Feeding an adult

[tinkerpuppet]

Spike is 8yo, we just got her this week. She has only been fed meal worms for most of her life. She's blind in one eye, so when given crickets, often they run away and she can't see them, so she was rarely given them (maybe a few times a month). She only had meal worms as she was in a small town and that's all they had. Apparently she never liked vegetables.

So after some reading, its quickly obvious that a diet of meal worms isn't the best. Greens need to be a big part of her diet, with protein second.

So does this sound like an ok diet? Salad every day (right now she has endive, cucumber and a few strawberry tops), with 10 super worms every other night?

She did eat some salad today, which was encouraging. I got super worms as they are apparently better then mealworms. I have to give her each worm individually to make sure they don't crawl away before she sees them, but its nice to interact with her (she really hasn't been handled much and hisses at me sometimes).

I'm just wondering if I should be giving her worms everyday? Or if this is a good balance? Thanks!

 

[KarenInCA]

Rin is only 8 months old so I can't advise you on how often to feed an adult proteins, but I do have a couple of tips for the salads...
For the salads, you can also try mustard greens, turnip greens, collard greens, dandelion greens, and all of the winter squashes. You can cut in to a fresh winter squash, and cut up very fine pieces of it (minus the outer shell). And sprinkle that on top of the salad. Butternut squash and spaghetti squash seem to be good with my guy.
For the greens, you might also have luck finding a pre-cut bag of "southern greens" I found that recently in my local chain grocery store. (mustard, turnip, collard greens already chopped up). I just take off the pieces that have the stems attached, and roll the bag up, then put a chip clip on it, and toss the bag into the veggie drawer of our fridge. When I use the greens, I usually rinse them once under water, that way they stay fresh on the cool side of his viv…with the hot lights in there, and it also gives him a little water in his diet. His greens are put in the way (kind of) between his cool side where he sleeps and his basking branch. That way, he either has to walk over them in the morning or take interest in them as he is trying to move up to the heat. He has usually taken interest in them on the way to his basking spot.
You might also want to try giving her a couple baths a week as you clear her body from the meal worms. They can cause impaction, as you know.. It's a great way to get extra 1-1 with your dragon and my guy likes the warm water….a lot. He usually falls asleep in it. If you have a bathtub to spare, use that, otherwise use a large tote. My guy started liking his baths even more when I put a couple of washcloths in there to grab on to. If you need tips on how to make the baths soothing for them, let me know…Rin is the king of baths, and Ive learned a lot from trial and error with him, in making it even more pleasurable for him.

 

[CooperDragon]

I agree with mixing up what's in the salads to keep interest in them. They should be the primary food. As long as she keeps eating her salads you can increase the frequency of worms a bit (not necessarily the quantity, but a few every day perhaps and see how that goes). You want to try to maintain about 80% veggies to 20% protein if you can.

 

[tinkerpuppet]

Thanks! Unfortunately a lot of the greens mentioned aren't readily available where I am, but I do plan on mixing stuff up when I go shopping. Endive was all the store had that was on the staple list from the Beautiful Dragon site, we always have cucumber in the house and my son and I just shared a basket of strawberries (hence the strawberry tops!). The produce guy did say they occasionally have collard greens, but didn't that day. With spring coming I'm hoping there's more variety soon! We eat a lot of veggies, I'm sure we'll find things she likes if I keep offering. That mixed bag of greens sounds great, I wish that were available here!

I'm a little nervous about baths. She really doesn't like me touching her, and I'm sure she's never had a bath. She does love lying in her water dish (its pretty big), so I think she would like a nice warm bath. I'd love any bath tips you have!

 

[CooperDragon]

Endive is a good staple. If that's what you can get, then that will do nicely. As for baths, I picked up a cheap turkey roasting pan and used that as the bathtub. It's a good size, is portable, and is easy to dump & clean. Some folks recommend putting a washcloth at the bottom to help with traction. I wouldn't push the baths too hard until she's more comfortable with you handling her, but she'll probably enjoy bathtime once she gets used to it.

 

[felixandfideaux]

I have been feeding my 20 month old beardie frozen vegetables, including collards, which she loves. (defrosted of course.) My store carries "no salt added." The only greens thing my store carries in winter was lettuce and Kale. I couldn't get mine to eat ANY veggies at all,but she loves the frozen veggies. She also had poop problems exacerbated by the "no veggies" diet. Now she goes every day at 10-11am. I am introducing fresh greens mixed with the frozen as I am sure the frozen isn't optimal and she seems to be eating them. Good luck!

 

[tinkerpuppet]

Thanks for the tip on frozen veggies! I will definitely check our my store for any.