I think you should also look to the behavior of your beardie. As babies, beardies are active hunters, they will eat anything that moves. This is instinctual, and tells you that the beardies needs and wants live prey on a daily basis. They are young, growing animals. Once a dragon reaches sexual maturity, that apetite drops quite a bit. They no longer hunt so hard, and are more content to eat their greens. My adult gets insects 2-3 times a week, greens every day. The reason the babies at the pet store eat more greens is because they are starving for food, they need to grow, and the only thing around is the less preferable vegetable.

The thing about the wild is that the fastest and largest growing dragons are going to be the most successful. The goal of a wild animal is not to live the longest, but rather to reproduce the most quickly (because you are living at the edge of death every day). The faster you become an adult, the faster you make babies, regardless of how long you live. When we start looking at dragons like humans (ie hoping to make them live 20 years), is when we begin to forget about nature.

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