Bearded dragon diet help

[Inkticious]

Hey all, need help, my vet is saying my bearded has too much calcium. He aint lethargic or showing any symptoms but, he needs stuff with less calcium, or no calcium. Please help, not many list show how much calcium food contains

 

[KarrieRee]

Hey all, need help, my vet is saying my bearded has too much calcium. He aint lethargic or showing any symptoms but, he needs stuff with less calcium, or no calcium. Please help, not many list show how much calcium food contains

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View attachment 88995

Are you feeding calcium supplements? What is his diet?

 

[Drache613]

Moved by Moderator from Health to Feeding

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Did the vet do a blood test or an x-ray to determine him getting too much calcium?
What supplementation are you using currently?
Most greens have natural levels of calcium so it's kind of hard to knock all of it out.
The insects you feed, do you gutload them with calcium also?

Tracie

 

[Inkticious]

Hello,

Did the vet do a blood test or an x-ray to determine him getting too much calcium?
What supplementation are you using currently?
Most greens have natural levels of calcium so it's kind of hard to knock all of it out.
The insects you feed, do you gutload them with calcium also?

Tracie

Hi, so, he gets no calcium supplements. If i remember properly; the first time which was roughly a month ago, the vet said his calcium levels were about 12 something? And yesterday we were told it's gone up to 14 something.
The vet basically yelled at my mom despite the fact we were doing what we were told to do, and the vet also had only recently told us that he is actually a boy, even though previously for the last 2 years the vet told us he was a girl. The vet also didn't give us a proper diet list and was more focused on unclogging two dogs, and was yelling at my mom when my mom said she just wanted to pay so we could leave and that the vet could call us when the bloodwork was done. The vet also didnt give us a copy of his bloodwork so i have 0 idea what it looks like.

We try to not give him too much of stuff, before the vet told us to change his diet, he would get baby butter lettuce, and spring mix lettuce. He would also sometimes get strawberries, raspberries, bell peppers, very rarely get banana as a treat, sometimes a little bit of scrambled eggs with nothing in them just the egg being scrambled.

He looks less yellow then he did a month ago, and he's been more active and has been acting more like himself, so, idk what to do. Me and my mom made a list last night, and i tried explaining to her everything has calcium, and she said the vet told her ""there needs to be 0 calcium.""

 

[Inkticious]

He also has been getting some asparagus, meal worms / super worms, the blue worms [ i think they're horn worms? ], the packets of dubia roaches where the roaches are already dead since my mom is terrified of roaches, and We're both scared of them escaping the container if we get them live. Currently he's running around, he didn't eat much for the past few days cuz he was full of poop, but he finally pooped yesterday, so hopefully he'll eat when he's done running.

He's very affectionate, and we try to take him outside as often as we can, he also sits in the window on colder days. I've been using advice that I've previously gotten here for awhile, and, he seems very healthy and happy. He smiles a lot, and gives lots of kisses, he also loves to cuddle and snuggle. He loves getting baths and loves swimming. The vet gave us some medicine on checkup a month ago, then about a week or two later they gave us a different medicine which we had to manually mix, and yesterday we got 0 medicine, i can take photos of the medicine.

We're probably gonna find a different vet; since this vet has been a struggle to deal with at times, and has been giving us conflicting information on multiple occasions. Food they told us was good for him now they tell us the food is bad, they told us he was a girl the first time we got a checkup on him when he was a year old, when we had been calling him a boy, then now that hes 3, they're saying hes a boy, and i just- it's frustrating, we're doing our best and trying to listen to what theyre saying but they give us conflicting info, and just- ugh...

This is the vet he has had for his entire life, and they have his files and stuff, so I don't know why they can't just tell us answers that make sense and instead they keep getting us confused then blame us for following their confusing instructions.

