Questions on Bearded Dragon’s lighting and feeding

[WolfMama]

Questions on Bearded Dragon’s lighting and feeding. Is the information I have correct? He/She is a baby beardie (4" long).

From what I’ve read beardie’s need 2 hours of basking before eating, and 2 hours after eating? The lighting should mimic seasons (14 hours daylight in summer, 10 hours in winter, and 12 for spring/summer).

Our baby beardies need to eat crickets 2x/day. So, I planned on spacing their feeding 12 hours apart. If I do that, the light needs to be on for 14 hours/day. I just want to make sure this is accurate and what our beardie needs.

Thanks

 

[Catalyst]

It is ideal for young dragons to be offered live food 3x a day. If all you can do is twice a day, its not necessary for the two feedings to be 12 hours apart, it is more important that they have the time they need under their lights to digest. For instance, if you do adjust to a 10 hour day in the winter, then your two feedings will only be six or seven hours apart.

 

[vampy]

You've essentially got it right, but you don't NEED to change their lights with the seasons, it's totally up to you.

Also, your maths is wrong on a 14 hour light schedule, with 2 hours either side of feedings, your feedings would be 10 hours apart.

Really though, so long as you give them time to warm up in the morning before food, and time to digest in the evening, it's all good.

Personally my babies have their lights on for 12 hours, 2 hours after lights on I put in a bowl of greens and phoenix worms, and feed them crickets until they are done. The greens and worms stay in all day for them to snack on. Then 2 hours before bed they get more crickets.

 

[WolfMama]

Thank you both, catalyst and vampy, for replying . I didn't know they needed live 3x a day. What I was doing was live 2x (12 hours apart) and veggies in between.

After I'd read I needed to turn the light on 2 hours before, and keep on 2 hours later, I began to do that (thankfully, only 1 feeding went without it on, but the night heat lamp was on, so maybe the night light helped for that one time.

You are right, vampy. I mistyped. Apologies I meant to say that, currently he is getting 16 hours of daylight on this schedule. But if I put him on 14 hours he'd would be fed 10 hours apart. I didin't know if that would be okay.

A schedule is, essentially; 6am lights on, 8 am feeding, 8 pm feeding (12 hours apart), and 2 hours light remains on after feeding. That's UV and heating. Can they get too much UV? Seems like 16 hours might be too too much light, no?

14 hours year round is okay? What about room lighting? Because of our schedules, and our kitties, we often have room lights on for 16 to 18 hours. Does that affect our beardie? I was considering making a drap to go around (not over the top) of the cage if need be, to help lesson the light.

But, if we feed him 3x/day, we'd space 5 to 6 hours apart. I'm getting dizzy here. LOL! Vampy, you feed your beardie babies 2x/day? Ours is only 4" long ATM.

How do I work the veggies in with that? If I leave the greens in his viv, they dry out very quickly. How do you keep them from drying out? I had to coax him to eat them at first.

Thanks

 

[vampy]

yeah, i wouldn't keep the lights on for 16 hours. Any reason why you want the feedings to be 12 hours apart? There's no need for them to be evenly spread throughout the 24 hour period or anything, you could easily have the lights on at 6, feed at 8, feed at 4, then lights off at 6 with no harm to them.

I made a curtain to go in front of the viv that's in my room (the other is in a spare room where the lights are always off) as I'm often up way after their bedtime. It rolls up kinda like the opening of a tent and fastens with velcro. It seems to do the trick as when i peek in there after lights off they are always asleep.

Some people feed crickets 3 times a day, i just feed them twice a day, but I do leave the greens and phoenix worms in there the whole day, so if they want live food, they can pick from the bowl whenever they feel like it. They seem to be growing fine on this schedule, so I don't see the need to change it. Before I got the phoenix worms, I did do an extra feed of crickets.

I put the veggies at the cool end, and position them behind their hide so they aren't in direct line of the basking light. They are wilted and not looking their best by the end of the day, but not completely dried out, and still totally edible. I do have 4 babies in each viv atm though, so maybe the larger volume of greens i have means they dry out more slowly. When they were just hatched and not interested in greens I'd only put a small amount in, and I'd mist them, but they'd still be crispy by nighttime. Now they are eating a reasonable amount i use a lot more, so they seem to stay fresh longer.

 

[WolfMama]

Thanks for the reply, Vampy. How do you feed the phoenix worms, Vampy? I fed them to ours and he liked them the first time, and hasn't eaten them much since. I tried leaving them in the viv in case he wanted them, but the crawl out of the bowl and get stuck on the reptile carpet.

We got the small worm dish (approx. 2 1/2" dish that has a small lip on the rim and a small groove on the inside), but that doesn't entice him to eat out of it - and the phoenix worms crawled out of that, too :roll: The other dish is the flatish type one that came with the setup (grrrrrrr). What kind of dish do you use?

He's not eating greens, yet. But, we're still working on that

We've come to leave a couple of rogue crickets in the viv during the day - but I want to switch to dubia as soon as we can. I took OMs advice and I leave some greens in there so they don't bother him. Of course, at night I scour the viv for any left. I still worry every time. Hubby checked it last night, and thought he got them all, and a baby cricket came out. Thankfully, I saw the cricket before lights out.

