Where do you feed your beardie?

[Puckthemagicdragon]

I read about a lot of people throwing their live food inside their Viv for their beardies to chow on...does anyone else feed their beardie out of their Viv? I feed Stanley his crickets in a Rubbermaid container so I can keep a mental note of how much he is eating; this allows me to see fluctuations in his diet and also makes cleanup a lot easier. (I honestly wouldn't want to have to pick up dead crickets inside his Viv all the time!) Since stanley is still a juvie and his diet mostly consists of live feed, I feed him three times a day while his salad is offered inside his Viv all the time. When he first wakes up in the morning, he is very dark - until he sees me preparing his cricket bin! As soon as I drop him in there to go crazy, he turns back to his bright orange self.

Share your beardie's eating routine!

 

[Toasty]

I also feed the live feeders to my beardies in a seperate container outside the viv. Even in a sparsely decorated viv, there are still going to be places for the live prey to hide where the beardie can't get to them and you can't see them. I also have feeder colonies of dubia, lateralis, and lobster roaches. While dubia can't climb glass (although small nymphs have been known to be able to climb up the silicone used to sea the corners of tanks), the lats, and especially the lobsters, are good climbers and if not consumed immediately, can climb up the sides of the tank and manage to find a way out even with the lid on the tank. I found this out the hard way lol. The designated feeding bin has a barrier several inches wide all the way along the top just like what I use in the roach bins to make sure I don't have any escapees. Like the OP, I like being able to keep track of how much is actually being eaten. Since it is a bare container, I know that if all the roaches or crickets are gone, they were definitely consumed and aren't just hiding somewhere. If they aren't all eaten, I can see exactly how many are left and it's easy to return them to their respective bins to be used at a later feeding. I use an opaque rubbermaid storage tote that is specifically for feeding. I will feed live worms in the enclosure, using a smooth sided bowl that is deep enough to prevent them from crawling out, but since I use the feeder worms more as a supplement to the other feeders and to add more variety, they aren't fed in large amounts anyway. And of course, a freshly prepared salad is put in the enlosures every morning where it is available all day.

 

[miloandrufusdragons]

Usually what I do is I just normally feed them veggies in a bowl in their cage but for crix I take out all the furnishings so my boys have room to hunt in their viv.

 

[Mustashio]

Usually what I do is I just normally feed them veggies in a bowl in their cage but for crix I take out all the furnishings so my boys have room to hunt in their viv.

I used to do that, but don't anymore because I got tired of taking out all of the things in his viv and having to "recreate" his decor! Now I use the smaller 29 Long tank that he just grew out of as his feeding tank. I think I will move to a rubbermaid bin though because I'd like to use the tank for a spare "traveling" tank. I too have kept a journal of what and how much he eats since the day we brought him home. He was really sick in the beginning and so keeping track of his weight, pooping schedule, bathtimes, how much he ate, at what time, and any unusual behaviors or shedding was really helpful to have documented for the vet. He is 8months old now, but has a large driftwood climb/jungle gym that the crickets LOVE to hide in, so that definitely has to come out for each feeding if I do put them in his viv.

Mustashio woofs down salads too. He didn't at first, but now I have been filling his dish 2x a day! He loves collard greens with grated butternut squash and red cabbage chunks. He'll pick through the greens to get the squash! Crazy dragon!

~Jill