How often to feed my beardie

So I’m going to be getting my new beardie in less than a week. My breeder says he feeds the little guy twice a week with veggies and once with insects, supers as the main since it’s the guys favourite. He is about 18 months old. Is this right? Or what should I be properly doing?

And at this age, how often should I be dusting his food with calcium and vitamins? And do I dust both salad and veggies every feeding in the day?

At 18 months they are almost fully grown so they need fewer bugs. I like to offer one or two bug meals per week all they want in about 10 min or so. I try to offer a variety (silk worms, horn worms, black soldier fly larvae and roaches). Roaches are the staple though since I have a colony. Dust the bugs in a light even coat of calcium powder at every feeding.

Offer a nice big salad every day. Rotate what you offer based on what looks freshest when you're at the market. After a while you'll find some favorites and you can throw those in on more frequent rotation. I like to offer 2-3 items from this list in each salad http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html the more variety you offer the better but it's good to find some favorites you can use as staples as well. You don't need to add any supplement to the salad as they are nutrient rich on their own.

I’m in Canada and I can’t get roaches here so supers are our main staples I’m pretty sure. But what about the multi vitamin powder? Would I put that on as well with calcium? And if I only put it on he bugs it would only get 1-2 times a week for calcium right?

I usually go by this feeding guide, also i'd advise against feeding superworms as a staple or feeding them more than 1-2x a week. They are way too fatty to be fed every day or take up the majority of a dragons diet.
They're also very addicting so if he was on a diet of only superworms for most of his life you may have to with hold supers from him until he eats his healthy feeders regularly. It took me about 6 months to get my two older dragons off superworms and to a point where they accepted other foods.


All life stages eat 10-20 bugs a feeding.
1-4 months 3x a day.
4-12 months 2x a day.
12-20 months once a day.
20+ months twice a week at the least, every other day at the most.

Staple feeders - Crickets, locusts, grasshoppers, silkworms, black soldier fly larvae, dubia roaches, turkish roaches, possibly earthworms.

Treat feeders - Waxworms, hornworms, superworms, mealworms, butterworms.
Wax worms - once a week, 4-5 max.
Hornworms - every other day to every two days, 4-6 max.
Mealworms - every other day to every two days, 5-10 max. Only for beardies above 6 months.
Superworms - once or twice a week, 3-4 max. Only for beardies above 12 months.
Butterworms - once or twice a week, 3-4 max.

Daily greens- Turnip/collard/mustard greens, endive, and kale if added to a mixture of the other staple greens mentioned.
Fruit once or twice a week - Banana, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, red raspberries.
For more food items -
http://www.thebeardeddragon.org/bearded-dragon-diet.php
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html


You want two supplements at the very least, a calcium and a multivitamin.

Generally beardies below two years need calcium 5x a week and multivitamins 2x a week.

However beardies above two years or at two years of age need calcium only 2-4x a week with
multivitamins 1-2x a week.
This depends on how your adult beardie is with diet, health, just laid eggs, is laying eggs, etc.

From 12 months old - I do ONE meal of live insects + salad per day.

From 2 years old I consider my dragons fully grown , but still ONE feed of insects per day + greens , ie Peppa (2.5yr old and 780g and 25 inches long) gets up to 8 large or 12-14 medium crickets + 1 large or 2 medium silkworms each day.

At 18 months old she was 610g and 23 inches long and getting up 20 medium OR 12 large crickets + greens each day.

I try to follow this for adult dragons : viewtopic.php?f=18&t=236074

So should I be feeding him everyday with insects even tho my breeder doesn’t? Like how often should I feed him and how often to dust with the calcium and vitamins if he isn’t fed everyday?

Cassieo8":2uoe6br7 said:

So should I be feeding him everyday with insects even tho my breeder doesn’t? Like how often should I feed him and how often to dust with the calcium and vitamins if he isn’t fed everyday?

Click to expand...

IMO - yes , not a huge amount of insects but some everyday as an adult, is more aligned with the diet of wild bearded dragons in their natural range where edible vegetable matter is very scarce and only plentiful after a monsoon low dumps rain (very rare event) , see this viewtopic.php?f=1&t=216836&p=1691540&hilit=wild+beardies+stomach+contents#p1691540