Discoid Roaches vs. Earthworms: The Ultimate Bearded Dragon Feeding Guide
People ask me some version of this constantly: "Should I feed my bearded dragon roaches or worms?" And almost every time, the question is built on a false choice. It treats two feeders that do completely different jobs as if they're competing for the same slot in the bowl. They aren't. One is the engine of the diet. The other is a useful accessory you bolt on when it helps. Confusing the two is how dragons end up either underfed on protein or waterlogged on worms.
So this is the full breakdown of discoid roaches versus earthworms for bearded dragons — the real nutrition numbers (not the inflated ones that get copy-pasted around the internet), the specific role each feeder should play, how often and what size to feed by the dragon's age, the honest pros and cons of both, and my actual verdict. I'll also zoom out to the broader picture of what a healthy bearded dragon diet looks like, because you genuinely can't decide between two feeders without understanding the meal they're going into.
I keep feeder colonies and I feed reptiles every day, so everything here is the way I'd set it up for my own animals, with concrete numbers instead of vague reassurances.
Why this comparison matters more than it looks
A bearded dragon is an omnivore that changes its diet across its life. That single fact drives everything. Get the protein-to-plant balance wrong for the dragon's age and you get problems that show up months later: a juvenile that grows slowly because it's short on protein, or an adult that goes obese and develops fatty-liver disease because it's still eating like a baby.
The two biggest mistakes I see aren't exotic. They're boring, and they're nutritional:
- Not enough calcium, which leads to metabolic bone disease (MBD) — soft, deforming bones, a rubbery jaw, tremors, and in bad cases permanent disability. This is the number-one diet-caused tragedy in captive beardies, and it's almost entirely preventable.
- The wrong staple, where someone leans on a feeder that can't carry the load — too little protein, too much fat, or too much water — and the dragon's whole diet drifts out of balance.
Discoid roaches and earthworms sit on opposite sides of that second mistake. Roaches are a legitimate staple. Earthworms are not, and treating them like one is exactly the kind of slow-motion error that this guide exists to prevent. Once you understand why, the feeding plan basically writes itself.
Understanding what a bearded dragon actually needs
Before either feeder makes sense, you need the diet they're going into. A dragon's requirements shift with age, size, and activity, and the protein-to-plant ratio is the headline number.
Juveniles are protein machines
A hatchling or young juvenile is growing at a ferocious rate, and growth runs on protein. At this stage the diet skews heavily toward animal matter — roughly 70–80% insects and 20–30% vegetables is the standard target. This is the window where a strong staple feeder matters most, and where calcium supplementation is absolutely non-negotiable, because the skeleton is being built right now. Skimp on calcium during the juvenile phase and you're setting up MBD before the dragon is even a year old.
Adults flip the ratio
Somewhere around 12–18 months the dragon matures and the ratio inverts. An adult beardie should eat roughly 70–80% vegetables and leafy greens with 20–30% insect protein. Fiber-rich greens — collard, mustard, dandelion, turnip greens — become the base of the diet, and insects become the supplement. Keep feeding an adult like a juvenile and you get a fat dragon with a stressed liver. This is the single most common husbandry drift I see in otherwise loving owners: they never dial the protein back down.
Calcium, D3, and UVB are one system
You can feed a perfect protein-and-plant ratio and still produce a sick dragon if the calcium system is broken. Three pieces work together:
- Calcium, dusted onto feeders, supplies the raw mineral.
- Vitamin D3 lets the dragon actually absorb that calcium.
- UVB lighting lets the dragon synthesize its own D3 — the way it would under the Australian sun.
Most keepers run a calcium-only dust at most feedings and a calcium-with-D3 dust on a schedule, plus a proper UVB bulb that gets replaced on time (UVB output fades long before the bulb stops making visible light). Every feeder discussed below — roach or worm — is low in calcium. None of them solve this for you. Dusting and lighting are the fix, full stop.
Hydration
Dragons get most of their water from food and will drink from a dish or from droplets after a light misting. High-moisture foods help, and this is the one genuine nutritional argument in the earthworm's favor — more on that below. But hydration is a supporting role, not a reason to restructure a diet.
Discoid roaches: the staple, examined honestly
Discoid roaches (Blaberus discoidalis) are a tropical roach from Central and South America, and they've quietly become one of the most respected staple feeders in the hobby. I keep them, I feed them, and if I had to pick one staple insect for a southern-US keeper, this is it. But "best staple" isn't the same as "flawless," so here's the real ledger.