 

[Inkticious]

Here's the lists me and my mom wrote of different foods we were looking up last night. [ sorry if my hand writing is hard to read, i have always had terrible hand writing.
[ the nicer hand writing on the right in the second image is my mom's hand writing. ]

EDIT: Sorry if i ramble a lot, or if I'm not giving the best explanations. This situation has been stressful, and I just want my little baby boy to have the best possible life, I love him so much, he's my entire world. I try my best to take care of him on my own, but since I have mental problems, and can be forgetful, my mom also takes care of him. I've been getting better with taking care of him and stuff, I even somewhat recently cleaned his entire tank by myself, which is something usually my mom helps me with.

 

[Inkticious]

Wrote a new list using the site linked in one of the pinned post based on the diet of little to no calcium diet.

 

[KarrieRee]

Time to find a new vet www.arav.org -- type in a bigger cities zip code if your in a small town / area
Next please call the vets office request the copy of the blood work done -- you paid for it its yours have them email it to you once you get the results please post on here so Tracie can look at it and explain it to you - I am posting a website for nutrition please ignore the kale info its outdated and is a good staple feeder
Nutrition Content
this website will tell whats high in calcium etc --- what to feed what not to feed and how often

 

[Inkticious]

Time to find a new vet www.arav.org -- type in a bigger cities zip code if your in a small town / area
Next please call the vets office request the copy of the blood work done -- you paid for it its yours have them email it to you once you get the results please post on here so Tracie can look at it and explain it to you - I am posting a website for nutrition please ignore the kale info its outdated and is a good staple feeder
Nutrition Content
this website will tell whats high in calcium etc --- what to feed what not to feed and how often

That's the site I used for the new list! And I will definitely call later and ask for the blood work when I am able to, I might need my mom to be home for me to do that since they might as for her information and I dont have any of that.

 

[KarrieRee]

That's the site I used for the new list! And I will definitely call later and ask for the blood work when I am able to, I might need my mom to be home for me to do that since they might as for her information and I dont have any of that.

Ok but we dont need your vet yelling at you -- they should not be doing that - look at the website again for a different vet - we want Tracie to look at those results so she can advise you better --

 

[Inkticious]

Ok but we dont need your vet yelling at you -- they should not be doing that - look at the website again for a different vet - we want Tracie to look at those results so she can advise you better --

The closest vet on that site is over an hour away.... so IDK if I can do that, especially with how my beardie is, he'd get anxious.

 

[KarrieRee]

The closest vet on that site is over an hour away.... so IDK if I can do that, especially with how my beardie is, he'd get anxious.

Most like car rides

 

[Inkticious]

Most like car rides

He likes car rides- but he also starts getting anxious, and tries to run around all over me and my mom, which is not good when we're trying to focus on driving, we also can't really afford long car rides. We're gonna be seeing a vet soonish. Here's some photos that I took the other day, and yesterday. We're doing our best to take good care of him, we've been struggling to find food that's on our list at the store for him. Only thing we can find is bok choy.
But we're trying, here's him getting a bath, and soaking up the sun on my back.

 

[ChileanTaco]

He likes car rides- but he also starts getting anxious, and tries to run around all over me and my mom, which is not good when we're trying to focus on driving

Regarding him running around in the car: I guess you don't have a carrier for him? What you could do is use a cardboard box, make holes, put in a towel - as the easiest makeshift "carrier" that would cost you approx. nothing and gets him save to the vet if needed. You could also use a large plastic container like a tote and make holes in the lid.
Even if he won't enjoy the ride in the box, at least he'll be safe in there.

Only thing we can find is bok choy

Not a solution for immediately but for the next weeks, months: Could you try growing something? It looks to me by the picture above that you might have a balcony or patio available? If that's the case, you could try that out; usually seeds are not that expensive (but might depend on where you live) and in the long run this will be even cheaper than buying veggies especially as they seem to be hard to get where you live. Could you get something like dandelion from where there is no fertilizer, pesticides, dog pee? You could also grow that on your own.