Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering why most people say its not good to feed pinkies to dragons regularly?
Thank you in advance for your opinions.

A lot of fat, harder to digest (bones), possible parasites.
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www.classylizard.com

I can't resist, gotten liven things up here. So pretty much a pinky is a cricket(parasites), mealworm(hard to digest), and a calcium supplement(bones). Sounds to me like the perfect meal.

OK now my official response; what would be the problem with feeding a pinkie once a week or month?

Pinkies are really high in fat, not good for regular feeding. I do give a few to my females (over a week) after they lay to give them an extra boost in their weight. As far as the bones being hard to digest, pinkie bones aren't fully formed yet (they're soft) and because I only feed to my adult females I don't worry about it as much, but I can see where it could be a problem with impacting younger animals. Any living creature can carry parasites, to help minimize the risk I only feed frozen thawd pinkies. Overall I wouldn't recomend feeding them though because of the high fat if nothing else.

Sean
Heart Mountain Herps

Not really sure why people think pinkies carry parasites, especialy since pinkies are captive bred, not wild caught. If the parents are kept in unclean conditions, then there is a higher chance there are parasites, but I doubt they would be born with parasites, especialy internal ones, unless they come in contact with contaminated feces. Frozen thawed pinkies wouldn't have any threat of parasites as most parastes are killed when frozen, or so I heard, haven't actually tested this myself. Snakes and other reptiles that eat pinkies and large mice don't have any problems of parasites unless improperly cared for or wild caught.

That said, I still wouldn't recommend pinkies as any sort of regular feeding because of higher fat content. Feeding after brumation and egg laying is probalby the only time there is any real need to feed a pinky to a dragon.

Just to clarify. It's not just that they will make your beardie fat. Too many will cause fatty liver disease and early death.
Truthfully, I've never understood feeding pinkies for any reason.
If you wanted to get an undernourished person back to a healthy weight. Would you give them a plate of fat?
My thought is, it'd be much better to add wt. with more protein and healthy veggies and fruits.
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www.classylizard.com