Pros of discoid roaches
- High, usable protein. Discoids are a genuinely high-protein feeder — the backbone nutrient a growing dragon needs. Just as important, that protein comes in an easy-to-digest package (more on chitin below), so the dragon actually gets the benefit.
- Moderate, sensible fat. They carry enough fat for energy without being a fat bomb. That's what makes them safe to feed regularly, unlike high-fat treat insects (superworms, waxworms) that wreck a diet if they become the staple.
- Soft bodies, low chitin. Chitin is the tough material in an insect's exoskeleton. Discoids run lower in chitin than crickets, which means less risk of digestive trouble and easier nutrient absorption — a real advantage for juveniles and smaller dragons.
- They don't climb smooth walls and don't burrow. This sounds like a keeping detail, but it matters at feeding time too: a discoid dropped in the enclosure stays visible and reachable instead of scaling the glass or vanishing into the substrate. You can actually see what your dragon ate.
- Nearly odorless and silent. Anyone who's kept crickets knows the smell and the chirping. A clean discoid colony is essentially both odor-free and quiet — a massive quality-of-life upgrade if you're breeding your own.
- Legal where dubia aren't. This is the big one for Florida keepers. Dubia roaches are restricted in Florida, while discoids are an accepted feeder there. Their heat tolerance is a bonus in that climate. Always confirm your own state and local rules before ordering, but for a lot of southern keepers, discoids win on legality alone.
- You can breed them at home. A properly set-up colony basically runs itself and gives you an endless, cheap supply of fresh, gut-loaded feeders. That's a genuine cost and quality advantage over buying insects every week.
Cons of discoid roaches
- Low in calcium. Like virtually every feeder insect, discoids have a poor calcium-to-phosphorus ratio. This is not a discoid problem, it's a feeder-insect problem, and the fix is the same as always: dust with calcium. I'm flagging it because you'll see breathless claims that discoids have a "balanced" calcium ratio — they don't, and believing that is how dragons end up calcium-deficient. Dust them.
- Higher upfront cost. A starter colony costs more than a cup of crickets. Over time, home breeding more than pays that back, but the first purchase stings a little.
- Slower to stir the hunt. Discoids move at a relaxed pace. Most dragons happily mow them down anyway, but a very food-motivated, hunting-driven dragon sometimes finds slow prey less exciting than a darting cricket. Easy to work around — hand-feed or jiggle the feeder — but worth knowing.
- They need real warmth to thrive (as a colony). If you breed your own, discoids demand a properly heated bin. Get the heat wrong and the colony stalls. This is a keeping concern, not a feeding one, and I cover it in depth in my dedicated colony guide.
If you want the full breeding-and-keeping playbook — enclosure build, heat and humidity numbers, gut-loading protocol, harvesting — I wrote a separate monument on exactly that: how to keep discoid roaches alive and producing. This guide stays focused on the feeding decision.
Earthworms: the supplement, examined honestly
Earthworms get pitched two opposite ways online: either as a secret super-feeder or as something borderline dangerous. Both are wrong. The truth is mundane — earthworms are a perfectly good occasional feeder with one real strength and a couple of genuine limits.
What earthworms bring to the table
- Moisture, lots of it. Earthworms are roughly 80–85% water. For a dragon that's a little dehydrated, recovering from illness, or just not a big drinker, a worm or two is a gentle, food-based hydration boost. This is their standout trait.
- Decent protein for a worm. They carry a respectable amount of protein for muscle and growth — not staple-level, but real. They also contribute some amino acids and trace minerals like iron.
- Soft and very easy to eat. No exoskeleton, no chitin, no hard head capsule. For young dragons or any animal with a sensitive gut, earthworms are about as easy to digest as a feeder gets.
- Cheap and widely available. A tub of farm-raised worms costs little and keeps in the fridge for a while.
Where earthworms fall short
- Low calcium, poor ratio. Same story as the roaches — earthworms have a suboptimal calcium-to-phosphorus balance and can't meet a dragon's calcium needs on their own. Fed plain and often, they contribute to deficiency. Dust or pair them with calcium.
- Too watery to be a staple. That 80–85% moisture is great in small doses and a problem in large ones. Overfeed earthworms and you get loose stools or diarrhea, and you crowd out the higher-protein feeders the dragon actually needs. They simply can't carry a diet.
