Posted by:
PHLdyPayne
at Wed Jul 7 19:32:32 2010 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by PHLdyPayne ]
I find the best green 'mix' is 2-3 staple greens (mustard greens, collard greens, dandelion greens etc) with 1-4 other greens (endive, escarole, etc.) with a little vegetables sprinkled on top (only 5-10% of total volume of greens). Rotate the types of greens used monthly to ensure a good variety...and coordinate with what is available seasonally. A little fruit can be added once in awhile, but no more than once or twice a week.
The nutrition guide BDLVr included in his post is a great guide for choosing what greens to use. It is also a good idea to grow your own greens, this way you have fresh greens available year around. Mustard and collard greens like cool growing weather so do well indoors if you have space for a small planter or two.
For young dragons like you have, the diet really should be about 90% or more insects...so feeding 2-4 feedings of appropriate sized well gut loaded crickets (1/4 to 1/3 inch should be fine), all they can eat in a 5-10min sittings. Greens can be left in the cage all day to give them something to snack on between insect feedings.
Don't forget to dust the crickets daily with calcium with D3 and swap out one calcium dusting with a multivitamin dusting.
As the dragons get older, reduce insect feedings and increase amount of greens fed...I usually go by the following guideline:
hatchling - 4 months old: 2-4 insect feedings, greens offered all day
4months - 8 months: 2 insect feedings, greens offered all day
8-14 months: 1 insect feeding a day, greens offered all day
14 months: Greens every day, small serving of insects (ie 4-6 adult crickets, superworms, silkworms, butterworms or hornworms). Or feed insects 2-3 times a week, with salad other days.
There is alot of flex in feeding schedule..especially once dragons reach adulthood. Some don't eat anywhere near as much as they used to, even skipping days. As adults they dont' need to eat as much as they are not growing like they did in their youths...gravid females however, do eat more and need to eat more. So provide well gut loaded insects and salads daily for gravid females, and calcium dustings. Keep in mind females can produce eggs whether they have been with a male or not. These eggs would of course be infertile and there isn't any need to incubate them.
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PHLdyPayne
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RE: New to beardies - PHLdyPayne, Wed Jul 7 19:32:32 2010
