How much do you feed your beardie?

[stubrookes]

Hi all,

Not quite a board virgin, but still new... How much do you all feed your beardies?

Another forum I read occasionally has people feeding up to 10-15 crickets a day, one person has an adult beardie eating 10-12 large locusts per day...

Ours eats a reptile bowl of salad a day, and probably half a dozen large crickets or locusts every other day. It seems as though we're under-feeding him, however at 17.5" and 425g at 11 months, he seems a very good size, if not a little on the heavy side.

Our local reptile shop said we should only give live food every other day, and about 6-8 is more than enough. When he is hungry and goes chasing them, I obviously give him more, but if he doesn't chase them, I just put half a dozen or so in.

Does that sound right?

 

[Deemac6]

First thing you will learn here is to never listen to pets stores, they kill as much as they sell. The rule of thumb for feeding is as much as they will eat in 10-15 mins. They will stop when they are full.

 

[Grogshla]

yep and nothing larger than the space between the dragons eyes.

I would strongly recommend small-medium crickets then after he is a few months old then bring in some woodies.

 

[stubrookes]

I always get confused by that 'space between the eyes' comment. He is fully grown now, and if I kept to that rule he'd eat nothing more than medium crickets... Yet he loves large crickets and locusts, he actually lost interest in the medium crickets and wouldn't eat them, so we had to buy him something bigger. Feeding him larger ones doesn't appear to have had any negative side effects, e.g. digestion problems... Should I really start feeding him smaller food?

Our local pet shop is actually one of the few specialist reptile shops I know of, so I do have a lot of time for them and trust in them as they don't sell anything like a Pets at Home, they only sell reptile and reptile housing etc.

I don't use the 'as much as he can eat in 10-15' minutes, as sometimes I put them in and he has no interest in them, so on that basis he'd have none. I just stick half a dozen in and let him decide when he wants to put them out of their misery.

 

[Deemac6]

You should never leave crickets in the tank unattended or over night, try feeding him in a different place, like a plastic tub. Crickets left in the viv that he is not eating, can bite him and stress him out. If you leave them in over night, or don't recatch them all they can keep him awake and continue to stress him out. He could be not eating as much due to this.

 

[lightheart]

, he actually lost interest in the medium crickets and wouldn't eat them, so we had to buy him something bigger.

I am so glad you said this because our dragon will not eat the smaller size crickets. He has no intrest in them at all. We have only had our dragon since Dec 4, when we got him we thought the pet store (private, not chain) was feeding him too big of crickets so we ordered a 1000 smaller crickets. He just would not eat them. After 3-4 days no crickets and only salad I went out locally and bought more big crickets, he ate them immediatly! The smaller crickets are growing and I'm picking through them for the smallest ones to feed to our goldfish!

Our dragon is small for his age but has grown alot since we have got him. He was 10.5 inches long when he came home and is now 12.25 inches! That's 1.75 inches in a month! We think he is about 9 months old.

To answer your original question, I'm not for certain how many crickets he is eating everyday, with 2 little boys who help feed it is hard to keep track. This last time (Dec. 28) when I bought crickets we counted them (131 large) I kept track of the number of dead crickets pulled out of the cricket bin (3) We started feeding the new crickets Dec 29 and the bin that batch of crickets were in ran out yesterday, so 128 crickets in 7 days, average 18.28 crickets a day! He gets about a half cup (loose packed) of shredded butternut squash and chopped collards a day. He doesn't eat all of it though, probably only probably only 3/4 of it, some days more, some days less. We also mix in about 1 Tbs of Ready To Eat Bites by Nature Zone (wet looking food) I think he picks around that though. He also gets a tad of whatever fruit/veggies we are eating as a family that day if it's ok for him.

Feeding schedule is right before I go to bed I give some collards so he has food 1st thing of the morning if he wants, his light is off and he is in his cave. In the morning before he gets crickets I give those collards to the crickets and give him fresh collards with the squash mixed in. His light turns on at 6:00am and goes off 8:00pm. After the kids eat their breakfast 7:00ish am, they put crickets in his pen. About 11:00 he has pooped and I clean out his papertowels and all the remaining crickets. Then about 4:00 they feed him more crickets. I pull out the extra ones about 7:00pm

I know I'm leaving the crickets in longer than some suggest but for now it seems to be working for us. The crickets aren't all jumpy on him. Either they are scurring around while he's actively eating them or they go hide in his cave or behind his bricks until he goes for more. We did try a seperate bin for feeding when he first came home but our dragon didn't like that, he would puff up and stand still and wouldn't eat. Now that he has gotten more comfortable living at our house maybe I will try the seperate bin again and see what happens. It would be easier for me for sure since catching crickets a couple times a day isn't all that fun especially when you have to remove all his stuff to make sure all are out, At least his pen gets cleaned more that way!

