Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been working with Beardies for about five years and with reptiles for almost twenty. My male Beardie, Bubba seems to eat an awful lot. He gets lobster roaches twice weekly. He almost always has a salad of romaine, mustard greens and water cress. He always eats all his roaches and finishes all of his greens. The once or twice a month I give him some mealworms as sort of a treat. He eats it all. I don't want him to become overweight and unhealthy. How do I know what is right or is their a way?

Thanks

John
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Bearded Dragon 2.0
Pac-Man frog

To determine if your dragon is a good weight, we need his total length, (head to tail tip) and current weight. His approximate age will help to. Pictures as well.

The current diet you are given him isn't very healthy. Romaine lettuce is practically nutritionless and water chestnuts are high in phosphorus and low in calcium. You want foods to be higher in calcium. Mustard greens are good as a staple though. For a list of other good nutritional greens for dragons, www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html has a great list. Water chestnuts are not on the list but I checked a different source to find out nutritional content (re: www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2717/2

Adult dragons should get salads every day, with insects a couple times a week, or about 10-20% of their daily intake of food can be insects.

Let us know his current length and weight and it will be easier to see if he's over weight, underweight or ideal. Pictures definitely will be helpful as well.
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PHLdyPayne

I will get that information to you as soon as i can. I feed him water cress not water chestnuts

Thanks
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Bearded Dragon 2.0
Pac-Man frog

I weigh all of my animals(32) weekly and write it down on a chart. All my adults have a target range dependent on on length, sex, and body type. I feed bugs and salad on alternate days except for sick, significantly underweight, or breeding females which get fed both every day. Personally it seems dragons lean more towards bugs their entire life. So if you can get actual intake to about 50-50 your doing well. If you feed too many bugs they will hold out and not eat any salad. For a stable weight dragon it usually turns out to be about 10 superworms or 4 silkworms every other day when the dragon is active. The Beautiful Dragons list is a great list to pick salad greens from.

Sorry, misread the water cress. However even then, water cress should be fed rarely, as it is high in Vit. C, something dragons should not be fed in high amounts.
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PHLdyPayne

Thanks for all the help
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Bearded Dragon 2.0
Pac-Man frog