- Sourcing risk is real. Earthworms eat soil, so they concentrate whatever's in it — pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals — and wild worms can carry parasites. This is the one earthworm warning worth taking seriously. The fix is simple: buy farm-raised feeder worms (red wigglers, European nightcrawlers, dew worms) from a reputable supplier, and never grab them from a yard or compost pile you can't vouch for.
- Hit-or-miss palatability. Some dragons attack worms with glee; others are put off by the slime and movement and refuse them outright. You won't know until you try, so don't buy a huge batch on faith.
The honest summary: earthworms are a fine treat and a useful hydration tool. They are not, and never will be, the foundation of a healthy bearded dragon diet.
Nutritional comparison: the numbers that actually matter
Here's where I have to push back on a lot of what's floating around online. You'll see discoid roaches listed at "30–35% protein" and treated as some kind of protein powerhouse far above everything else. That figure is a dry-matter number being compared against feeders measured as-fed (i.e., with their water still in them) — an apples-to-oranges trick that makes roaches look more extreme than they are. To decide anything, you need the numbers on the same footing.
So here are approximate as-fed values — the feeder as your dragon actually eats it, water included. Treat these as ballpark figures; real values swing with diet, life stage, and source. But the relationships between them are reliable, and the relationships are what should drive your choices.
| Feeder | Protein (as-fed) | Fat (as-fed) | Moisture | Calcium:Phosphorus | Digestibility | Best role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discoid roach | High (~19–21%) | Moderate (~6–8%) | ~60–65% | Poor (needs dusting) | Low chitin, easy | Staple |
| Earthworm | Low–moderate (~10%) | Very low (~2–3%) | ~80–85% | Poor (needs dusting) | Very soft, very easy | Treat / hydration |
| Dubia roach | High (~20–23%) | Moderate (~7–9%) | ~60–65% | Poor (needs dusting) | Low chitin, easy | Staple |
| Cricket | Moderate (~18–20%) | Low–moderate (~6%) | ~70% | Poor (needs dusting) | Higher chitin | Staple / variety |
A few things jump out once everything's measured the same way.
Protein content
On an as-fed basis, discoid roaches deliver roughly double the protein of an earthworm — not ten times, but a clear, meaningful gap. That's the whole ballgame for a staple. A growing juvenile needs steady, dense protein, and the roach supplies it in a form the dragon can actually process. The earthworm's protein is fine as a contribution to a varied diet, but you'd have to feed an impractical, gut-disrupting volume of watery worms to match what a handful of roaches provides.
Fat levels
Discoids sit in the moderate range — enough fat for energy, not so much that regular feeding causes obesity. That moderate fat is precisely why they're safe as an everyday staple. Earthworms are extremely lean (often under 3% fat), which is occasionally an advantage: for an older, less active, or overweight dragon that needs to slim down, a low-fat feeder has its place. But "low fat" doesn't make a feeder a staple — protein and balance do.
Moisture content
This is the earthworm's one decisive win. At 80–85% water, earthworms are essentially a hydration delivery system with some protein attached. Discoids, at 60–65%, are still perfectly hydrating as part of a normal diet but don't carry the same water punch. If hydration is your specific goal — a dragon that won't drink, a dry season, a recovery situation — the worm is the better tool. For everything else, that high water content is exactly what disqualifies it as a staple.
Calcium-to-phosphorus ratio
Here's the part I want to nail down because misinformation here is genuinely dangerous: both feeders have a poor calcium-to-phosphorus ratio, and both require calcium supplementation. Neither one is a calcium source. Phosphorus binds calcium and blocks its absorption, so a phosphorus-heavy feeder eaten without added calcium actively works against your dragon's bones. The myth that discoids are somehow "naturally balanced" on calcium is false and has probably contributed to real cases of MBD. Dust your feeders. Run your UVB. Every time.
Digestibility and the chitin question
Both feeders are easy on a dragon's gut, but for different reasons. Discoids win on the insect side because they're low in chitin — softer shells than crickets, less indigestible material, lower impaction risk. Earthworms have no exoskeleton at all, so they're the gentlest of the two on digestion. For a tiny juvenile or a dragon recovering from a gut issue, that softness is a genuine point in the worm's favor, even though it loses on protein.
So which is "better"? It's the wrong question
Put the two side by side and the verdict almost writes itself, but only if you ask the right question. "Which feeder is better?" has no good answer because they're built for different jobs. The right question is: which is the staple, and which is the supplement?
