# Question for the Ackie & beardie keepers out there....



## Jesse_H (Sep 28, 2011)

Hi there, 

I'm trying to decide which is the better lizard for me - an ackie or a beardie? I don't mind how much initial setup is and I am confident I can provide optimal living conditions for either. My main concern is long term costs involved in feeding - crickets here are bloody expensive!!! So which would you all say is the least expensive to keep of the two from a long term perspective? Thanks for your input!


----------



## Chris1 (Sep 28, 2011)

regarding long term feeding costs, beardies would be waaaaaay cheaper.

Their first year they do eat alot of crickets and a bit of salad, but from 6 months onwards their cricket intake is reduced and salads upped till teyre 85-90% vegetarian by the time theyre 18 months old.

mostly greens (bok choy/chinese broc, pumpkin, beans etc and a few crix or roaches a week.

Ackies have an all insect diet.


its not jsut the expense of live feeders (breed ur own roaches, its free!!) but the availability, getting to petshops, the quality of the crickets by the end of the week etc that makes it a pain.

plus beardies are great for handling,....


----------



## maddog-1979 (Sep 28, 2011)

yeah, you can keep around 5-6 beardies for the same food cost of keeping a dog. never had ackies tho so couldnt tell about that


----------



## Jesse_H (Sep 28, 2011)

Excellent, thanks guys. I've just begun preparations for experimenting the breeding of silkworm, and I've decided to set up a roach colony in the garage too. I have a turtle that will enjoy either too... I think I should maybe just cheat and get a beardie that's past the 6 month mark so I can save on the feeders....


----------



## maddog-1979 (Sep 28, 2011)

where are you located? i have some hatchies due in 5 weeks :twisted:


----------



## Jesse_H (Sep 28, 2011)

I'm in Melbourne - I'm still unsure what to get, a hatchie or yearling. I'm considering forking out for a fancy red phase, but then again I'm a poor person so I will probably get something random and cheap from classifieds here!


----------



## maddog-1979 (Sep 28, 2011)

hatchies are good to watch grow up, but if you want something you can handle right away go for juvie/yearling. hatchies are just too small to get out often . i have a nice yellow pair that i breed, thinkin about getting some reds myself but the snake addiction got kinda outta control in the last few months,lol


----------



## timmy82 (Sep 28, 2011)

i keep and breed both beardies are alot cheaper but i find ackies are far more active thou u cant handle them like beardies and if u want ackies start breeding crickets it is way cheaper


----------



## Jesse_H (Sep 28, 2011)

Some really practical and helpful advice guys, thanks maddog & timmy, I'm certainly erring more towards a yearling beardie. Just have to decide what colour now haha!


----------



## Jeannine (Sep 28, 2011)

*dont know about all the breeders but i bought all my reptiles on 'you keep i pay them off' and the breeders were more then happy with that so long as your consistent and honest, maybe pick a juvi and pay it off while its eating is established and it grows a bit*


----------



## notechistiger (Sep 29, 2011)

Another thing, silkworms can't be used year round to feed your reptiles. Would definitely recommend getting beardeds first.


----------



## Jesse_H (Sep 29, 2011)

Hi notechistiger, that's interesting what you say about the silkworms, do you mean that they are not a suitable staple diet or that they are just not available all year round? I've read that silkworms are among the most nutritious of the live insect feeder options and were a good staple diet for insect eating lizards? Just curious, would love to hear more of your thoughts on that. I've also just ordered some fluon from herpshop to commence breeding woodies


----------



## Jeannine (Sep 29, 2011)

*for the silkworms you need to have access to mulberry leaves, i can get my hands on them so might look into getting some myself plus thinking of potting up a weeping mulberry for the fruit and leaves*


----------



## notechistiger (Sep 29, 2011)

They're not available year round. Their season ends when the malberry trees stop producing the leaves they eat. There is a commercial food that they sometimes eat overseas, but apparently it's expensive and not particularly good for them. Others have also tried lettuce leaves, which aren't very nutritional and the worms often die. It's far easier to take advantage of them when they're in season and breed roaches or crickets other wise.

