How often do you feed bearded dragons?

Question

shes a baby about 9 weeks

Answer 1

this is a great link wiht info on feeding them - feeding in morning is best...

http://www.gomestic.com/Pets/Unusual-Pet...

Answer 2

Bearded Dragons are omnivorous, meaning that they eat both animal and plant matter. Any and all food items that your Bearded Dragons eat should be no bigger than the space between their eyes. If the food items are bigger than the space between their eyes it can cause impaction and/or hind leg paralysis. Either way your Beardie will suffer horribly.

Baby and juvenile Beardies should be offered appropriately sized crickets two-three times a day. Offer as many as your Beardie will eat in a 5-10 minute time frame. When your Beardie stops eating, stop offering. Young Bearded Dragons can eat anywhere from 20-60 small crickets a day. Your Beardie should also be given fresh greens daily. Spraying the greens with water will help them last longer and will also help keep your Beardie hydrated.

Sub-adult to adult Beardies only need to eat prey items once a day along with fresh greens. Once they are this age you can also offer them Locusts, Cockroaches, Mealworms, Waxworms, Zophobas worms, Silkworms, Butterworms, Red worms, Earthworms and just about any other worm available. All these should be used as treats though with crickets and greens being the stable part of your Dragons diet. DO NOT feed your Beardie insects that you have caught in your backyard. These bugs could have parasites that could be passed on to your Beardie or they could have been exposed to poisons that could kill your Beardie. Lightning bugs can also kill your Beardie so it is much safer to stay away from wild caught insects.

Prey items should be dusted once a day with a calcium/vitamin D3 supplement such as Rep-cal makes. All prey items should be dusted once a week with a multivitamin supplement such as Herptivite, also made by Rep-cal.

Any uneaten prey itmes should be removed from your Dragons enclosure.

There is a wide variety of greens that are available that are good for your Beardie. Dandelion greens, Collard greens, Mustard greens, Bok choy, Kale, Turnip greens, Escarole and Chicory are among the easiest to find and the best to use. If the greens you are wondering about say Lettuce anywhere in the name avoid them. Most types of lettuce are composed mostly of water and hold little or no nutritional value. With the wide variety of other greens out there it is better and easier to just avoid any type of lettuce. Spinach should also be avoided as calcium binds to it and will not be digested by your animal.

A wide variety of vegetables can also be offered to your Beardie. Butternut squash, Yellow squash, Spaghetti squash, Acorn squash, all other varieties of squash, Green beans, Parsnips, Sweet potato, Snow peas and Carrots. Carrots should only be used as a treat though due to the high amounts of vitamin A. Any food with high amounts of vitamin A should be avoided as reptiles do not absorb alot of vitamin A. Feeding your Beardie alot foods such as Carrots will end up in a condition called Vitamin A toxicity wich is deadly. Squashes will either have to be cooked or microwaved before feeding them to your Beardie. This will soften them up and they can then be minced and eaten easier.

Fruits can also be used, just avoid any citrus fruit such as oranges and grape fruit.

TIA K-YOU ARE WRONG:-baby and juvenille beardies should be hand fed the correct sized crickets for a 5-10 min period 2-3 times a day.in this period they will eat 6-12 crickets which will have no harming effects on their digestive system and will not cause compaction.

Also tomatoes should not be fed to beardies, as like lettuce, they do not have any nutritional value whatsoever .Both are made up of 95% water and only go to cause diarrhoea and dehydrate the beardie.Neither are poisonouse as you state as there's nothing in them to poison a beardie,there just avoided due to the non nutritional value.

reptile carer by proffesion??-You mean you work in a pet shop and your answer just goes to show why reptiles should never be bought from a general pet shop.In the end there only in it to make a profit.

Answer 3

Babies of any species should be eating almost constantly. A 9 week beardie should be eating at least 2-3 *DOZEN* crickets a *day* and sometimes more (split into two or three feedings). You need to make sure that none of the crickets are larger than the space between the beardies eyes or he is likely to choke and die. Around 4 months or so you can cut the meals (1-2 dozen crickets of the correct size) down to once a day.  Some beardies this age still need massive amounts of crickets but only feed them once a day as their digestive systems can handle larger meals but less frequently better than multiple small meals. Every other day feeding shouldn't start until 8-12 months of age. Even older beardies need to eat every two days although you can go as long as a week on occasion-but don't make it a common habit.

Never feed a beardie of any size or age food (other than leafy, fine viened stuff) that is larger than the distance between their eyes. Never feed a young beadie mealworms as they can't digest the exoskeleton causing lethal blockage of their digestive system. Pheonix worms are great for any beardie though and they will gladly pig out on them.

You should also offer veggies at all times of the day as you can't overfeed beardies veggies as their calorie concentration is low. Beardies can eat as much as they want without worrying about overfeeding. At 12 weeks he probably won't be very interested but they are healthy and will keep him from getting hungry between meals. As they get older beardies usually become less interested in crickets to the point where most are only eating veggies by the time they are 8 years old or so (lifespan is around 10 years with proper care-I know a 13 year old one as well). Some older beardies still eat massive amounts of crickets so you need to let yours choose whether or not he prefers veggies to crickets, each is different. One 8 year old one I know eats 2 dozen adult crickets a couple times a week and won't touch veggies at all.

At this age you also need to make certain that all the crickets are dusted with calcium powder and that you are using a good UVB specific light bulb (reptisun 10.0 is a good one) that is no more than 12" from the beardie with no glass or plastic in between. If the bulb doesn't clearly state that it produced UVB then it doesn't. Without both the calcium and UVB young beardies can develop metabolic bone disease in a matter of days which is at best painful and crippling and at worst the cause of a very painful and slow death.

***I agree that leaving crickets in a tank with a baby once it has finished eating is not a good idea although no cricket should be able to tear through a beardie's skin if correctly sized crickets are being used.  I do try to feed mine (no longer a baby) slightly more than she will eat at a time deliberately-but I do also provide extra veggies/greens at the same time.  Crickets prefer the plant matter and won't bother the beardie.  Until a baby gets pretty good at hunting, never put more than half a dozen at a time in the tank with it-it requires that you stay there to add more as soon as those are gone.

Answer 4

i would keep food in the cage at all time so give her fresh food about every two to three days

Answer 5

Charlotte EDIT: you should not feed your dragon as much as they will eat you silly person as beardies can become compacted, lizards need time to digest or its stomach will compact and they will die. they need a proper diet of cabbage mostly with tomatoes but no lettuce as it is poisonus to them. you should feed her around 2 medium locusts or 4 medium locusts a day. avoid wormy food like mealworms and waxworms as these are a treat about once every 4 days only. also try and get some calcium powder for reptiles as this will help her bones develop in her early years and avoid creaky bones later in life.

Answer 6

3 times a day as much as she can eat in 15mins. (for live food). And give her fresh greens once a day but take them out at night.

Charlotte x

EDIT: Brianna you should NOT keep live food in tanks at all times as they will bite the dragon. I was feeding my beardie yesterday and a cricket tore my skin when my lizard took it.