- Discoid roach = the staple. High protein, moderate fat, easy to digest, safe to feed often, breedable at home, legal in more places. This is the feeder you build the insect portion of the diet around.
- Earthworm = the supplement. Lower protein, very lean, very watery, very soft. Perfect as an occasional treat, a hydration boost, or a gentle option for a sensitive eater. A bad choice as a foundation.
The best diet isn't roaches or worms. It's roaches and worms in their correct roles: discoids carrying the protein several times a week, with earthworms rotated in occasionally for variety and hydration. Add greens as the base, dust with calcium, run your UVB, and you've got a genuinely complete plan.
If you want my single-sentence verdict: feed discoid roaches as your staple insect and use earthworms as an occasional treat — never the reverse.
Feeding frequency and sizing, by age
This is where most care guides go vague, so let me get specific. Two rules cut across everything:
- Size rule: A feeder should be no wider than the space between your dragon's eyes. Too big is a choking and impaction risk, especially in juveniles. When in doubt, go smaller.
- The 10–15 minute rule: Offer only what your dragon will eat in a 10–15 minute window, then remove leftovers. This prevents overeating and keeps stray feeders from harassing the dragon overnight.
Feeding discoid roaches
Juvenile dragons: This is the protein-heavy phase. Feed appropriately sized discoid nymphs multiple times a day — often two to three feeding sessions — offering as many as the dragon eats in each 10–15 minute window. Dust with calcium at nearly every feeding. The combination of frequent feedings, correctly sized roaches, and consistent calcium is what builds a strong skeleton and prevents MBD.
Adult dragons: The ratio flips toward greens, so the roaches pull back hard. A typical adult gets a portion of discoids every other day or a few times a week — once a day at most, and often less. Adults are prone to obesity, so portion control matters more than it did when they were growing. Keep dusting with calcium, just less frequently with the D3 version than you did for a juvenile.
A practical note: because discoids are calorie-dense, overfeeding them is the easy mistake with adults. If your adult dragon is getting chunky around the tail base, cut the roach frequency before you cut anything else.
Feeding earthworms
All ages: Treat earthworms as a supplemental protein and hydration source — roughly one to two times a week at most, and often less. They are an addition to the diet, never the schedule's backbone.
Juveniles: Small portions, and I like to offer worms alongside roaches rather than as a standalone meal, so the protein stays up. Cut larger worms into appropriately sized pieces to remove any choking risk — a whole nightcrawler is far too big for a young dragon.
Adults: Can handle larger whole worms, still in moderation. An occasional earthworm is a nice hydration top-up and a bit of enrichment.
Because of that high moisture, the failure mode with earthworms is loose stool and diarrhea from overfeeding. If you see runny droppings after a worm meal, you fed too many — scale back and they'll firm up.
A sample feeding week
Abstractions are easy to nod along to and hard to act on, so here's how I'd actually lay out a week for each life stage, using discoids as the staple and earthworms as the occasional supplement. Adjust to your own dragon's appetite and body condition — these are starting points, not laws.
Juvenile (under ~6 months):
- Every day: Two to three feeding sessions of appropriately sized discoid nymphs, calcium-dusted, each session capped at the 10–15 minute window. A small dish of finely chopped greens left in all day so they learn to graze.
- Once or twice in the week: A few small earthworm pieces folded into one of the roach sessions for variety and a hydration bump.
- Supplement rhythm: Plain calcium at most feedings; calcium-with-D3 a couple of times that week; UVB running every day.
Sub-adult (~6–12 months):
- Daily: One solid discoid feeding, dusted, plus a growing dish of greens as the plant share climbs toward half the diet.
- Once a week: Earthworms as the treat, or rotate in a hornworm for hydration.
- Supplement rhythm: Calcium most days, D3 version once or twice a week.
Adult (12+ months):
- Daily: Greens as the base of the diet, refreshed each morning.
- Every other day, or 3–4 times a week: A measured portion of discoid roaches, calcium-dusted. Watch the waistline and pull back if the tail base gets fat.
- Roughly once a week: Earthworms for variety and hydration, in moderation.
- Supplement rhythm: Calcium a few times a week, D3 version less often than for a juvenile, UVB always on.
Notice that across all three stages the earthworm slot never grows past "occasional." That's not an oversight — it's the entire point. The roach scales with the dragon's needs; the worm stays a garnish.
