Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can I please request some basic information

1)How often do you feed your babies? What on?

2)What age do your babies reach adult size?

3)What weights are your adults, male and female?

So many questions!

Thanks in advance for you help

1) I feed babies 3 times a day. I use no stick shelf liner and feed them well gutloaded crickets mainly.

2) Babies reach adult size in about 9 months for me generally, but continue to grow and fill out till they're about 2 1/2.

3) There is a wide varience to this. My heaviest male is 780. My heaviest female is 750. My lightest adult male is about 450, but he is a rescue and missing a hand and foot. My lightest normal male is closer to 530. My lightest adult female is about 520.

I dust all my live meals with Repcal calcium w/D3 except for one a week which I dust with RepCal multivitamins.

Baby dragons need 1/4"or smaller crickets[size varies from one crik supplier to another]The babies will start eating at 2-4 days[some breeders say longer,but why make them stay hungry that long?]The crix should be lightly dusted with calcium D3 powder,or w/out D3 if you expose babies to natural sunlight.They will eat crix 3 times a day if you have enough to feed them.One way to feed get the calcium powder[use the powder ONLY one feeding per day]is to put the crix in a clean can or oatmeal container and put a pinch of cal.powder,shake til crix are dizzy.When you dump them for the babies crix are woozy and babies gobble them before they hide under anything.You will learn how many per baby by watching how many are left. Babies will eat greens soon after,shred turnip mustard greens very small and if your babies are on paper towels or any surface that the greens won't stick to,drop the pieces and the babies will run right up to grab them.If you have a substrate that would stick,then put a flat paper or plasic plate and drop the greens.Once they learn that they like them,you can just put a bowl of greens in.Growth rate varies with all dragons and some morphs are larger in size than others[like people]Mine average 15-20" by a year..few may lag behind but not many.They will continue to grow slowly after...but not much,again depending on the morph.

I feed my babies 3 insect feedings a day, starting at 7 days old, a mixture of dubia, latteralis. silkworms, crickets, mini superworms and waxworms. Greens are fed daily and eaten. Collards, kale, mustard, dandilion, chard.

My dragons keep growing until about 2 years. If you keep them in groups, they will be smaller, but if you separate them into large enclosures, they will start to grow again. I raise my babies in groups until they hit 12 inches.

My heaviest dragon is an 850 gram female (adalaide on my site) followed by Ayres 780g then the rest are in the 475 to 550 range.
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www.moonstonedragons.com

I forgot suppliments.

Minerall without D3, straight calcium, and vitamin powder is used.

I don't use D3, as dragons eat greens and they contain D3. D3 suppliments are designed for animal that do not eat leafy greens. Basically straight bug eaters. My dragons also have uv light and do go outside when time and temps here in the desert allow. Over D3 supplimentation would be a concern for me. Vets and manifacturers have advised me to not use D3 products.
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www.moonstonedragons.com

That is a realistic concern...there are over and under supplementation concerns...given the fact that the most common problem in beardie husbandry is mbd,the D3 is best given[the powder itself]in small amounts...less as the dragon grows.In 16 years as an owner,14 years breeding and many hundreds of shows,that has been the #1 problem that I've seen in raising babies.But too much supplementation is also detrimental and must be avoided.

Vitamin D3 is not found in greens or vegetables at all, no clue where you heard it is present in vegetables. It is only in mushrooms which is not something bearded dragons eat.

When I read your statement I did some research myself to see if this is possible as I never heard of it before. None of the sites I checked about food containing Vitamin D3 mentioned it being found in greens. Mushrooms was the only plant matter mentioned which has some levels of vitamin D3. Vegetation does however have vitamin D2 which is a different vitamin. Other sources of Vitamin D3 in food are all food sources dragons don't eat, such as salmon, cod, and other seafood.

As for the thread's original questions, hatchling dragons should be offered appropriately sized cricket, 3-4 times a day. Dust one or two feedings with a multivitamin and calcium with D3 (and no phosphorus). The first feeding can be offered a couple days after they hatch, some may eat right away, some many not eat for as long as a week or even 10 days. These first days out of the egg the dragon is still absorbing egg yolk so they are not starving. I would definitely recommend offering food after 3-5 days.

Finely chopped greens can be offered same time the crickets are and left in the cage, replacing uneaten portions daily. This introduces the dragons to greens early and gives any stray crickets a nice food/moisture source over night should some escape the ravenous dragons.

Continue feeding on this regement for up to 4 months then feedings can be dropped to 2 feedings of insects a day with greens available all day. Other insect types can be offered too. After 8 - 12 months, one insect feeding a day with greens (dust insects once or twice a week). After about 14 months, insects should only 10-20% of the daily intake of food, the rest greens. This can be just a few adult crickets, worms (superworms, silkworms etc.) or roaches dropped on their greens, or a feeding of insects a couple times a week.

