My beardie won't eat anything green

Steaklord · Aug 16, 2017

Hi, my beardie is a few months old and is probably about 6-7 inches (maybe eight) but for whatever reason she won't eat ANYTHING that is the color GREEN. She's fine eating small carrots, apples, and live food. I know she is young which is why I'm not too worried because I know they're not going to eat as many greens anyway, but every time I offer her something green she literally runs away. She doesn't do that with anything else. I even put apples on top of kale to try to get her to eat it and she just won't.

It's to the point now that I put her live food on top of crushed up food pellets hoping that they'll give the nutrients that she's not getting from the greens.

I'm also in high school so I can't exactly go out and buy stuff without getting money from my parents.

So I would like to know a good staple vegetable that is cheap and my parents will be okay with getting. I mentioned butternut squash and they said no because they thought it was ridiculous.

NOTE: she gets stress marks when I offer her something green (so I'm worried that the pet store traumatized her with it or something) and I don't feed carrots or apples as a staple. I always have kale available to her and I sprinkle calcium powder on her live food.

Garrus · Aug 16, 2017

At that size, honestly, you should be offering primarily live food. No bigger than the space between her eyes, else you risk an impaction, and only crickets or dubia roaches as a staple for now- see the thread about a rescue beardie for an excellent example of why mealworms are a horrific choice for a bearded dragon. Soft-bodied insect larva such as silkworm or hornworm can be offered, but should not be your staple.

Kale is not the best staple; use chard, collard greens or any other calcium-rich, low oxalate greener. the oxalates in greens like kale and spinach bind to the calcium, preventing your dragon from absorbing it.

Your beardie will not be over interested in the salad you are offering until she grows larger, but keep offering it. I would remove the apple and replace it with squash- the apple's mostly just giving your beardie sugar IMO. Fine once in a while, but it shouldn't be every day. I give mine a daily mix of collard greens, carrots, and a squash of some kind for about an hour and a half in the morning.

And there's no such thing as a good food pellet for bearded dragons IMO. Stick with fresh food, and gut load the live food so they have something in their stomachs that isn't cardboard when you feed them to your dragon.

Steaklord · Aug 16, 2017

Garrus":26zmhg31 said:
At that size, honestly, you should be offering primarily live food. No bigger than the space between her eyes, else you risk an impaction, and only crickets or dubia roaches as a staple for now- see the thread about a rescue beardie for an excellent example of why mealworms are a horrific choice for a bearded dragon. Soft-bodied insect larva such as silkworm or hornworm can be offered, but should not be your staple.

Kale is not the best staple; use chard, collard greens or any other calcium-rich, low oxalate greener. the oxalates in greens like kale and spinach bind to the calcium, preventing your dragon from absorbing it.

Your beardie will not be over interested in the salad you are offering until she grows larger, but keep offering it. I would remove the apple and replace it with squash- the apple's mostly just giving your beardie sugar IMO. Fine once in a while, but it shouldn't be every day. I give mine a daily mix of collard greens, carrots, and a squash of some kind for about an hour and a half in the morning.

And there's no such thing as a good food pellet for bearded dragons IMO. Stick with fresh food, and gut load the live food so they have something in their stomachs that isn't cardboard when you feed them to your dragon.

Thanks so much for the help! I don't give her apples everyday I just give them to her because she likes them. We're going to get roaches tomorrow because we ran out. But thank you because I didn't know I was supposed to be filling them with food. I've just been giving them a price of kale everyday. I'm just going to keep the kale in there anyway because she's not eating it and maybe she'll get an appetite for it so I'm not too worried about her about the calcium binding since she's not eating it. It can't really be a staple if she's not eating IMO. Thank you so much for helping me!

Drache613 · Aug 16, 2017

Moved by Moderator from General to Feeding

kingofnobbys · Aug 17, 2017

At 3 months old you should be trying to offer three feeds of HIGH QUALITY live insects per day chosen from these :
>> BSF maggots = calciworms = calcigents = phoenix worms
>> blowfly gents
>> silkworms (small size = 1 to 1.5 inch long)
any of the above can be left in a feeding dish for the hatchling to eat as it wants.
Other good but faster moving staple insects are :
>> crickets
>> roaches
>> locusts
the above fast moving insects need to of suitable size , gutloaded with high quality high calcium leafy greens & dusted LIGHTLY with calcium powder daily , these are best offered a 2 to 3 at a time until the hatchling looses interest in them .
Some say as many as the hatchling will eat in 15 - 20 mins, but I think these time restrictions are not necessary.

Any of these can per meal and it's OK to offer a mix of the above insects each day.

Offer fresh high quality high calcium leafy greens coarsely shredded mixed with grated veg each day ,but it's likely hatchlings will show no interest in these , if they do , it's a bonus.

I change to two feeds of live insects per day at 6 months old.

My beardie won't eat anything green

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