The economics, briefly
People sometimes pick earthworms because a tub is cheap at the store, and reach for them more than they should for that reason alone. It's worth seeing the real math. Store-bought feeders — worms or roaches — are a recurring cost that never ends, and feeding a growing juvenile burns through them fast. A discoid colony is a larger one-time outlay that then produces feeders for free, indefinitely, at exactly the freshness and size you want. Over a dragon's decade-plus lifespan, breeding your own staple is dramatically cheaper than buying insects every week — and it sidesteps the supply-chain gaps where your local shop is out of stock the day your dragon is hungriest. So if cost is steering you toward worms-as-staple, the better cost answer is actually a home roach colony, not a cheaper treat misused as a meal.
Live feeders vs. processed options
A quick word on a question that comes up alongside this one: should you bother with live feeders at all, when there are dried roaches, pellets, and powdered insect products on the shelf?
For bearded dragons, live wins for the staple. Live discoid roaches retain their full moisture, protein, and fat, and — critically — their movement triggers the dragon's hunting instinct, which keeps a dragon engaged and eating. That behavioral stimulation is real enrichment, not a frill. Dried and processed feeders lose moisture, can lose some nutrients in processing, and a stationary pellet often just doesn't interest a dragon enough to eat well.
Processed options aren't worthless — they're shelf-stable, convenient, and consistent, which makes them a fine emergency backup or occasional convenience. But they shouldn't be the foundation. If you're choosing a staple, choose a live one. This is, incidentally, another quiet argument for breeding your own discoids: you get the freshest, most nutrient-dense, fully live feeders with no shelf time at all.
Sourcing and preparing each feeder
The best nutrition profile in the world doesn't matter if the feeder itself is contaminated. Sourcing is where a lot of avoidable problems start.
Buying and keeping discoid roaches
Buy from a supplier that actually specializes in feeder insects and keeps clean, healthy colonies — weak or mite-ridden starter stock will haunt you. Look for active, glossy roaches across a range of sizes. When you need to seed a colony or just keep a supply on hand, All Angles Creatures stocks healthy, well-started discoid roaches sized for both breeding colonies and direct feeding.
Keeping them short-term is easy: a smooth-sided plastic bin (they can't climb out), cardboard egg flats for hiding, good ventilation to prevent mold, and a diet of roach chow plus fresh vegetables with water crystals for hydration — never an open water dish, which nymphs drown in. Gut-load them well for 24–48 hours before you feed off, because what the roach eats becomes what your dragon eats. The full enclosure, heat, and breeding details are in my discoid colony guide.
Buying and preparing earthworms
The single most important rule: buy farm-raised, don't dig. Reputable feeder worms — red wigglers or European nightcrawlers are common choices — are raised in clean, controlled conditions, free of the pesticides, fertilizers, and parasites that make wild worms a gamble. The hydration boost from a yard worm is not worth a parasite infection.
Before feeding:
- Rinse the worms under cool, clean water to remove grit and the slime coat, then pat them a bit drier so calcium powder will actually stick.
- Gut-load for at least 24 hours on nutrient-rich produce if you want to boost their value.
- Size and cut larger worms into pieces appropriate for your dragon — essential for juveniles.
- Dust with calcium right before offering, since worms can't carry calcium on their own.
Myths worth clearing up
Three pieces of misinformation come up over and over with this exact comparison. Clearing them up makes the whole decision easier.
"Discoid roaches are the same as dubia roaches." They're closely related and nutritionally near-identical, but they're separate species. The practical differences are legality (discoids are legal in Florida where dubia are restricted), heat tolerance (discoids handle warmth well), and breeding speed (dubia ramp a bit faster). And to kill a stubborn myth: discoids are not wingless. Adult discoids have wings — they're just poor fliers and won't take off around your house. If a source tells you discoids lack wings, that source is repeating an error, and it's a sign to double-check everything else it claims.
"Earthworms are dangerous for bearded dragons." Not when sourced correctly. Clean, farm-raised earthworms are a safe, moisture-rich treat. The danger is specifically wild worms carrying parasites or soil contaminants — which is a sourcing problem, not an earthworm problem. Buy them right and they're fine.
"Discoid roaches are too fatty." Discoids are moderate in fat — well below true treat insects like superworms and waxworms — which is exactly why they're safe as a regular staple. The dragons that get fat on roaches are almost always adults being fed at juvenile frequency, not victims of the roach itself.
