Tart cherry - dosage

[NickAVD]

Now Foxy's protein diet it is dubias 2-3 times per week (sometimes horn worms) and salads in another days.
100% dubias diet worries me a little.
Besides, the last few poops were slightly orange, I have a suspicion
that this is a carrot, but I still worry about that too.
So I decided to give him some tart cherry juice as a preventive measure.
Today the order with juce came (below in the picture).
It indicates the dosing (obvious to humans): 2 tablespoons (30ml) per 6-8 ounces water.
Please help me understand if this recipe is suitable for a beardie? Should I change the concentration? Increase or decrease may be.
How many ml of the ready diluted juice be given to the beardie?
Thank you for reading this far and thanks in advance for your help!
PS: picture to draw attention

 

[xp29]

Tracie @Drache613 or maybe @AHBD is who i would ask.

 

[Claudiusx]

Why are you supplementing with Tart Cherry is my first question. Does your dragon have gout, or are you suspicious of it?

And why the diet of only dubias? A diet of one food item is never going to be a healthy diet, despite the one food item being seemingly the "healthiest" item.

-Brandon

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Giving some black or tart cherry juice extract as a preventative measure is perfectly fine.
You can give .5ml to 1ml daily or a few times weekly to help with kidney health.
As suggested, try to even out the insect intake of the dubias & the hornworms. The dubias
are a bit higher in uric acid levels than other insects.

Tracie

 

[NickAVD]

Why are you supplementing with Tart Cherry is my first question. Does your dragon have gout, or are you suspicious of it?

And why the diet of only dubias? A diet of one food item is never going to be a healthy diet, despite the one food item being seemingly the "healthiest" item.

-Brandon

Thank you for asking this question. I should have started by describing the reasons.
When Foxy was a little dragon he ate crickets and greens every day until he was 6 months old. After that, we gradually began to offer him dubia roaches. He liked them so much that we decided to give up crickets, because they are not ideal food. When he was 9 months old, here on the forum I was advised to diversify his diet and put his roach diet on a schedule 5 days a week and 2 days use for hornworms or superworms. But he liked dubias so much that in 10 minutes he managed to eat a huge amount of them and could make a supply in his beard. This resulted in him not touching greens or eating treats (hornworms or super worms) the next day. I consulted a veterinarian with the question of how I can diversify Foxy's diet in my case. The veterinarian said that I spoiled him badly with roaches and that you need to endure the time and not feed him with them. I tried not to give him dubias for 4 days, when I offered him crickets (on day 5) he turned away and did not eat them. As an experiment, I gave him roaches. He was very happy, ate them and hid a few dubias in his beard. He's turning 12 months old in a few days and now I put him on a 3 day/week roach feeding schedule. He has 2 days between cockroaches in which he began to eat significantly more greens, which makes me very happy. But a 100% diet with cockroaches worries me a lot.
I have the opportunity to offer him any live food (except for silkworms, they are not sold here). But he refuses everything. I tried to give superworms, hornworms, all kinds of crickets, shelfordella tartara. Usually he tries unfamiliar food, eats one thing and no longer perceives it as food, even the next day or a week later, in the end I just throw everything away.
I really want to diversify his diet, but I can’t do it, on the forum I read a lot of horror stories about gout and saw that some owners in a situation similar to my 100% cockroach diet give cherry juice to prevent gout.
I don't want him to starve and I have to give him protein, because. it's still growing, so I don't see a solution yet.
And that's why I bought this juice to give it until I solve the nutrition problem.
I will be very glad to hear advice on how I can diversify the diet of this spoiled guy.
Sorry for such a long text, but I wanted to tell everything, maybe it will help find a solution.

 

[NickAVD]

Hello,

Giving some black or tart cherry juice extract as a preventative measure is perfectly fine.
You can give .5ml to 1ml daily or a few times weekly to help with kidney health.
As suggested, try to even out the insect intake of the dubias & the hornworms. The dubias
are a bit higher in uric acid levels than other insects.

