My beardie is addicted to the white stuff!

[Jdsbeardie]

We have a baby dragon. We've had him 2 weeks tomorrow. He was eating like a pig the first week. 20+ crickets a feeding & 3 feedings a day. Then he started not eating his "lunch" --- which I took as my chance to push greens. I started skipping feeders for "breakfast", giving him fresh kale, then 2 feedings of feeders. He has barely rouched his greens. Well now ..... He only wants feeders that are dusted. He will walk around his feeder box & luck the spilled powder from his earlier meal & not eat his feeders??!!

I have 1200 feeders coming in & he's slowed down eating!!! I can't possibly dust every meal? Right??? And he doesn't care if it's vitamins or calcium dust. I tried changing the paper on the bottom of his feeder box, thinking maybe the white helped him see --- but nothing.

He is pooping daily. Solid with a little bit of white. I bathe him every other day for 10-15 minutes or until he poops.

So .... Too much dust or what?

 

[cdavis88]

bump!! (not sure about answer but figured I'd bump to help you get some answers!)

 

[LightOnyx]

Well you said the calcium helped him see the feeders so maybe you could gets vet to check his eyes out if maybe he has some loss of vision. What do to make my beardie eat his veggies is, I make a salad weighs a variety of vegetables and then I put 8 phoenix worms on top of the salad I dust only 3 of them and I make sure all of them are wiggling and he sees them and picks up a piece of the salad accompanied with the phoenix worm. Hope this helped

 

[unkempt1]

Recommending he take his dragon to the vet, just because it seems he favors food with calcium powder on it, is a bit extreme. Unless there is build-up or discharge under the eyes, it doesn't sound like a vision problem. Edit: Depends, the more I think about it. Is there more to the story? Or if you put half and half crickets (some dusted, some not), does he only eat the dusted ones? If so, just sounds like a preference, as I would think the undusted ones would be easier to see.

Dusting at every meal isn't a bad thing, I don't think. Just use a little less dust each time. Since he doesn't like greens too much, maybe buy some collard greens or something better than kale and sprinkle some powder on it to see if he'll eat them. Look at this list to see what is best: http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html.

I've heard of dragons getting "spoiled" on calcium powder, heck, I've heard of them getting spoiled on the red reptile food, leaving the green pellets. They can be weird, and can have weird human-like quirks. I guess I should ask - what are your specific concerns with your dragon only wanting to eat dusted foodstuffs?

 

[DeltaElite121]

Well you said the calcium helped him see the feeders so maybe you could gets vet to check his eyes out if maybe he has some loss of vision. What do to make my beardie eat his veggies is, I make a salad weighs a variety of vegetables and then I put 8 phoenix worms on top of the salad I dust only 3 of them and I make sure all of them are wiggling and he sees them and picks up a piece of the salad accompanied with the phoenix worm. Hope this helped

to be fair, BOTH of mine also react a lot better to crickets that are dusted. They're much easier to see. I seriously doubt the dragon has eye problems, moreso just being easier to see movement from a bright white cricket.

 

[snazzyglasses]

Our 4 year old male just plain won't eat his feeders if they're not dusted. We got him in August and his previous owners warned us that he wouldn't eat undusted bugs. We haven't had any problems with him getting too much calcium, but then again he's an adult eating 35-50 large feeders a week instead of a younger dragon eating hundreds of small ones per week lol. Our 2 year old female isn't quite as stubborn, but she definitely seems to prefer dusted bugs as well.

It sounds like your little guy is doing fine though! One of the symptoms of too much calcium is yellow-ish urates I believe; can't remember the other symptoms (sorry :?). But I think it's super hard for a baby to be taking in too much calcium, since they grow so crazy fast! You can double check with Tracie (username Drache613) if you're worried though. She's our resident beardie medical expert

 

[Jdsbeardie]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts & ideas. Since I first wrote this, he's shown his true bearded dragon colors ..... He's just a moody pickey eater!! Lol.

Now he wants Phoenix worms (don't worry, I don't dust them) over other feeders. Also, I've gotten better at not spilling so much calcium in his feeder box.

Thanks again!