Very busy - When can I feed my beardie? (Don't have one yet)

[Dopestar23]

Hi,

I am a very busy person. Before I get a Bearded dragon, I want to know if it would be viable for me to get one. I work from 6 the morning till 5PM at night. I really want to get a beardie, but I don't want to leave it home alone the whole time. My mom is staying home most days, but I don't want to rely on her to feed it, since it's my pet. She has her own pet to take care of.

So is it a bad idea to try this?

Regards

 

[krolmariusz]

you have to feed them 2 hours before, and after the lights are set to go off. meaning a feeding 2 hours before bed, and 2 hours after waking up and basking. i use a timer, goes on at 7am and goes off at 7pm (12 hr cycle). i put vegies in the morning and then meat (your choice, please no crickets, they are terrible in every aspect, use dubia roaches). crickets will bite your beardie so DO NOT leave them in the enclosure. dubia roaches you can leave, and they wont harm him/her.

since mine are only 1.5 months old, i dont know what it is like owning one for a full life cycle. i cannot make a recommendation, sorry.

 

[SpazzUnscripted]

I have to ask, krolmariusz, why you say that crickets are "terrible in every way." If you're feeding your baby beardies full-size crickets, yeah, bad idea, but nutritionally speaking, as long as you dust them when you're supposed to they're fine. I haven't heard of anyone else having problems with them. (Well, except my baby Pretzel. He just doesn't like them, but that's a different story.)

Worms are good too--don't use mealworms, but waxworms, silkworms, and phoenix worms are all good. Waxworms can be found, probably, at your local pet store; the others you'll have to look online for.


As for my opinion, I honestly don't think you're going to have time for a dragon. I hate to say that--I love my little guy and everybody should have a BA little pet like him--but they're pretty time consuming. I haven't had mine long--a little under a week--so I might be mistaken on this, but so far, he eats up a pretty good chunk of my time. Babies need to be fed 2-3x a day, when their day lights are on. With you being gone 13 hours a day, you wouldn't really have time to make that work. If your mom were willing to feed him, sure, you could make that work. Otherwise, I'd have to suggest a more low-maintenance pet. :/

 

[vampy]

Hi,

I am a very busy person. Before I get a Bearded dragon, I want to know if it would be viable for me to get one. I work from 6 the morning till 5PM at night. I really want to get a beardie, but I don't want to leave it home alone the whole time. My mom is staying home most days, but I don't want to rely on her to feed it, since it's my pet. She has her own pet to take care of.

So is it a bad idea to try this?

Regards

It's a bad idea for you to get a baby, they need you to be there more often than that for feeding, but you should be ok with an adult if you make the effort to interact with it a lot when you're home in the evenings and on days off. If you get home at 5pm, I'd probably have the lights come on at 9am and off at 9pm, then you'll get 4 hours every evening with your dragon to cuddle and interact. You can put a bowl of veggies in the viv first thing in the morning before you leave, she'll still be asleep and will ignore the veggies until her lights have been on for a bit and she's warmed up. Or you could prepare the veggies before you leave for work and just ask your mum to put the bowl in at 11am.

Then when you get in from work, somewhere between 5 and 7pm, you can give her a few live feeders, take her out for some cuddles, give her a bath, and generally bond with her.

 

[Spikey92]

i put vegies in the morning and then meat (your choice, please no crickets, they are terrible in every aspect, use dubia roaches). crickets will bite your beardie so DO NOT leave them in the enclosure. dubia roaches you can leave, and they wont harm him/her.

Well unfortunately dubia roaches are ILLEGAL in Canada.so if you live in canada and you arent making a fortune there is not really another option than feeding crickets.And worms on the occasion. I feed mine worms on the occassion cause its sooo expensive.just paid 6 dollars for 10 butterworms. Silkworms for example are 95 cents each...

 

[krolmariusz]

hahah well what i mean is that they smell, dont hold as much nutrition as dubia roaches, too much shell, smell, require too much attention etc..

 

[Catalyst]

I'm going to echo one of the suggestions above in saying that the only viable way for you to get a dragon would be for you to get an adult. You could put their lights on a timer so that the lights come on and the dragon's day starts a few hours after you've left for work, that way he'll still be up and around for a couple hours after you get home from work. You could put the large daily salad out before you go to work and give him his live food (25-50 bugs per week) after you get home from work. Plus with an adult dragon your feeder options are more open so you could use something like superworms which are easy to keep and even breed, so your costs are kept down and there are fewer hassles than dealing with something more finicky or prone to escaping. Hope this helps

 

[ashleyelsha]

If I were you, I would try to at least get a sub-adult that's around 16 inches long so you can do twice a day feedings. An adult would be even better as what was suggested. I am a nurse and I work 12 hour shifts, I have to be at work at 645 am and am home around 730pm. But, I only work 4 days a week usually and my husband is sometimes home on days I work since we both do 12 hour shifts. I freeze my crickets and put them in in the morning before I leave. I put in a large salad and top it with thawed/dusted crickets. Then I am on my way. I have a timer so the lights will turn on automatically at 8am. In the evenings I feed him as soon as I get home, and so he digests properly I leave the lights on till about 9pm. I know this seems late but it is usually only 2-3 days out of the week. My husband feeds him his second meal in the afternoon if he is home, and if I am home he gets his second meal in the afternoon as well. He usually gets sleepy around 8pm and will start to fall asleep before the lights go out, but I know he needs the heat to help him digest so that's why I leave the light on a little longer on those days.

I find out how many crickets he needs by hand feeding him for 5-10 minutes until he is full and he will usually eat 20-30 crickets before walking away. So I usually put 25-30 crickets in the morning and in the evening about 20 crickets so he isn't overstuffed before lights out. Just recently I've been doing superworms as the second feeding and he is getting 5 superworms at his second feeding.

A baby is supposed to be fed 3 times a day, I got mine when he was only 5 inches nose to tip of tail, and on my days off he got fed 3 times a day, on the days when my husband and I both work he got 2 feedings a day and he has done just fine. but because of our schedules it was usually only 2-3 days out of the week he only got two feedings instead of 3.

Hope my experience help you make a decision. An adult seems like your best option, you could just put the salad in every day, have the lights on a timer, then feed some live bugs when you get home.

 

[mudskipper]

Get a leopard gecko. They are also cute and docile, but requires a lot less time and care He will be sleeping while you're at work.