understand the question or he was just looking to unload some product. Regardless, it will be back on their shelf tomorrow.

So, now I’m back to trying to come up with creative ways to convince Morph and the girls that the dried stuff is good, too. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. I just ordered another batch of worms from Worm Man’s Worm Farm — a great supplier of live feeders with exceptional customer service.

Tags: Pets