I'm not looking particularly forward to breeding feeder roaches, but a few factors are convincing me... they seem healthier, they won't bite him (that's the real selling point for me!), and as a bonus... they don't hop out! Last night hubby was rolling his eyes at me, because I was like... "FIVE crickets got out on me while I was trying to get more to feed him!" LOL! Thankfully, we have cats that like to get the crickets (and, ironically, I usually save the crickets from the cats. LOL.). But I can't stand a chirping cricket in the house. They sound so nice outside, but inside... it's like they echo through the walls or something. I've slept outdoors, no problem. A cricket in the house... seriously, it's like an echo chamber.

On a humorous note... I felt badly about feeding live crickets (especially since I tend to save them from our cats. If they ate them quickly it wouldn't be so bad - but they don't. The one just tortures them and leaves them 1/2 dead. I really hate that.). Well, a week after we had our beardie, I said to hubby and son, "Is it me, or do the crickets [outside] sound particularly loud lately?" My son, without missing a beat, said, "They're saying... 'WE know what you've done!'" LOL! Hubby got HYSTERICAL and said, "That's what I was thinking!" LOL.

 

[vampy]

I use two different dishes...one I got from my bf, I think it's an exo terra water dish, it looks like this:

I also found a random dish in my cupboard, it came with camembert in for baking, it looks like this:

The worms very rarely climb out, and if i put them in with greens they never do, they just hide underneath them. I have stopped putting them with the greens though because I only have 2 babies now, so if I only give what they will eat the greens dry out too fast, so I tend to give them more so they stay fresh all day, which means I have to chuck the extras at the end of the day, so I don't really want to have to pick out the left over worms from the dish! I do only feed the small worms...I can't get mediums here, and the large ones are borderline too big for them, plus I've found they tend to go black and prepare to turn into flies too quickly, and the beardies don't like them then. If I was using them as a staple i probably would switch to the larges cos they'd get through a thousand really quickly, but as they get crickets too, it's easier to stick with the smalls.

Can't you get silent crickets where you are? I know in the US you have different types, but over here you can get the black ones which are noisy, and the brown ones which don't chirp until they are fully grown, so at the size the babies need, they don't make a noise. Although very occasionally you get a bigger one in with them by accident, which is super annoying, having to sort through 1000 crickets without letting any escape, trying to find the annoying one that's keeping me awake! Fortunately I also have a feline cricket disposal system, so at least if any do escape they get caught and eaten quite quickly.

 

[WolfMama]

Okay. I know I typed out a reply to this... I know it's something at my end, but I'm not sure what. LOL. I'm just getting back to the forums We got pretty busy here pre and post Sandy (pre as I was sick and we were preparing, post... cleanup and other stuff. LOL. Thankfully, we are all okay!)... Anywho, apologies for the reply not appearing sooner...

I use two different dishes...one I got from my bf, I think it's an exo terra water dish, it looks like this:

...
I also found a random dish in my cupboard, it came with camembert in for baking, it looks like this:

...
The worms very rarely climb out, and if i put them in with greens they never do, they just hide underneath them. I have stopped putting them with the greens though because I only have 2 babies now, so if I only give what they will eat the greens dry out too fast, so I tend to give them more so they stay fresh all day, which means I have to chuck the extras at the end of the day, so I don't really want to have to pick out the left over worms from the dish! I do only feed the small worms...I can't get mediums here, and the large ones are borderline too big for them, plus I've found they tend to go black and prepare to turn into flies too quickly, and the beardies don't like them then. If I was using them as a staple i probably would switch to the larges cos they'd get through a thousand really quickly, but as they get crickets too, it's easier to stick with the smalls.

Can't you get silent crickets where you are? I know in the US you have different types, but over here you can get the black ones which are noisy, and the brown ones which don't chirp until they are fully grown, so at the size the babies need, they don't make a noise. Although very occasionally you get a bigger one in with them by accident, which is super annoying, having to sort through 1000 crickets without letting any escape, trying to find the annoying one that's keeping me awake!

Fortunately I also have a feline cricket disposal system, so at least if any do escape they get caught and eaten quite quickly.

LOL. Sounds like our cats (one in particular – and she is going NUTS watching his viv –Partly as she’s intrigued by him, but it’s even worse when she sees a cricket in there.

Oh, when I was saying they were particularly loud, I was referring to the crickets that are outdoors, when they get in the house. And, yes, they are the black ones. LOL. We do get the light brown ones from the pet shop, and they are young (except one rogue adult that we found that must have come in from the pet shop bag :O I’d heard others say that keeping crickets was noisy, so I assumed they all were loud I didn’t know the brown ones were quiet. Good to know. They seem rather prolific breeders at that, because every now and again we find a bunch of baby crickets in there.

Yes, the one you’ve shown looks like the water dish that came with the setup we got. I hadn’t used that to put food in as he was used to seeing it with water. I gave it a try, since reading this, and they crawled out of it. We even got the special worm dish (very small) and they crawled otu of that! LOL.

He liked the first few when we'd first fed them to him a few weeks back, and hasn’t liked them since. I don’t know why. They do have a small black tip? And, I do know that one turned into a black fly in the container (and it’s a small container). Maybe there are better worms? They are pretty small (approx ¼ inch).

We have yet to get him to eat his greens. But, I'm told he's still young yet, to give him time.

He's grown leaps and bounds in the past few weeks! I'll post in the general area and share when i get a chance

I'm still worried about his heavy breathing (posted in the ER), though, but I think OnlyMediocre may be right and it may be shedding in his nostril.