Typically dragons reach their full growth around 14 months though some do continue to grow very slowly for another year.

Weights vary but an average dragon around 18-19 inches should weight around 500 grams...its hard to say, as males do tend to be heavier and females broader. Longer dragons will of course weight more as will shorter dragons. Best way to determine a healthy weight is the dragon's overall appearance and length.
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PHLdyPayne

Thank you for the correction. In fact D3 does not occur in leafy greens. My apologies. Vitamin D3 is synthesized in a dragons body from normal calcium and uvb light.

"According to Dr. Julia Whittington, exotics veterinarian at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Urbana, reptiles cannot absorb calcium from the diet efficiently without active vitamin D, also known as vitamin D3. Vitamin D3 helps the intestines absorb calcium from food. UVB light absorbed through the skin helps animals convert inactive vitamin D to active vitamin D3. Without proper sun or UVB exposure, pet reptiles can be deficient in vitamin D3 and therefore deficient in calcium."

Since I provide both natural sun and uva/b bulbs, I still would not use vitamin D3 supplements for my dragons for fear of toxicity. Since Vitamin D in any form is not water soluble, it is not easily eliminated. I have been advised by several vets and a manufacturer of products that I used not to use D3 supplements for dragons. My previous comments only apply to bearded dragons. I have never had a case of MBD in my dragons.

You also brought up another excellent point.

"Other sources of Vitamin D3 in food are all food sources dragons don't eat, such as salmon, cod, and other seafood (mushrooms). "

If that is in fact the case, why would you use D3 dietary supplements for an animal who, in nature, has no naturally occurring dietary source of vitamin D3?

I do not used D3 currently, and would not recommend it to others. This advice can be taken or left by the readers, but does reflect my personal opinion.
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www.moonstonedragons.com

The dietary D3 is used to replace the D3 synthesized by their bodies when exposed to UVB light. The UVB bulbs including MVB do a pitiful job of replacing the amount of UVB put out by natural sunlight. Dragons that get a significant amount of natural unfiltered sunlight do not need additional D3. Dragons kept indoors should be supplemented. Whether the dragons can actually use dietary D3 is still debated. But, over supplementation is more of an urban legend than fact. I live in NJ and when my dragons are outside in the spring/summer I don't use D3. But when they are indoors I am a D3 believer. This is just my opinion, but I've never heard of a problem caused by over supplementation of D3, and I think better safe than sorry when it comes to not supplementing.

I understand and appreciate everyone's points and points of view on this topic. Just for me D3 is a no and when asked, I do not suggest it. I guess it is because I'm old and "jaded". I remember when milk was the perfect food, and sunlight was good for you. ;O) I have never had a problem without it, and have yet too hear a convincing enough arguement to switch. I know how these threads can get, and that is usually why I don't get all that involved in them.
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www.moonstonedragons.com

Your caution is understandable and too much D3 is toxic to any animal, not just reptiles. The main reason its good to use regular supplementary D3 with baby dragons (or other diurnal reptiles) is due to their extremely fast growth rate. You don't want them to be low on D3 due to the standard low levels typical commercial UVB bulbs put out. Once dragons reach 12 months, dusting with calcium containing D3 (or calcium powder without D3 and just having the D3 included in a multivitamin powder) can be reduced to once a week or even once every other week.

What isn't known yet (or at least I haven't found any reference to it) is exactly how much D3 a dragon needs daily to be able to utilize calcium and perform other body functions relying on this vitamin. In humans its 1000 I.U. per day. So its a balancing act between providing enough D3 and not too much and not knowing exactly how much is needed.

For dragon owners who can expose their dragons to unfiltered natural sunlight for at least 30 minutes several times a week dietary D3 isn't needed. Unfortunately many dragon owners don't live in parts of the country or other countries which stay warm enough year around to allow this.

As you provide both natural sunlight and UVB bulbs for your dragons, they are getting the exposure to UVB they need to naturally produce all the vitamin D3 their body needs. There isn't any need for you to supply it with supplements. For myself, I may have 2-4 months where the weather is warm enough to bring my dragon outside for natural sunlight. Though this is further complicated by the fact I live in an apartment who's balcony only gets exposed to sunlight for about 2-4 hours a day depending on the time of year. Thus I can't rely on natural sunlight for my dragons and use vitamin D3 a few times a month for my adult dragon. She of course has all the UVB she can get from her UVB bulb which I change regularly. This summer however I provided more calcium with D3 as she was laying eggs.

As a note for others, dusting insects means a very light dusting over each insect, they shouldn't look like they are coated in white powder. Typically a pinch of powder is all that is needed for a feeding of insects.
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PHLdyPayne