Hello, everyone!
I was just doing a bit of research regarding vitamin/mineral supplementation in reptiles, and I saw in the article that it was specifically mentioned that freezing leafy greens destroys thiamine(B1). I knew this, but I unfortunately learned it the hard way about 5 years ago with my older beardie. I was a student (did not have a lot of money, working constantly, etc.), so I thought, "Hey! I'm preparing and freezing food for myself to save time. Why not do the same for my reptile?". So I did! And for a while I thought I was wildly clever making salads for Ryu and and thawing them as needed.
After a (longer) while though (and I can't remember how long), I noticed a very, very fine tremor in her head and freaked out! I was concerned that she was having seizures; had MBD; my mind went everywhere. At the time it took a lot of googling to figure out she was thiamine deficient and that was causing her head tremors and general uncoordinated-ness. Thankfully, cutting out the frozen food and temporarily increasing supplementation fixed the problem in no time.
At the time I wanted to freeze salad to:
A) Save money and prevent spoiling food (it felt so wasteful). Even though my girl eats salad every day, it was still impossible for me to go through a bunch of greens without them going off in the fridge
B) Save time. I was super busy working full time and going to school
C) Save 'healthier' greens that are easier to find in the spring/summer so I could feed them through winter and provide a more varied diet
Now! I have 2 beardies now, so I thought that might solve some of my salad woes, as I still have the same issues as before. However, the new guy eats very little salad, so that just isn't the case.
Last summer I was frantically trying to figure out what to do with all the veg from my garden (freezing and preserving wasn't an option as I have limited space), and someone on a gardening forum suggested putting all the leafy greens (chard, kale, spinach) in a food dehydrator and then grinding them into a powder to store and later add into smoothies/casseroles/etc.
Has anyone tried something similar with bearded dragons? I might try this with my next bunch of dandelion greens just to see what happens. What do you guys do in the winter when vegetable/green selection is not great? My old beardie won't eat pellets or anything that isn't fresh or alive, so that complicates things. I haven't tried any commercially prepared food with the new guy yet. I read somewhere that vitamin B could be lost during the rehydration process (I guess if you cook them?), but I was thinking of taking the greens powder and 'tossing' the salad in it before serving. Any thoughts?
I was just doing a bit of research regarding vitamin/mineral supplementation in reptiles, and I saw in the article that it was specifically mentioned that freezing leafy greens destroys thiamine(B1). I knew this, but I unfortunately learned it the hard way about 5 years ago with my older beardie. I was a student (did not have a lot of money, working constantly, etc.), so I thought, "Hey! I'm preparing and freezing food for myself to save time. Why not do the same for my reptile?". So I did! And for a while I thought I was wildly clever making salads for Ryu and and thawing them as needed.
After a (longer) while though (and I can't remember how long), I noticed a very, very fine tremor in her head and freaked out! I was concerned that she was having seizures; had MBD; my mind went everywhere. At the time it took a lot of googling to figure out she was thiamine deficient and that was causing her head tremors and general uncoordinated-ness. Thankfully, cutting out the frozen food and temporarily increasing supplementation fixed the problem in no time.
At the time I wanted to freeze salad to:
A) Save money and prevent spoiling food (it felt so wasteful). Even though my girl eats salad every day, it was still impossible for me to go through a bunch of greens without them going off in the fridge
B) Save time. I was super busy working full time and going to school
C) Save 'healthier' greens that are easier to find in the spring/summer so I could feed them through winter and provide a more varied diet
Now! I have 2 beardies now, so I thought that might solve some of my salad woes, as I still have the same issues as before. However, the new guy eats very little salad, so that just isn't the case.
Last summer I was frantically trying to figure out what to do with all the veg from my garden (freezing and preserving wasn't an option as I have limited space), and someone on a gardening forum suggested putting all the leafy greens (chard, kale, spinach) in a food dehydrator and then grinding them into a powder to store and later add into smoothies/casseroles/etc.
Has anyone tried something similar with bearded dragons? I might try this with my next bunch of dandelion greens just to see what happens. What do you guys do in the winter when vegetable/green selection is not great? My old beardie won't eat pellets or anything that isn't fresh or alive, so that complicates things. I haven't tried any commercially prepared food with the new guy yet. I read somewhere that vitamin B could be lost during the rehydration process (I guess if you cook them?), but I was thinking of taking the greens powder and 'tossing' the salad in it before serving. Any thoughts?