The broader picture: building the whole diet
Neither feeder lives in a vacuum, so here's the diet they're slotting into. Get this frame right and the roach-vs-worm question becomes almost trivial.
Greens are the base for adults
For an adult dragon, leafy greens and vegetables are the foundation, not a garnish. The staples I lean on:
- Collard greens — high calcium, low phosphorus, an ideal everyday green.
- Mustard and turnip greens — calcium-rich and nutrient-dense.
- Dandelion greens — excellent calcium and a hobby favorite.
- Squash (butternut, acorn) — good vitamins and fiber.
Avoid spinach and rhubarb as staples — they're loaded with oxalates that bind calcium and work against you. Fruit (blueberries, mango, papaya) is fine as an occasional small treat but is too sugary for regular feeding.
A rounded insect rotation
Discoids make a fantastic staple, but variety strengthens any diet. A good rotation looks like discoids as the anchor, with other feeders cycled in for their particular strengths:
- Dubia roaches — interchangeable with discoids where they're legal.
- Crickets — a classic staple, though smellier and higher in chitin.
- Hornworms — high moisture and a nice hydration treat.
- Silkworms — low fat, soft, nutritionally well-regarded.
- Earthworms — the supplement this whole guide is about: hydration and variety, in moderation.
Keep the high-fat insects (superworms, waxworms) as rare treats only. The principle is simple: one solid staple you can rely on, with rotated variety around it.
Supplements and lighting tie it together
I'll say it one more time because it's that important: every feeder here is low in calcium. Dust with a calcium supplement, use calcium-with-D3 on a schedule, and run a proper UVB bulb that you replace on time. This is the system that prevents metabolic bone disease, and no choice of feeder substitutes for it.
Recognizing when the diet is off
Watch the dragon, not just the bowl. The signs that your feeding plan needs adjusting are usually visible if you're paying attention.
Signs of overfeeding (usually too many roaches in an adult): weight gain, a swollen belly that stays bloated long after eating, fat pads bulging around the tail base, and lethargy. The fix is to cut insect frequency and lean harder on greens.
Signs of too many earthworms: loose, runny droppings or diarrhea from all that water. Scale the worms back and stool firms up.
Signs of calcium trouble (the serious one): tremors or twitching, weakness, a soft or rubbery jaw, swollen limbs, difficulty walking. These point toward metabolic bone disease and warrant an immediate diet and lighting review — and a reptile vet. This is the failure you're working to prevent every time you dust a feeder.
General imbalance: a dragon that's picky, sluggish, or not growing well often just needs the protein-to-plant ratio corrected for its age. Re-check whether you're feeding a juvenile like a juvenile and an adult like an adult.
A note on impaction: undigested feeder material — particularly chitin from harder-shelled insects, or oversized prey — can block a dragon's gut, which is dangerous. This is exactly where both of our feeders shine and why I trust them: discoids are low-chitin and soft, and earthworms have no shell at all, so both are gentle on digestion. The impaction risk that remains is almost entirely about size (feeding prey too wide for the dragon) and temperature (a dragon kept too cool can't digest properly). Keep feeders correctly sized, keep the basking zone hot enough for digestion, and impaction from either of these feeders is a non-issue.
The verdict
Discoid roaches and earthworms aren't really competing. They're teammates with different jobs, and the whole confusion comes from treating them as interchangeable.
Discoid roaches are the staple — high protein, moderate fat, soft and easy to digest, safe to feed often, breedable at home, and legal in places dubia aren't. Build the insect side of your dragon's diet on them.
Earthworms are the supplement — lean, soft, and very high in moisture, which makes them an excellent occasional treat and a real hydration tool, but a poor foundation. Use them to add variety and water, a couple times a week at most, from a clean farm-raised source.
Do both in their proper roles, lay them over a base of calcium-rich greens, dust every feeder with calcium, and run good UVB — and you've stopped asking "roaches or worms" and started feeding a dragon the complete, balanced diet it actually needs.
For an authoritative outside reference on bearded dragon husbandry and nutrition, the University of Florida IFAS Extension and the Merck Veterinary Manual's reptile nutrition section are both solid, non-commercial starting points.
Want to go deeper on feeders? Start with my complete guide to keeping and breeding discoid roaches, or browse the full exotic animal care library for the rest of the feeder lineup.