Is my bearded dragon underweight?

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kinleigh

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Still trying to figure everything out about my new dragon and I’ve wondered since I got her if she’s underweight. I can see/feel her ribs pretty well and she doesn’t have puffy fat pads behind her eyes. The previous owners didn’t tell me anything except that they fed her crickets and she liked green beans.

She’s 7 years old and just looks really small compared to other dragons I see. I feed her a diet of 3-8 live superworms OR 20 flukers pellets mixed with freeze dried crickets/worms per day for protein and mix that with a lot of veggies including carrots, mustard or collard greens, occasionally a slice of strawberry, celery, and green beans.
She usually doesn’t eat all of her greens and that worries me, but she always loves the carrots.

Should I change this diet if you guys think she’s underweight or anything? I don’t have a scale, but I’m hoping to either get one or take it to a vet soon.

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She doesn't look that bad, her tail is nice and thick but she does look like she's on the small side (size wise), probably due to lack of diet or uv lighting from her previous owner. For an adult beardy you're going to need to cut back on the insect feedings to one feeding twice a week at the least, or one feeding every other day at the most. Offer her a big salad every day, use this website to see what is best. http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html
Also, stray away from the pellets, they do more harm than good but you can always feed them to your crickets. Also, what UV light do you have? If her previous owners lighting was bad and if yours is too then that contributes to them not wanting to eat as much.
 

kinleigh

New member
Original Poster
I’m upgrading her lighting, I made a post about it yesterday and people already suggested what I get :) She’s had a flukers 100 watt mercury bulb for what I’m gonna assume is her whole lifespan so far, and I don’t think her previous owners replaced it at proper times and so on. She’s somewhere from 18-20 inches long. I got her off craigslist and the people just said their son moved out and it was his and they didn’t give it enough attention I guess. Getting her a good tube uvb and a new heat lamp asap though.

Also, I really hate crickets, but the owners gave me a cricket pen and a ton of that jelly stuff for them. I don’t want to use them as my staple or at all, is there anything else I can do? Would a variety of worms be fine? I do feed the freeze dried crickets. And my mom won’t let me have dubias

I’ll start doing bigger salads everyday and feeding the live/freeze dried every other day or less.
 
Thats good you're getting a new uv light, and btw freeze dried insects are not really nutritious at all so if you don't want to feed live crickets you could try black soldier fly larvae, i get mine from https://symtonbsf.com/
They don't smell, usually never die, and they're nutritious (they carry a lot calcium so you don't have to dust the worms). I ordered 1,000 larges and it's lasted me like 2 months, or you could try silkworms which are also very healthy and carry helpful enzymes
 
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