Reptile & Amphibian Forums

man my beardie seems to love to eat green lizards...i think the technical term is anole....well he loves them...i fed him one anole two days in a row...now i think he's addicted...he wont even eat his crickets...im totally confused....is this normal? could he only want anoles? are anoles ok for him to eat...man he wont eat anything else.....i dont know what to do...i have a pretty good supply of anoles around my house (now im trying to collect a group of them) but im not sure how long this can last...what do i do? thanks for the help....
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1.0 Bearded Dragon (Earl)
0.0.1 Bearded Dragon (Tri-Pod)
0.1 Wife (Eryn) WC
0.1 Daughter (Lily) CBB
0.1 Brindle Boxer (Marley)
0.1 Mut (Bailey)

Well lets face it. Crickets are just plain nasty. I find when I feed my dragons roaches and horn and silk worms, they turn their nose up at crickets. I don't feed my dragons crickets, only babies and dragons I am not keeping, so when they go to good homes, they will eat them, since that is what most people feed. I don't like the idea of feeding pinkies (unless frozen thawed) or anoles to dragons. One, I think it is cruel, and second, you could be adding any number of pathogens to your dragons. Frozen thawed eliminates a lot of that risk. You may have opened Pandora's lunch box. I stopped trying to get my breeders to eat crickets long ago. Good luck. My advice is lay off the lizards, and feed bugs.
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www.moonstonedragons.com

Get your dragon off the anoles and give it feeder insects as mentioned[I use lots of crickets,too] and give it a lot of greens.The anoles will not carry the nutritional value of gut-loaded[pre-fed with a nutritious diet]insects and turnip,mustard,collard,dandelion greens.Don't wory if it doesn't eat at first..he won't let himself starve...

I would never feed anything wild caught. You don't know what they might have just eaten and they are likely loaded with parasites. I've fed everything over the years. I always come back to crickets though. Kids may not eat their dinner but amazingly they can always fit desert. Crickets are the nutritions dinner. Assuming you use a good quality gutload, I think they are the most nutritious choice. When they don't eat them it's just that their not that hungry.

I will agree crickets are a hassle and I hate them as much as everyone else though.

Try some dubias.....my dragons love them! I really only feed them to the medium/larger dragons, and stick with crickets for everything thats small. Get a starter colony, and mix up the bugs with the crickets, dubia, other worms if the dragons bigger, and of course the greens. I would also avoid anything wild caught as feeders(bugs, lizards, etc).

I do use frozen pinkies occasionally just as something different to add to the diet, and only some of the dragons take them.

Like Brdlvr said, I think we all hate crickets, but overall they are the staple that is tough to beat as far as cost/quantity/nutrition/ease of use goes.

Agreed with what has been said. Though my only other random suggestion would to be to try Turkish Roaches. They are about the same size as an adult cricket at adulthood. They are softer bodied than most of the other roaches.. easy to keep.. and dont really have any smell. Pretty darn clean to! And all my dragons have went crazy over them... so I guess thats another option!
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- Eric Watts
Pgwdragons

Stop feeding anoles period. They are not a good source of food for dragons, can be full of parasites etc. Don't have a clue why you decided to offer anoles in the first place. Yes, dragons will probably eat anything they can over power if given the opportunity but that doesn't mean its good or safe for them to eat.

Stop feeding anoles, return to normal diets for dragons, he will resume eating crickets and greens eventually. They won't starve themselves to death just because they like something better which you are not offering.
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PHLdyPayne