The following information is just a conversation I had with another breeder. Don’t take any of this as Beardie gospel, but maybe there is some helpful info you can get from it.
I went to the Kansas City show today and had a conversation with Tom and Jackie Vandiver. They breed beardeds in Missouri. They do not feed any of their dragons crickets (or any live prey for that matter) and start their babies eating greens and pellets the day out of the incubator. They believe the key to getting babies to eat greens quickly is including endive in their green selection. Their experience is babies seem to love the taste or smell and go for it more readily. It is very nutritional for dragons and can be used as a staple green. They also showed me a way of hand feeding the pellets to dragons of any size. They soften them with water, then while holding the dragon they place one finger under the chin and pull the skin gently to one side. This causes their mouth to crack open on the side. The crack is big enough to fit a pellet in and they will begin to chew it on their own from that point. This is an easy way for young dragons to develop a taste for the pellets. Another thing they do is to drop their greens and pellets into the cage from above. The movement will usually get at least one dragon to eat it. Once one dragon goes for it the others will follow. They try to let their pellets roll on the bottom as they drop them in enticing the dragons to give chase. Eventually they will eat the greens and pellets without having to be enticed. They stated that they have a lot less tail nips and missing digits since they’ve stopped feeding crickets. They attribute that partially to not having crickets running around. They believe many times when dragons are raised on crickets the movement of a siblings toes or tail will initiate a feeding response. The other thing they do is remove any dragon that shows any sign of aggression to them like opening its mouth when they approach with their hands. They keep those separate and tame them before placing them back within a community environment. They both seemed very knowledgeable concerning dragons and their animals looked very healthy. I see a lot of questions on this forum as to how to get dragons eating greens and pellets and thought this might be helpful.
I will mention this as only an afterthought. Though their dragons looked healthy they all seemed on the small side. The largest adult they had with them was a male that appeared to be about 350 grams. They said they bring him to show people how big they can get.
Though I have some minor concerns with the overall size of their dragons I am contemplating making the attempt this year to raise my babies cricket free. They tell me they used to spend over $9000 a year on crickets.
I hope this was helpful and not too remedial for this forum as I haven’t been visiting here for long.
