A Better dragon diet

[Meeper]

Hey guys, I have a 3 year old dragon named Reuben and while he's doing well I think I could be doing better with his diet. I was wondering if i could get some tips on a perfect beardie diet for him.

My issues are with him is he seems to be a very picky/sparse eater. I try putting in mixes of peas, carrots, greenbeans, collared greens and such as a salad but he barely eats any every day before it all dries out, and it wastes a lot of food.
Also for bugs, he refuses to chase most things so i usually just provide freezedried crickets, which he does eat but I dunno if that's the best option for him.

Any suggestions? Here's him too btw:

 

[Taterbug]

Oh what a cutie. He is a bit on the chubby side so probably doesn't -need- to be eating big meals, especially if he isn't very active. How long has he been fussy about food?

I would continue with the salads (can you offer a smaller salad twice a day so it isn't dried out?) and reduce how many insects he gets if he is pigging out on them. (Also switch to live, roaches last longer that crickets if that's an option for you). Putting insects like silkworms or BSFL in the salad may entice him to pick at it a bit more due to the movement.

 

[CooperDragon]

I agree. Try some tough love to get him into his veges. Given his size and age he won't need to eat much. I offer bugs only every few days for my adult dragon and salads daily. If you switch to a small roach colony as Taterbug suggested, you can drop the leftover salad into their bin every night and they'll take care of it so there's no waste. My dragon sometimes prefers greens when they're dried out and a bit crunchy so that's not necessarily a bad thing. He'd just be missing out on some hydration which you can supplement by dripping some water on his nose for him to lick up. I've also had good luck hand feeding veges to my dragons sometimes to gain their interest because I can move it around a bit.

 

[Jsw]

Try some tough love to get him into his veges.

I used tough love per CooperDragon's advice, and while Scaly does not enjoy veggies as much as roaches, he does eat a decent variety of them when offered directly to his mouth. :roll: He won't go so far as to seek them out, but at least I know he's getting them.

Tough love for me involved letting him go without food for two full days. I had been giving him a few roaches because I didn't want him to starve. After he got good and hungry, he ate his veggies. Now I offer roaches every other day and veggies every other day.

My beardie is also a class pet, so I let my students feed him. They enjoy hand feeding him, so he gets his roaches presented to him on a spoon, which is making him a bit lazy. :lol: I'm going to have to insist they simply place the roaches in the vivarium and force him to move about. But I wonder if your guy would eat roaches on a spoon instead of dried mealworms.

 

[CooperDragon]

I would be careful with the spoon and make sure they don't bite it because that could damage their teeth/jaw. If they lick the bug from it, that's fine. Otherwise I'd switch to plastic tweezers or a gloved hand.

 

[Meeper]

Yea haha I do get quite a few comments that he's chubby, which is weird with how little he likes to eat, and he's sort of always been this finicky, especially since I began transitioning him to the adult diet a while back,

I'll definitely try switching out the salad and look into mealworms. Roaches give me the heeby jeebies so I don't know about that but I've been letting him out a lot moreso maybe moving around will get him more active.

He's never been a biter, I've never actually even seen him get angry or hissy and I hand feed him sometimes when he's out of his cage and he seems to respond to that better than placing food in a dish or bowl for him in his cage, but he still only eats like, 2 full green beans and then he's done and won't touch the rest of his food, even if I skimp on crickets for a couple days.

 

[Taterbug]

Be sure not to reduce his food too much right away, it can cause its own problems with overweight reptiles.

 

[Jsw]

Interesting about the spoon! He mostly licks from it (and it's plastic) and uses his tongue to snag the roaches, but occasionally if he's very hungry for squash, he'll grab the whole thing. I'll make sure to get giant globs on it to avoid him grabbing.