Here's a link if you'd like to give it a try anyway (not sure if it works xD)

How to Make Silkworm Chow - wikiHow


----------



## Laghairt (Sep 29, 2011)

I keep a trio of ackies and while it is true that they can really get through the insects, my woody colony is never under any serious pressure. You can also feed ackies meat and monitor mixes etc which can be made very cheaply. 500g of turkey mince lasts me over 3 months. I mix in other ingredients that make it very nutritious.


----------



## saximus (Sep 29, 2011)

Rondo said:


> I keep a trio of ackies and while it is true that they can really get through the insects, my woody colony is never under any serious pressure. You can also feed ackies meat and monitor mixes etc which can be made very cheaply. 500g of turkey mince lasts me over 3 months. I mix in other ingredients that make it very nutritious.


I was gonna say mine live off pinky mice as a staple (which I breed myself) and get crickets every now and then for variety and so they can get the "thrill of the hunt". So my two ackies are cheaper than my pygmy beardie was. Obviously not everyone breeds mice though either


----------



## Laghairt (Sep 29, 2011)

Saximus, how do they do on pinkies? I've been thinking of breeding some mice myself but remember reading that pinkies may not be the healthiest diet for them as adults but there was no evidence to back this up.

I supplement my ackies diet with chopped up pinky rats at the moment but only my male really seems to like them, he will eat an entire pinky rat in one sitting.

Do you feed the pinky mice live? I was thinking that might help get my females to start eating them, for some reason the females seem to prefer mince and insects.


----------



## saximus (Sep 29, 2011)

They do pretty well on them. I asked a while ago if they could live off them as a staple because I hated having to buy crickets for my pygmy beardie. I don't think they have much in the way of nutrition so, like crickets, they need to be dusted from time to time. Hopefully they'll be on hoppers/weaners when they're older so they get a bit more calcium from the more developed bones.
I don't feed live mostly because I feel slack about it but also they seem to prefer them when they are a day old or so. I have put FT and FK in with them and they both end up just sitting till the next day. I'm yet to try mince though. I think it would be a great, cheap alternative as well but from seeing other people who do it, it tends to get stinky pretty fast.


----------



## Laghairt (Sep 29, 2011)

OK thanks, I'll probably buy a pair of mice and give it a try, mine would be able to swallow fuzzies fairly easily.

I haven't had problems with mince stinking, through trial and error I have worked out about how much they will eat in one day so there is usually only a small amount left over. In my enclosure this tends to go dry and hard by the time I get home rather than putrid and smelly (if that makes sense). The problem with mince is that the Phosphorous - Ca ratio is something like 20:1 and there is virtually no roughage. I always mix a lot of calcium powder into any mince offered. A cheap way to add roughage to the mince is to buy frozen crix which are much cheaper than live. I did this for a while but now prefer to just make sure they get plenty of live insects in addition to any meat.


----------



## PeppersGirl (Sep 29, 2011)

If you get a good woodie colony going you can easily feed anything. I have an adult beardie and juvenile ackie and still wind up with an insect overload!


----------



## saximus (Sep 29, 2011)

For those of you who feed woodies, how do you stop them escaping the enclosures? With crickets it's easy because they can't climb but woodies could just crawl out even in a glass viv. I'd love to start a colony (so much easier than crickets) but that's the biggest thing that worried me


----------



## PeppersGirl (Sep 29, 2011)

I never let the insects loose in the enclosures if I can help it, because of the risk of leaving some at night.
My lizards look for theirs in a container I always use so they know it's food - If you use calcium/vitamin to dust the sides of the container before adding the woodies they can't climb the sides 
For the geckos I do the same type of thing, but a shallow container and I just leave the woodies in it overnight, they pick them out at will!


