What?

[Mcfrekinns]

How often should I feed my beardie? I heard you can feed them a bit every week. Like 2 mealworms every other day.Is this true? My dragon is about a foot long.

 

[RolandKyramere]

2 mealworms every other day is far too little for a beardie. I guess that we need to know the age of your dragon to actually get a good grasp on how much you should be feeding them. If your beardie is still young, being under a year to 18 months, you'll want to be feeding mostly insects, and quite a few insects, they'll go through at least 30 a day. On top of having the protein (I would advise against mealworms, they have essentially no nutritional value) you'll want to give your dragon a salad every day consisting of dark greens, avoid spinach and go with something along the lines of collards. http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html is the best food sheet available for beardies.

 

[RioReptiles]

When you say your dragon is a foot long, is that from nose to tail? How old is it and where did you get it? Did a pet store tell you that? If your dragon is 12" from nose to tail, that would make it 3 to 5 months old and still growing. A dragon that age should eat bugs every day, either crickets or roaches, as many as it can it in about 10 to 15 mins. You can start feeding supers a couple a day until it gets used to them, otherwise it will throw them up if it eats too many. And yes, a nice salad once or twice a day should always be offered. If it's 12" long in the body only, it is probably an adult and doesn't need as many bugs every day. Some adults eat a little every day, some eat a bunch every 2 or 3 days, but always a big salad once or twice a day. Oh, and rule #1 when owning a bearded dragon, don't listen to most pet store personnel.

 

[kimmie]

Oh, and rule #1 when owning a bearded dragon, don't listen to most pet store personnel.

I second that rule! So many of us here could have saved lots of $$$ and maybe even beardie's lives had we NOT listened to pet store personnel!

 

[RolandKyramere]

...I'm pet store personel *puppy dog eyes*
lol, yeah, I would agree with the "most" part, we have another big pet store in town and I've now had 3 people come to me with issues revolving around their dragons, when they purchased their set ups from the other people. Gotta love putting two dragons together... (most recent issue I had to resolve)

 

[kimmie]

...I'm pet store personel *puppy dog eyes*
lol, yeah, I would agree with the "most" part, we have another big pet store in town and I've now had 3 people come to me with issues revolving around their dragons, when they purchased their set ups from the other people. Gotta love putting two dragons together... (most recent issue I had to resolve)

See my finger waving at you - don't use those *puppy dog eyes* on me, I have an 11 yr old son that tries that too LOL! I would LOVE to have a petstore person know something. So far what I've seen and heard, is far from that. I know there are some though!

We should make a list of all the no-no's told to us! ROFL

 

[RioReptiles]

Notice I said "most" pet store personnel. Every once in a great while, you find one who has a passion and knows their stuff. But they took the initiative to learn because they care. If the pet stores made their personnel learn about the various animals they sell or even had a rack of care sheets to point people to, it would be a huge advantage over what most of them tell people these days.

 

[RolandKyramere]

I'll be the first to tell you that most of the information pet stores teach you is complete dog doo, and that I've found out much of what I know through books, online articles, and forums like this one. We do have a fully stocked rack of care sheets, but most of the time I give people the care sheet and tell them to go home and research before they buy, since you always have the people who want that adorable little lizards dancing at the window as an impulse buy.