Obese beardie?

[Sabra]

Lately my bearded dragon, Neo, has been looking a little fat. We took him home 10/01/2022 (at 6 weeks old) and I believe he was born in late august so he's about 5 months old now. About 3 weeks ago now I was feeding him a diet of 40% mealworm : 40% bsfl : 20% salad. He was starting to look girthy so I stopped that diet and switched him over to 40% bsfl : 40% crickets / 20% salad.

He may look a little bigger in the picture than "normal" because he's laying flat against that rock which is pushing his gut out more and he hasnt pooped yet (it's his off day he goes every other day). But anyway, he's looking really wide and I was wondering what everyone's opinion would be, is he obese? He has no problems eating, he's voracious. He's very active when we take him out, he loves running around (enclosure details in profile).

I've included a few pictures of his growth over time for comparison.

Here he is on day 1, they said he was 6 weeks old but he looks pretty small. He was healthy and ate the food (crickets) we offered him.

Here is a picture of him a few days after we took him home. We left him alone and he got acquainted with his environment.

Here he is after his first shed, 9 weeks old

13 weeks after we brought him home - putting on some healthy size.

21 weeks old - this is about where I started feeding him a lot of mealworms / BSFL

23 weeks old (present day) - obese or normal?

Same day, different pose to show how wide he is. Note he is flattening himself out to get maximum surface area (I have an overhead room fan on to circulate air but it brings the air temp down a little so he gets low when that happens).

 

[Pancake151]

He doesn’t look terribly fat, though it might be good to switch over to a primarily veggie diet, since he is getting older and will not need bugs as much as a hatchling would. Might be a good idea for someone else a bit more experienced to check this out first, though!

 

[AHBD]

Neo is a beauty ! Nice healthy looking leatherback, he grew quickly from the cute, tiny baby you had just 4-5 months ago. He is just slightly pudgy but he does have more growing to do. Still, you can cut down just slightly on the insects and offer more greens/veggies. It's good that you cut way down on the mealworms, crickets and bsfl are better options.

 

[Sabra]

Thank you guys so much for replying!

So he is a leatherback, thank you for confirming that! My wife liked him because he wasn't so "spikey" and I wasn't sure if he was a morph of any type. He was listed as a "red morph" in the local pet shop we got him at but after doing some research there is no such thing as a red morph. I believe color is never a morph correct?

We can start feeding him more greens/veggies now? I thought that started at a year old but I guess its more based on size? I feed him 3 times daily now, greens in the morning and bugs in afternoon / night. Should I do greens in morning / afternoon and then bugs at night? Or, should it be more like 4 days of greens and then 3 days of bugs?

 

[AHBD]

No, he's not actually obese, was probably putting on a few extra grams due to all the mealworms. Feed him like you usually do but just a few less bugs at each feeeding, nothin drastic.

 

[AHBD]

And yes, he's a beautiful leatherback ! Red is not an actual morph but there are lines of dragons called reds if they truly are very red. BTW are you sure Neo's a male ?

 

[Sabra]

Yeah I am pretty sure he is a male. I've seen the two bumps pretty pronounced but I will get a picture and post it here just for a second opinion.

Do you think "he" could possibly be a female?

 

[AHBD]

If I can see some good pics I can tell you.

 

[Sabra]

Here are two pictures I just took - I hope I captured the right location

 

[xp29]

Looks male to me.

 

[HyperLollipop]

Wow, what a gorgeous beardie!
Looking at his size, are you sure he's five months old? We brought our Herman home at the end of October and they told us he was around 2 months old, meaning he would be five months old now and he looks so much smaller than your little guy, and no bumps on his tail to tell his gender. Here's a pic of him today, he's in middle of shedding his back and stomach though,

 

[Sabra]

Wow, what a gorgeous beardie!
Looking at his size, are you sure he's five months old? We brought our Herman home at the end of October and they told us he was around 2 months old, meaning he would be five months old now and he looks so much smaller than your little guy, and no bumps on his tail to tell his gender. Here's a pic of him today, he's in middle of shedding his back and stomach though,

Thanks!
He does seem big for 5 months old. The pet shop told us he was 6 weeks old in October and looking at pictures of him at that time he was definitely a baby. So maybe he's a few weeks older but he has to be around 5-6 months max. I do feed him 3 times a day.

I don't think Herman is too far behind, that first picture you posted looks VERY similar to Neo but maybe not as fat haha. How often are you feeding Herman? Everyone says stay away from mealworms but I think he bulked up because of them.

Oh one thing I forgot to mention, I measured him last night and he's 17" not 26" like I initially posted I was WAY off. I'll try to weigh him too. Have you ever weighed Herman.

 

[HyperLollipop]

Thanks!
He does seem big for 5 months old. The pet shop told us he was 6 weeks old in October and looking at pictures of him at that time he was definitely a baby. So maybe he's a few weeks older but he has to be around 5-6 months max. I do feed him 3 times a day.

I don't think Herman is too far behind, that first picture you posted looks VERY similar to Neo but maybe not as fat haha. How often are you feeding Herman? Everyone says stay away from mealworms but I think he bulked up because of them.

Oh one thing I forgot to mention, I measured him last night and he's 17" not 26" like I initially posted I was WAY off. I'll try to weigh him too. Have you ever weighed Herman.

When in October was he 6 weeks old? We brought Herman home on October 19th and the pet store told us he was around 2 months old so I guess he could've been a bit younger than that, which is why he's not as big as your Neo.

We feed Herman twice a day, and he eats 10-20 crickets each time. We don't feed him mealworms because we heard those can cause impaction in young bearded dragons, but after some further reading I realized that crickets also have a hard exoskeleton (like the mealworms) and he hasn't gotten impacted yet, plus he's already around 5 months old so technically he's a juvenile and not a baby, so we might start getting him mealworms soon. The problem is I HATE worms, so the idea of having them in my house kind of grosses me out... though I guess we can keep them on the porch for now since it's cold outside. We also like to have greens available at all times, though I don't always remember to put them in his cage until I get home about 3:30pm. The greens we feed are dandelion greens and collard greens, though we've been wanting to try mustard greens as well.

I haven't measured Herman in a while but he's probably around 12 inches long, and I don't have a food scale so I can't measure him, but I think he has quite a bit of healthy chub on him.