My beardie baby doesn't want veggies

[SteelFox]

Hi everyone,
I just recently got my first Bearded and have been offering veggies every day since we got her but as far as I can tell she never eats them. I even tried not feeding her crickets for a day just to see if she would eat them cuz she was hungry but she still refused. I moved the food around a bit too to simulate moving prey and that still didn't work. Finally I dumped her crickets right in the veggie bowl hoping she might accidentally get some while getting the crickets but that also didn't work. I'm so worried that she won't get the vitamins she needs even though I have the UVA/UVB light, gut load and dust her crickets with Calcium and a vitamin powder too. What should I do?

 

[CooperDragon]

Don't worry about the veges. They often ignore veges as little ones in favor of bugs. They need the protein to support huge growth spurts. Keep offering the veges so they're a familiar food option but she may not show much interest. They tend to transition to a primarily vegetarian diet at around 12-18 months (varies from dragon to dragon and depends on growth rate) so for now just keep offering plenty of well hydrated bugs dusted in calcium and offer a multivitamin dust instead of calcium once a week or so and that should be fine. You could offer fresh veges to your crickets so they're well hydrated and gutloaded with goodies.

 

[quyllur]

Have patience. Baby bearded dragons need lots of insect protein as they grow. For such a young bearded dragon I would not withhold food to get them to eat veggies, just keep offering veggies daily in addition to the insects.

Once she's older, say close to a year, if she still isn't eating veggies, you can start to consider withholding bugs.

Keep offering dusted insects, of different kinds if you have them available, and make sure they are gutloaded with healthy veggies that you want your beardie to eat and you will do fine.

 

[SteelFox]

Thanks for the quick response Cooperdragon! Ok I'll continue to do that. And at the moment the only insects I've got to feed her is crickets and an occasional wax work but I plan to order some Phoenix worms for both her and out leopard gecko.