 

[Deemac6]

Change, even the slightest is always stressful the first few times for any dragon, even though he might not like the separate bin at first he will grow used to it. It is the best feeding option.

 

[Cocky]

we use a small tub which we dust then put either 20-30 crickets in or 12 - 15 locusts.

Lights on at 6.00 am, then a feed at 8:00 am, letting them eat whatever they can, leaving any straddlers in the viv.

Fresh Salad every day, collared greens, peas and Butternut squash.

Then at 4 - 5 pm another feed or just a hunt round for any feeders left in the viv, again until they are full.

The tub is only small and we feed them in the viv and place the tub on its side at a slight angle so the locusts/crickets have to really move to get out of it, the movement encourages the beardies to eat more.

Our beardies are about 4 months old, and weigh around 100 grams each and they are about 12 inches in length.

 

[NightmareDisco]

My dragon is almost 10 months old and he eats whatever he picks out of his salad, and a mixture crickets and phoenix worms equalling to 50 or 60 a day, plus a few superworms every few days. He's quite the eater.

 

[Toyguy]

Dash is now 7 months old, weighs 432 grams this week and is almost 20" in length. He eats about 15-20 Superworms a day, about 40-50 medium crickets if it's cricket day, He also eats most of his salad every day, consisting of collard greens and squash, with Endive or Escarole for variety now and then and some carrot once a week.

 

[BeardieGrandma]

Wow toyguy, you got a big boy there....

Joga is 16" and 6.5 mos old, weighs 249 grams...

she eats salad in the AM, with 12 large reptiworms, 40 crickets
40 crickets in the PM

How often can you feed them superworms?

 

[CataclysmKitten]

I feed Zeusy 30 Lg crickets every other day.
Romaine lettuce, peas, broccoli, etc daily.
Just introduced him to mealworms *as a treat* today, he didn't seem too interested. Heh.

 

[Toyguy]

Just a note that Romaine really isn't all that good for them. Lettuce in general isn't. It's not harmful, just not that helpful. Collards are much better. Check out http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html for great nutrition guidelines.

As for Superworms, I typically feed them 6 of 7 days. They are dusted with RepCal/D3. On the 7th day, I feed crickets, dusted with Herptivite. Salad everyday. On occasion, I will swap out a day or 2 of Supers for dubia roaches or phoenix worms, again for variety. I prefer to keep Dash eating lots of different feeders in case he goes off one of them for a while. It seems to be working

 

[Deemac6]

I feed Zeusy 30 Lg crickets every other day.
Romaine lettuce, peas, broccoli, etc daily.
Just introduced him to mealworms *as a treat* today, he didn't seem too interested. Heh.

30 lg crickets every other day? Do you mean every second day? If so you are under feeding.

 

[Slave2Scarlett]

Hi all,

Not quite a board virgin, but still new... How much do you all feed your beardies?

Another forum I read occasionally has people feeding up to 10-15 crickets a day, one person has an adult beardie eating 10-12 large locusts per day...

Ours eats a reptile bowl of salad a day, and probably half a dozen large crickets or locusts every other day. It seems as though we're under-feeding him, however at 17.5" and 425g at 11 months, he seems a very good size, if not a little on the heavy side.

Our local reptile shop said we should only give live food every other day, and about 6-8 is more than enough. When he is hungry and goes chasing them, I obviously give him more, but if he doesn't chase them, I just put half a dozen or so in.

Does that sound right?

Ok first thing to remember.. With him being 11 months chances are his eating habits are changing and he will start prefering greens over live foods which is perfectly normal and ok.. The 10 minute rule never worked for me either... and neither did feeding in a seperate bin.. If I timed Scarlett to eat all she could in 10 minutes she would starve to death.. The whole leaving the crickets in the viv is a bad idea b/c they will eat on them and stress them out is debatable... If you gutload the crickets and u also have greens in the viv chances are they will prefer the greens over your beardie.. I agree u prob don't want to leave 15 in there hopping around when they are trying to sleep but I know Scarlett and they won't all survive..lol Yours is too big to feed in another bin I'm sure.. When I first got Scarlett I tried feeding her in a seperate bin and she wouldn't eat one cricket.. Drove me nuts.. I ended up buying some reptiworms b/c I thought she didn't like them... Well turns out she would rather chase them in her viv than eat them somewhere else..