How Many Crickets To Feed Debate

[PoliticalKid]

Hi everyone! I thought it'd be interesting to see how many crickets your dragon eats. I'm particularly interested in how many crickets dragons under one year of age eat. I did about 6 months of research before I got my beardie and everyone I talked to (at expos and reptile shops, not petsmart/petco) and every care sheet I read said that babies and juvies (juvies generally being accepted as a dragon up to 9-12 months old depending on who you talk to) should be allowed as many crickets as they want in a 10 minute time frame. Most care sheets will say that a young dragon could eat up to 100 crickets a day. This is taken directly from the bearded dragons.org care sheet "Baby and juvenile Beardies should be offered appropriately sized crickets two-three times a day. Offer as many as your Beardie will eat in a 5-10 minute time frame. When your Beardie stops eating, stop offering. Young Bearded Dragons can eat anywhere from 20-60 small crickets a day" . Recently though I've been seeing people with young dragons saying that they feed them maximum 3-8 crickets a day. Not per meal but per day. That seems like they are severely underfeeding. My guy Dawkins who's roughly five months old, on average eats about 60 a day (30 ish per sitting) and he's not anywhere near overweight. It'd also be interesting to hear from people with adult dragons but as we all know babies and juvies have different dietary needs then their adult counterparts.

 

[Soulwind]

People feeding young dragons 3-8 crickets a day are either:

1) Severely under-feeding
or
2) Feeding crickets that are way too oversized for the dragon

Quantity that a young dragon will eat daily varies by many factors, but
it's almost never a small number.

The 2 big factors on quantity are:
Size of the prey (bigger bugs = less # eaten before he's full)
and
Type of the prey (most dragons eat less Dubia than Crickets at a sitting since Dubia are so much more filling/meat to shell ratio)

Time of year, Health of dragon, Temps, What sign is currently in opposition to Aquarius, etc can also affect his appetite.

 

[Sauzo]

Harley used to eat around 45 dubia a day as a baby which would equal around 90-135 depending who you listen to about cricket to dubia meat ratio. She now only eats around 10-20 a day since she's in a mini brumation but yes like soulwind said, baby/juvi beardies do not eat small amounts.

 

[Doug2013]

But do they need to eat so much. My juvenile has grown 3 inches in the last month and is starting his second shed since I got him (a month and a half), is 3 inches a month a reasonable growth rate?

 

[PoliticalKid]

But do they need to eat so much. My juvenile has grown 3 inches in the last month and is starting his second shed since I got him (a month and a half), is 3 inches a month a reasonable growth rate?

It seems like my dragon is in shed once every week or two. If you google bearded dragon growth rate or growth chart you'll get an idea of whether or not things are normal. This is the growth chart I've been using http://www.dachiubeardeddragons.com/dragoncare/growthcharts.html . For the first month or so that I had Dawkins he grew an inch a week give or take. His growth has slowed down a bit but now he's filling out and is beginning to look more like an adult as opposed to a lanky baby. As far as the eating goes they really do need to eat that much. Think about all the growing that they have to do! Once they're older their diet will be very different though. Right now your dragon should be eating 70% animal protein and 30% greens and veggies. Once your dragon is an adult that'll switch to 70% greens and veggies and 30% animal protein. If it's cost your worried about try ordering crickets online. That saves me $40 a month.

 

[Sauzo]

Beardies go through growth spurts. He might grow really fast for a few months, then slow down a couple months. I have noticed they seem to growth in length for a bit then in width, then length again etc. Plus genetics play a lot into it too. If they had big parents, they will prolly be big. Harley was 6 inches and 6 weeks old when I got her. I've had her 5 1/2 months and she is over 14 inches now. There are others with younger ones bigger. Harleys mom is 1.5 years old and 19.5 inches and her dad is a little bigger so her genetics prolly wont have her grow into some huge monster. As long as your beardie has good fat stores and is happy, then I would say you are doing good. You however don't ever want to starve them by underfeeding. Allow them to eat till full. Also try and get them started on veggies while they are young or you might be fighting a battle of wills later in their life. Give veggies for breakfast. That's how I got Harley to like veggies as a baby. Now she actually prefers her collard greens to dubias some days which makes my life easier. Here is another site to guess age to length http://www.thebeardeddragon.org/bearded-dragon.php. Scroll about halfway down the page. But like I said, genetics will play a lot into it. What you really want to check is their fat stores like behind the eyes, Their neck, base of the tail, thickness of arms and legs and obviously the sweet beardie potbelly :lol: