Hope it’s okay to post this here - am hoping to provide relief to someone here looking for info on bearded dragons eating ladybugs. I know the general consensus is that they’re not toxic, but I figured it would be nice to hear a firsthand account.
So our appr 14-month-old beardie ate a small ladybug last evening and seems to be fine here at around 20 hours later. I don’t think he even got sick to his stomach - from what I could tell - he’s usually lethargic and grumpy looking around that time of day anyway though. We did leave his basking light on a little longer for digestion purposes, and it was a pretty small bug, but so far so good.
Oh - and I’m in Georgia. I know there are different genus/species but hopefully they have more in common than not! Will try to upload a picture this afternoon for reference!
From what I've heard + read and experienced the occasional ingestion of a mildly toxic insect usually does no harm, especially to a larger dragon. People used to freak out if their beardie ate a bee ,wasp or hornet but several dragon owners have seen no effects after their dragon ate one , same thing happened to mine including one of my babies. Ate a hornet and had no problem whatsoever.
I haven't noticed a problem with them eating them occasionally in low amounts. They tend to infest the house in the fall so it's tough to avoid sometimes.
I agree, they are not highly toxic unless a large amount is ingested.
If you are a bit worried about toxicity, you could get some activated charcoal to give to
your dragon to help flush out the system. I have never heard of a dragon dying from
ingesting a lady bug, but it's usually best to try avoiding ingesting them but with reptiles
that is hard!
I haven't had many stink bugs around but I would certainly try to prevent them from being around as much as you can. I agree that having an activated charcoal kit handy is a cheap and easy way to be prepared for an emergency. I highly recommend this one https://bug-de-lite.com/Item/Emergency Charcoal Kit It is compact and easy to dose. It goes wherever my dragon goes.