However not new to reptiles or even lizards I was definitely new to bearded dragons in the beginning as well. I was just like you, paranoid over every little thing. But I just did copious amounts of research and reading along with advice from other experts and bearded dragon enthusiasts (many from this site) and kind of put that along with my own knowledge and experience with my beardie, and everything has worked out well so far. One thing I have come to see by this point by now is that there is NO definitive book on
bearded dragon care (regardless on what some will tell you). Many people do many different things when it comes to their bearded dragons and let me tell you, I have broke the mold on the way I have done some things at times. I feel that a lot of people read what others do or read a particular site then proceed to “set that in stone” as the way things should be done. I for one have used all of the “good” knowledge I have gathered along with common sense but most importantly, I listen to my dragon. I know that sounds crazy because let’s face it, as much as we would love for them to talk( and as awesome as that would be), they don’t talk. They do how ever display a number of signs as to what a healthy happy lizard is. I am thirty-two years old and have been studying reptiles in the wild and in captivity my whole life. The ones I have kept in captivity, I could literally sit nose-to-nose to through the glass for hours in admiration of all that makes them so magnificent. With my animal I did feed her multiple times daily as a young lizard and I changed this somewhere around the six month age range. This was during October of last year. Many would have said “you’re not feeding her enough”. Wanna know how much she grew that month of October? She grew a solid three inches in one month while having a diet of dandelion and grated acorn squash( the dandelion was switched to escarole as I had been giving her dandelion greens sense I got her at around three months old and she was growing a lil weary of them). This particular month also consisted of an invertebrate diet of gut loaded adult crickets(one inch in length) and gut loaded super worms. The super worms were thrown in and they were a fifty count that was fed throughout the month along with everything else. I would usually do this to add variety because it’s the only thing I can get in this area. The crickets were how many she would eat in a ten minute time frame. Now by ten minute time frame, this is the way I have always done it. I drop the food a pretty good distance away from her. In fact, she is usually fed outside of her tank on the floor and I throw the food in various places across the room and she has to run after it and get it. I feel like this helps keep her alert and also helps to exercise her. At the point that I can throw one about a 4 foot distance away from her and her not go get it I will move it about 3 feet away from her. I make sure that she’s still alert and that she definitely sees it. if she does not go get it, she does not get it at all. Now if I was to take it and put it right up to her mouth or even three or 4 inches in front of her on the ground she would definitely go grab it. But in my experience I just believe that is over feeding. I mean, how many humans clean their plate at a restaurant just because it’s in front of them. The truth is the entire meal was most likely double what you should have eatin and by the end you find yourself stretching back saying, “ Man, I’m stuffed”. You darn right you are. You ate to much. The way things go in the wild even as humans, in the “hunter/gatherer” sense of it all, if you’re not hungry enough to go hunt then you’re really not that hungry to begin with. Even when she was young she would only eat about 12 decent size Crickets at a time sometimes maybe 15 to 20 this was usually done twice a day if she ate somewhere around 12 I would usually feed her three times that day. All of these factors is what I mean by I’ll let her talk to me and tell me what she needs. A lot of times, when she is in a shed, it seems that she always likes her salads more than she does insects. By seven months old she was 18 inches long and up until that point was growing just fine anyway. I rescued her in late August and she was 9 inches and 20 g. By the end of October she was 18” so around two inches a month.Then she just stoped growing length wise for a while and started to grow in body mass. Just recently she has started to grow in length again. Some of this info may be a lil off as I only kept records the first couple of months. I have always had better experiences SLIGHTLY underfeeding reptiles than slightly over feeding them. Out of most animals in the animal kingdom, reptiles are the true survivors. Their bodies are made to go through things differently than say, mammal or birds even. But this is just how I like to do things. I as well as many other reptile enthusiasts feel that in order to stay sharp and healthy, most, if not all reptiles should never be fed until they are completely full. Like I said, you don’t have to take my word for it. You take the advice and things you learn and put them with your own experience and build on that. Everyone feeds their children differently, it does don’t mean they are any less healthy. Just as you would watch a child’s weight, pay attention to her and try your best to do right by her.Yours looks healthy to me. Nice thick tail, nice full fat pads. Beautiful lizard! I’ll post a pic of mine now. This was recently taken, yesterday actually. She is a hair over 19” and I’m not sure on the weight at the moment because my scale is out of batteries. Good luck, and you came to the right place. There are a lot of people here way more knowledgeable on bearded dragons than I am I can promise you that.
she looks like a chub-chub in this last pic, but she was very relaxed(crawled up there on her own and REFUSED to come down) haha. Her gular pouch has always sagged and looked a lil puffy when relaxed like this,(I’m sure from the threads on this site that we have all had that “ her beard is saggy is she too fat” scare. and her belly looks chubbier than usual because of the way it is positioned on my head.