Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, my boyfriend's beardie is nearly 2 years old, but in my opinion, he still looks very much like a juvie. He's not wide like the beardies I'm used to. I feel like my boyfriend doesn't feed him as frequently as he should. We've argued a little bit about it, not heatedly though. He thinks the little guy only needs to eat a couple dozen crickets once a week, with greens every other day or every two days. I would prefer giving him 5-10 crickets or worms every other day and fresh greens every day. What do you guys recommend for a two-year-old beardie's diet: amounts and frequency?

Thanks for any help.

Recent picture of Charley:

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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake possible mix (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

Yeah that is unfairly infrequent for the little guy. He should be fed at least as much as you suggested. I prefer to feed mine daily, but I am breeding them. He is quite small for a two year old dragon also.

Think of it this way, in the wild, they would be able to eat food as often as they could catch it. Seeing that our goal is to replicate the wild, I would convince him to increase the food intake.

Phil

hey
thats really crazy how small he looks..my beardie is 6 months old and looks bigger then that one..he should be feeding about 10-20 crickets a day in my opinion with also greens everyday..a couple dozen crickets a week isn't enough i think..maybe try giving him some hornworms or superworms to add alittle more weight to him..i feed mine hornworms and butterworms as treats maybe once a week or once every few weeks..let us know what happens..
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Jonny Blaze
1.0 Nosy Be Panther
1 Bearded Dragon--sex not determined yet
0.1 Yorkshire terrier Brandy,10 years old
1.0 Golden lab-Dusty R.I.P May 16,2007,14.5 years old
1.0 Black lab "wiggler",2 years old
s136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/jonnyblaze_04/?sc=3

He's not feeding him enough. If you posted a weight and length it would be helpful but from the picture I'd say his growth is significantly stunted. Under 2 years I feed mine live food daily and full time access to salad. I weigh mine weekly and decide on how much live food by their weight and the target weight I have determined for them. After about a year and a half it ends up being only a couple superworms or crickets a day. After 2 years it usually ends up being a few live items every other day. But, they always have salad available.

Where do you suggest getting a scale to weigh him? I'd love to be able to keep track of that.

500 grams would be an adult weight, right?

Another picture of him, probably from a month or two ago. I live in Florida so even the house gets hot from time to time. He's cooling himself off in this pic.

I'll take a more recent picture today as soon as I have a minute.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake possible mix (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

You can get cheap food or postal scale at places like Walmart etc. They usually only measure in 5 gram increments but that's fine for an adult dragon. You can order better ones online. I have an Ohaus that I bought on line.

500 would be fine if he's 18 " I like mine to be in the low to mid 500's at 19 " and about 575 at 20" or longer. These numbers are for males. Females are all over depending on how many clutches and eggs per clutch rather than length.

By the way, he looks better and bigger in the 2nd picture.

Okay, snapped some shots today, doing my best to try to get a size comparison. I'll try to get to Walmart tomorrow and pick up one of those scales, thanks. I haven't measured his length, I should do that. >_<

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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake possible mix (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

That looks like a pretty big dragon. I'm wondering if he's a girl? He has a pretty big body but a small head for a male. He also has a gravid female looking body shape. He doesn't have very muscular legs. Is he in a large enough enclosure to get good exercise? I'd still like to know his weight but it would be tough at this point for me to say he is underfed.

Regardless, your dragon has a long body. I have a few with the same trait. They never get the wide round body that shorter bodied dragons get. Even when they get fat the excess weight hangs down underneath rather than their bodies getting wider.

Ah... Yeah, he does seem to be carrying extra weight in the belly, kind of like my cat does. I don't think he's been to a vet, but comparing pictures in books and on the internet with what a male should look like, he has the spots in the right.. um, spot. I'll try to push getting the guy to a vet or at the very least to my former sister-in-law who knows an AWFUL lot about herps. I accidentally offended my boyfriend by posting here about Charley's feeding habits. He felt as if I was saying he didn't know how to take care of his dragon.

All the little guy gets right now for a salad is romaine lettuce, so I went on the beautiful dragons site and showed him the list of all the nutrients and everything. I'm going to get by the store this week and pick up kale and a few other things to start making a new, healthier salad.

The dusted, gut-loaded crickets should be fine, I just need to feed the little guy more frequently with them, rather than a couple dozen at one time a week. I've also alternated with superworms, to give him some variety. If I get a good shot of Charley's legs, could someone on here tell if he's male or female?

By the way, he's in a 40-50 gallon long aquarium, with several rocks and branches, he just doesn't wander around it a whole lot these days. He will chase crickets when I put them in there, though. We had him out in the yard last summer, supervised, in a play yard, but he tried to fit through the very narrow opening, so we stopped doing that, in case he might hurt himself.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake possible mix (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

The pores on the underside of the dragon's back legs are present in both males and females and are not a good indication of sex in my opinion, though males are bigger than females, without another compare its hard to tell.

Best way to sex a bearded dragon is to lay it down flat on a table or your hand, lift the tail up to about a 90 degree angle. Check the area on the tail side of the vent, you should see either a single central bump (female) or two bumps with a dimple in the middle (male)

www.dachiu.com/sexing.html

good site with pictures on sexing.

Your dragon looks like a good weight..maybe slightly under weight as the tail base seems narrower than I typically see in dragons..but a good healthy diet with a mixed salad (beautiful dragons is a great site for nutrition information on greens) with some crickets, superworms, butterworms, silkworms, etc, offered each day or a meal of them a couple times a week (a meal will be pretty much all they can eat in 5 minutes..with a slightly smaller salad the rest of the day). Or offer 3-6 large crickets or worms with salad. Getting a scale is a good ideal as you can monitor what the current weight is and how much gained...over a week or month period on the new diet....you don't want it to become obese either. So meals can be adjusted to maintain a healthy body weight.
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PHLdyPayne

Hehe... to see the pictures, I had to click on the French version. I'll try to do that later, he's sleeping now, but he's a very calm dragon, so I can probably do that tomorrow when I get in from class.
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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden) (missing )
1.0 Florida Kingsnake possible mix (Eddie Gein)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)

ha ha, I'm a High school - Middle school French TEacher,.. if you need any help with that french translation just let me know

lol I actually bring my beardies to school all the time. The kids love them and are always gentle. I gave a lesson on their anotomy in French at the beginning of the year it was soo fun! I'm famous for always having lizards in the room visiting .. what a wierdo?

kristen
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4.2 Bearded dragons (Lee,Stumpy,Blackie,Spazz,Lynn,Charlotte)
1 Egyptian Uromastyx (Niles)
(Papa Kunja and Uri have recently passed..we love you)

Thank you for your advice!

YOu can get a digital food scale at WAL-MART that I believe measures down to the gram. Yep, I have one. It costs $30 or $35 dollars though not bad. it's a "good cook" i think. It weighs in grams as well as in oz.

My adult males are also in the low 500s

kris
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4.2 Bearded dragons (Lee,Stumpy,Blackie,Spazz,Lynn,Charlotte)
1 Egyptian Uromastyx (Niles)
(Papa Kunja and Uri have recently passed..we love you)

Thank you for your advice!