Report on canned food as the only source of protein

[any2117]

Hello everyone...!
I know i'll probably get lots of negative replies but I figured it's worth sharing the information.

I've fed my bearded dragon on assorted canned food since she was 2 months old. I wasn't trying to make an experiment out of her or anything. Getting live food in my country is near impossible.
She eats 10-12 locusts, caterpillars or average sized crickets a day (I offer her as many as she wants) and always has fresh greens available.

She has had no problems eating the dead insects at all. She goes to he bowl as soon as I serve them and eats her way through them.

The point is, i know a lot of you wonder about canned food. I've been using zoomed's and fluker's brands. And so far... My dragon is doing great. She's twice as big as she used to and a healthy weight. She's almost 5 months old now. Alert and curious about everything, as she should be.

If you have any questions I'll be glad to answer them if I can.

Figured it would be nice to have a person in favor of canned foods here. Of course they're more expensive than feeding live and if I could, I would feed her live insects, but since it's impossible, canned foods have helped me tons. So don't scratch them out, specially if you're in a place where live food is hard to get

 

[CooperDragon]

That's good to hear. Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[jarich]

Interesting, what country do you live in?

 

[Soulwind]

Assuming that your dragon will eat them, the canned insects aren't bad in and of themselves.

They just aren't as nutritious as properly gut-loaded, live feeders. You suffer from not being able to gut-load and the killing/preserving/canning process itself causes a loss of nutrition [just like it does for human canned food].

If canned bugs are your only good option though, they are *acceptable* [as long as you can get the dragon to eat them, I know a few keepers who've tried and had no luck].

You just need to ensure that you give a good supplementation to cover the deficiencies. A good multi-vitamin powder and good calcium powder (both of which are always needed anyway) just become more important to control.