Bearded Dragon size

Hello, I’m new to this site so hopefully this is the right place to ask this. Okay, so my beardie is just about 5 months old, I got him from the Petsmart that I work at a few months ago. I keep him in a 40 gallon tank and he’s been so happy that I got him out of the tiny tank he was in. He’s grown very quickly though. He’s already a whopping 16 inches at 5 months old. I’m allowing him to eat as many crickets as he can eat 2 times a day (I hover him over the cricket bin and let him just pick them off one by one and he loves it) and I dust them with the calcium 2-3 times a week. He eats a spring mix salad every 2 days and overall he seems very happy and he’s very sweet. No signs of stress, he’s got a 100W heat light with his UVB on for 10-12 hours a day. I feel like I’m doing everything right but he’s just a really big boy. Do I have a German giant on my hands? I didn’t think it would be very likely, but at the rate he’s growing he’s sure to surpass 3ft in length. I’m just curious if this growth rate is normal, cause even my coworkers are amazed at how big he’s getting so quickly.

You should actually be dusting 5x a week for calcium not 2-3x a week.
Beardies that are 0-24 months old need calcium 5x a week and multivitamins 2x a week. Once they reach 24 months old they can go down to 2-4x a week for calcium and 1-2x a week for multivitamins.
I'd also make sure you up the time period to 14 hours in the summer and only do 12 hours in winter.

Just normal growth, german giants are basically nonexistent now and to have one would be extremely rare. Some beardies can be a bit on the big side while others can be quite small. I highly doubt he'll grow to 3 feet.


This was my three beardies length around that age. With Venus and Saturn we were told they were anywhere from 5-6 months so we just went with 6 months but they could have been 5 months old when we got them.
Venus - 12 inches at 6 months
Saturn - 15 inches at 6 months
Neptune - 13 inches at 5 months (15 inches at 6 months)

Current lengths,
Venus - 17 inches, little over 2 years old.
Saturn - 21 inches, little over 2 years old.
Neptune - 18 inches, around 18 months old.

Ahh I see now. I’ve had the assumption he needs 2-3x a week dustings but I was looking at ADULT. Well, thanks for informing me. He isn’t showing signs of calcium deficiency so he should be okay but I’ll just amp up the servings. Sometimes his light gets left on longer than I like and it’ll stretch to the 14-15hr mark, but he still is chillen so it must be good to give him a couple extra long days every now and then. But yeah I’m just baffled at how big he is. I mean one of your beardie is 17 inches at 2yrs and mine is already at 16 at 5 months. If you say it’s normal then, I’m assuming the growth rate will slow down?

He'll definitely slow down, most beardies tend to slow down at around a year old or so.
Venus was a pretty slow grower and definitely on the small side, she didnt even reach 17 inches till she was 16 months of age.

The pictures below are their monthly weight and length within the first year or so.

Saturn

Neptune

And then Venus.

My nearly 3 yr old girl Peppa is 25" long and comes in at around 780g.

Loves her bugs (especially crickets) and she's very spoilt, I grow my own silkworms and she gets 2 big silkworms every day + maybe 8 - 10 crickets + greens (she is not very keen on the green leafy stuff but eats it under sufferance if I give it to her inbetween crickets).