Tracie

Thanks for the cherry juice info!
I could not find on the forum how much to give for preventive measures.
In the post above, I wrote why he only eats roaches.
I haven't found a way to feed him other bugs yet and I don't want to experiment anymore and keep him hungry to switch to something else.
Maybe feed him fewer cockroaches (now he eats 15-20 1" at a time) so that one day he decides to try something else?

 

[NickAVD]

I forgot to mention water.
Every second day I give him water from a pipette 2-3 ml, because he does not drink when bathing and does not eat enough greens.
It seems to me that when he eats hornworms, he just wants to drink. He won't eat hornworms if I gave him a drink the day before.

 

[Claudiusx]

Ok, that make sense

Water intake is important too, so i'm glad you're offering water.

He sounds like a smart dragon. If he is being that picky with dubia roaches it might be best to cut them from his diet for awhile until he starts eating other insects too. Once he does, you can reintroduce dubias. He might go a week or two on strike, but he will eat eventually once he gets hungry enough.

I would say don't worry about it if he was willing to also eat other bugs, but when they get stuck on one item, they can get really stubborn!

-Brandon

 

[NickAVD]

Ok, that make sense

Water intake is important too, so i'm glad you're offering water.

He sounds like a smart dragon. If he is being that picky with dubia roaches it might be best to cut them from his diet for awhile until he starts eating other insects too. Once he does, you can reintroduce dubias. He might go a week or two on strike, but he will eat eventually once he gets hungry enough.

I would say don't worry about it if he was willing to also eat other bugs, but when they get stuck on one item, they can get really stubborn!

-Brandon

Thanks for the advice!
I will try to exclude roaches for a while.
I think it will be more difficult for me than for Foxy.

 

[Claudiusx]

I think it will be more difficult for me than for Foxy.

Oh it will. Stay strong!

 

[NickAVD]

Oh it will. Stay strong!

If you don't mind, I will take some notes in this thread to keep a diary and so more experienced keepers can correct me if something goes wrong.
Today is the first day without dubia roaches.
The past two days have been with the salad only and today Foxy was supposed to get his roaches. In the morning he ate some mixture of romano, bok choy and arugula.
4 hours later I offered him superworms, he saw them and for a couple of seconds his pupil narrowed as it happens at the time of the hunting.
And then he noticed that there were no roaches in his bowl, the pupils increased and his eyes instantly became smelly.
So, I'll retry it tomorrow.

 

[xp29]

I don't think there is any creature more stubborn than a beardie lol. They could teach a rock how to out wait you to lol.

 

[NickAVD]

Today was the first step towards other insects (4 days with salad only).
In the morning, Foxy ate his greens well.
After 4 hours I offered him crickets.
It looked like he really liked them, he ate about 15 pieces.
The first five were eaten instantly, two in one bite.
I'll try to feed him crickets for a week or two.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

How is Foxy doing with his eating regime?
It sounds like he is starting to eat more greens then, which is really good for him.
A good balance between crickets, other insects & greens is healthy for them. I'm
sure things will work out well for him.
Let us know how things are going.

Tracie

 

[NickAVD]

Hello,

How is Foxy doing with his eating regime?
It sounds like he is starting to eat more greens then, which is really good for him.
A good balance between crickets, other insects & greens is healthy for them. I'm
sure things will work out well for him.
Let us know how things are going.

Tracie

I am also very glad that he began to be interested in greens much more, if this continues I will be able to add a lot of healthy vegetables to salads!

Yesterday he had a hearty lunch of crickets, so today he ignored his salad.
The whole day Foxy was very active. During the walk in his out time, Foxy ran several times over an uninteresting salad and scattered it on the floor.
Then he had sunbathing near the window. The spring sun was so hot that he began to gape and after a 20 minute he decided to return to his tank. Now he is lazy and dozing on his hide