----------



## maddog-1979 (Sep 29, 2011)

i made up some little mince packets for my lizards , just mixed in some calci powder and a heap of wombaroo, portioned it into 1 meal bits then froze them. only use it every now and then for when i run out of crickets/woodies as the pet stores here run out all the time, i wouldnt use the mince as a staple diet tho, but it's good for the occasional treat. i will be starting my own woodie colony soon so hopefully my lizards will become much cheaper to feed


----------



## Herpboy (Mar 4, 2012)

I can really help you because I have both of them 

I prefer ackies but they require at least a 2-3 foot tank 

Beardies don't really need a big tank because they are baskers

Ackies are more active and put on a show when they eat

Beardies are not active so that is why they do not need a large cage

So the opinion is yours you can get either all


----------



## ingie (Mar 4, 2012)

I hand feed/tong feed all my lizards to make sure I can keep track of what they eat, and that there are no escapees in the house. My ackies lived on the biggest sized baby mice I could get them to comfortably eat, and woodies. If you get 1000 or so woodies to start a colony with, and a small breeding colony of mice, you will never look back


----------



## kr0nick (Mar 4, 2012)

ingie said:


> I hand feed/tong feed all my lizards to make sure I can keep track of what they eat, and that there are no escapees in the house. My ackies lived on the biggest sized baby mice I could get them to comfortably eat, and woodies. If you get 1000 or so woodies to start a colony with, and a small breeding colony of mice, you will never look back


Same here ingie, Or I use A plastic shallow container with A fluon strip to keep woodies in if I don't have time to hand feed. And my ackie lives on woodies and supplementary pinkeys, same with my beardie but I only give him A pinkey/fuzzy mouse once A month other then that he gets woodies and vege mixs. And lol if you have more the 2 lizards I advice buying A few tubs with A kilo of mixed size per tub and alternate between once A month.


----------



## Chris1 (Mar 5, 2012)

Herpboy said:


> I can really help you because I have both of them
> 
> I prefer ackies but they require at least a 2-3 foot tank
> 
> ...



its recommended that beardies are housed in 4 foot enclosures, id love to know what u stick yours in if 2-3 foot is big,....!!

all of mine are very active and use every mm of their 4 foot plus enclosures, none of them sit on a rock all day basking.


----------



## saximus (Mar 5, 2012)

Yeah that's not really good advice Herpboy. Apart from the fact that this thread is almost six months old and he has probably made up his mind, 2-3 ft isn't big enough for anything other than hatchy/yearling Ackies. Maybe your Beardies just aren't active because they have no room to move...


----------



## Justdragons (Mar 5, 2012)

this is what i have built for 5 beardies, 2 hatchies are in the one large one and 3 adults live in the bank. the bank is 600 x 600 x 1200 each bay, this really should be a touch larger but for the time being its all the room i have. Anything much smaller just isnt fair. imagine living in a box your whole life... it would suck.


----------



## JrFear (Mar 5, 2012)

imagine living in a box your whole life... it would suck.[/QUOTE said:


> i feel sorry for all our reptiles then =[ :facepalm:


----------



## redlittlejim (Mar 5, 2012)

my ackies live off hopper mice and woodies. never tried the mince. and my beardies live off vege mix with a few woodies now and than. all the beardies are in 6ft fish tanks with fluon up the side so they can hunt all the woodies when they get them and the ackies i just put a ceramic bowl with fluon in around the edge. he grabs one out, walks away and crushes it on his rock to eat it. and does this 20times in a row. he is kept in a 1.2m by 1.6m and 60cm tall enclosure with thick vines and wood for him to roam on.


----------



## Justdragons (Mar 5, 2012)

redlittlejim said:


> my ackies live off hopper mice and woodies. Never tried the mince. And my beardies live off vege mix with a few woodies now and than. All the beardies are in 6ft fish tanks with fluon up the side so they can hunt all the woodies when they get them and the ackies i just put a ceramic bowl with fluon in around the edge. He grabs one out, walks away and crushes it on his rock to eat it. And does this 20times in a row. He is kept in a 1.2m by 1.6m and 60cm tall enclosure with thick vines and wood for him to roam on.



got any snaps of his enclosure?


----------



## redlittlejim (Mar 5, 2012)

will upload this avo. all the sand is out cause we shifting it to townsville on thursday but all the rest is screwed in and you will get the idea


----------



## PhilK (Mar 5, 2012)

Ackies are 50 million times better... whichever you choose just breed roaches - problem solved


----------



## MissFuller (Mar 19, 2012)

so how big do the ackies get and would the size of the tank effect there growth at all and some 1 said you cant handle them like a beardy why is that


----------

