over eating?

[Desdemona]

So, my now 14 inch dragon eats like a maniac, she can down 20+ silk worms (med) plus 30 or so smaller sized roaches (mixed but most quite small) plus 2 smallish pinkies. That was today. She had the roaches this morning and the rest around dinner time. After she ate she sat under her stump laying around with her tongue sticking out just slightly. I put her on her stump so she could get heat.

Normally she dorsnt get pinkies but she will eat it seems forever. I use the 15 min rule but her belly will get quite round and when she poops it seems enough for two. She poops every 3 days and gets baths every 3 days or so as well.

Will a dragon over eat?

 

[kngofnwyk]

I'm not too sure about 15 mins from what I'v learned on here its 10 thats what I myself go by. I think thats why you set a time limit as to not have them overeat.

 

[Kaiser]

The time frame is usually ten to fifteen minutes, with fifteen minutes usually reserved for younger bearded dragons. And yes, the time frame is to prevent them from overeating. Most bearded dragons will not overeat, but you get the occasional few that will. Your bearded dragon sounds like she is eating well, and if she is a younger bearded dragon (which I am assuming based on her size), eating a lot is usually encouraged. Some even recommend feeding as much as a young bearded dragon will eat, without a time frame, as they are undergoing rapid growth during their first year and a half or so.

And just a suggestion, but I would not feed pinkies. They're high in fat and protein, which puts a lot of strain on bearded dragons' livers. Not only that, but the bones can cause internal damage and scarring. With so many other safe feeders to use, I wouldn't ever recommend feeding pinkies to a bearded dragon.

 

[Desdemona]

She only gets pinkies once a month... if that. Normally I mail order food. There are pages that, "debunk" the "pinkies are bad," thing, though I suppose its all in who you belive. She has had a total of 6 in the 5 months I have owned her and all on the small/young side.

I am moving to an area where I will probably be mail ordering all of her food so pinkies will be out again. I only do live food.

She has grown since I got herm but only about 2 inches since the end of Dec, I bought her at 12 inches long. She did go on a food strike once, but just against crickets so I bought worms and she was happy (I buy repti, silk, horn, etc). So not growing by leaps and bounds. Got her at a pet store so no clue her age.

 

[Kaiser]

Well, that's good to hear. Whoever you choose to believe, and whether or not pinkies are safe for consumption (bone- and internal damage-wise), I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that nutritional content can be accurately analyzed, and for the most part, pinkies are simply high in fat and protein, and there are suggested, potential risks associated with them. I understand if it was just an occasional thing, but with so many other, safer (at least, without unknown controversy) alternative treats, I simply wanted to point that out. If you want occasional treats with high amounts of fat, try wax worms. If you want to feed her something with a lot of protein in safe amounts, continue with silk worms. Didn't mean to offend or come off too strongly; if I did, I apologize.

If you want her to grow more, I think it would be safe to suggest continuing to feed her as you are doing, or even more, so long as she appears healthy.

 

[BadCon]

If the dragon is growing, feed them what they want. Just make sure to have a nice varied diet and use supplements when necessary. Overfeeding things like wax worms and pinkies can lead to a fat dragon and potential health issues. Keep those to occasional treats, once a month, if that. Make sure to have greens offered at all times, and remember that constantly supplying proteins can lead to a pet that won't eat their greens. They'll need to develop a taste for veg if they are ever going to have a balanced diet as an adult.
But I want to restate that juvenile dragons are hard to overfeed. They are growing so fast that's its very unlikely you could give them too much, assuming you are using appropriate feeders. When my female was little, I'd give her as much as she wanted to eat at least twice a day. It averaged out that she was typically finished after about 10 minutes, but I never restricted the time she had...once she stopped eating and returned to basking, I'd round up the rest of the feeders, or in the case of worms...just leave them in the dish. Eventually she'll go back and eat them later.

Anyways, if the dragon has grown 2" recently, chances are its still pretty young. So keep feeding a nice diet, and when its stops growing longer, keep an eye on its fat deposits and weight. If you know the age, expect their rate of growth to slow down by 1.5yrs...after that, they'll just start bulking up. My male was full grown by about 2yrs, but bulked up for about 6 months after that. Since then, he has maintained his weight pretty consistently. My female was full size and weight by 1.5yrs, and hasn't fluctuated more then 20g since then. So if you can, get a scale and keep track of the weight. Measure and weigh the dragon monthly, and you'll have a good baseline of when its done growing and if its getting too fat.


And to address the above poster, pinkies don't have developed bones. They are easier to digest then large hard shelled insects. They are pretty much the same nutritionally as wax worms...lots of fat. They are not good feeders, and I agree with you completely that they shouldn't be offered regularly, if at all.

 

[Kaiser]

BadCon has a lot of good information that I agree with.

The main concern that I had with the pinkies was not whether or not the bones could be digested (which, I would think is still harder than should be allowed for a bearded dragon to digest); rather, it was the potential damage that the bones could cause. From my understanding, even if they are not fully developed, the thin, sharp, fractured, bone moving through the digestive tract just does not sound like it is safe.

EDIT: But please, correct me if I am wrong. I simply assume the bone, even when underdeveloped, must have some form of rigidity to it, and since it is so thin, could be relatively sharp.

 

[BadCon]

Their bones have barely any rigidity at all...they are almost completely soft. A cricket leg is much harder and sharper then any bone you'd find in a pinkie. Anything more developed then a pinkie though will obviously have stronger bones, and those bones will be hard to digest.

 

[Desdemona]

The site I read said that they did not have bones, I know by hopper stage they do (had pet mice and a couple of litters a long time ago) which is why I told them small, and of course for the space between the eyes bit. I am sure the age of the pinkie is the biggest factor. The site also said that the fat content fear was off and gave the nutritional analyst of a pinkie. I don't think it said anything about protien though.

The part that did make sense to me, and why I bought her a couple, was that because pinkies were new life developmentally they are like little vitimin pills, every nutrient that you could ever want and fresh, not powedered. They haven't had a chance to become malnurished in one rea or another as adult feederd can. I do have infant Dubai but they are so small my dragon could eat a couple hundred in one sitting.

Anyways, I read a lot of human nutrition and eggs are considered a super food by many (there are studies to show the cholesrol scare is unfounded as well) because it has every nutrient needed to start life. Of course you have to eat it raw to REALLY get the most benefit, which can be risky. But, my thought process was that pinkies probably have the same benifit. Of course as a occasional diet boost, not as a staple.

I do feed greens, should have listed them. I mix those up between mustard and collard greens mostly, sometimes dandilion (store bought of course). She eats them most of the time. She won't touch carrots, squash, or anything else I have offered so far.

 

[Kaiser]

Oh, thank you for the information. I had heard of someone taking in a bearded dragon that had been fed pinkie mice for over two years that had to undergo surgery, and the veterinarians found that the inside of the bearded dragon's digestive tract and stomach had numerous scars. Perhaps the pinkie mice were older than normal, or perhaps the poster had simply mistaken larger mice for pinkie mice (or had been told the wrong information). Anyway, thank you for correcting me.

And yes, Desdemona, that does sound logical. However, I would argue that being "new life" does not guarantee that something has acceptable nutritional content for bearded dragons, or even valuable nutritional content overall. It really depends on the animal in question, as, following that logic, newborn meal worms would be full of nutrients, which isn't exactly the case. Granted, animals may have more nutrients when they are younger, but "more" is subjective to the entire life cycle of that specific animal, not necessarily in comparison with all other animals. I was simply saying that there are other feeders that have great amounts of nutrients in them, have had content analyses done on them, and have been in use with little to no controversy over using them as feeders.

I hope I do not sound like I am criticizing or arguing negatively; I am aware that you stated you have only used them very rarely and will most likely not be using them in the future. I just wanted to continue the discussion, as you did bring up some good points, and I too am learning from the discussion. If I am stepping over any boundaries, please let me know, and I apologize if I come off as such.

Keep on feeding the vegetables; it's great when a bearded dragon at a younger age will eat their vegetables. Although variety is good, the leafy greens are the most important part, so it's good that she's at least eating those. It sounds like you are doing a good job with the feeding, and like BadCon has mentioned, I wouldn't worry too much about overfeeding. A bearded dragon of that size should be eating quite a lot and growing rapidly. :]

 

[Desdemona]

I think the discussion is good, no worries that you are coming across sounding rude or anything like that.

I wonder if there are any scientific sources on the makeup of a pinkie mouse? It would be interesting. I don't think pinkie mice are some magical food that will make the dragon live forever or anything like that, so I don't feel compelled to just stuff her full. If I come across the page agaij I will link so you can read and see if the writer sounds like they know what they are talking about or not. They of course had the, "I have feed my numerous dragons pinkies forever with no problems!" Line. They were using the pinkies as suppliments and not main food souce as well.

I can't say for sure that this applies to the pinkie issue, but sometimes nutritional dogma gets spread and at times to the danger of those its suppose to help, for example the high carb low fat diet pushed in the US. More and nore studies are emerging showing that eating low fat does not necessarily save you from heart attacks and even that low fat dieters with chronic illness have a shorter life expectancy than those with a higher fat diet. The original study that started the low fat recommendation has been shown to be flawed (data left out that argued against) but you don't hear much about that in the main stream media. Once in a while I will see a slip of something confirming simple carbs are the real cause of obesity (not all carbs are bad of course). So anyways, after learning what I did about human nutrition it makes me a easy skeptic. I usually just try to stick with a lot of variety to my pets diets and that seems to be the best way to keep them healthy. Variety in the right kind of foods of course. It has worked for every pet I have had so far... with the exception of a few picky ones who refused to eat more than one thing, and some temporary cats I cared for (not mine).

 

[Kaiser]

Thanks for understanding. I'm currently enrolled in a Scientific Theory and Practice course, which is a discussion and writing intensive course about science in general, and how it is conducted and portrayed. So that's kind of why I'm in a bit of a discussion mood, ha ha.

And yes, I completely agree with you there about your last point. There are a lot of thoughts and ideas that get introduced to the public and then spread around that may not always be entirely correct. I think it's because many people believe that science (particularly when it deals with nutrition and personal health) is a concrete field, and that science always produces facts, when in reality, science is a dynamic, ever-changing field. Nothing is actually concrete, and most, if not all scientists, would agree that science is based on theories and concepts that have high probabilities to be "true," but would avoid saying that something is "absolute truth." I think that this oftentimes gets mixed up when science is translated over to public media, and people assume that once a study has shown something, it must be "absolute truth." It's always good to have a healthy level of skepticism, but always have the interest to figure out whether such a skepticism is warranted.

And yes, I would say that variety, within safe bounds, is always best.

 

[Desdemona]

My favorite field is Psychology and it gets misrepresented all the time. Drives me mad. I had just stumbled on the page that mentioned the pinkies, I wasn't looking for it. Just browsing random care sheets.

 

[Kaiser]

I can imagine so. Anyway, if you do ever find the link again, please link it here. I'm always up for new information. Thanks! :]