Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have posted here a few times before and my fellow associate also posts here. I work at PetsMart. Today my store director asked how many crickets we are feeding are reptiles weekly. I told him over 100 (between 3 reptiles none of which are beardies). Then I mentioned when we get beardies in, we need to feed them about 100 daily (50 morning, 50 night). He thinks that number is absolutely ridiculous. He said "They should only be eating 50 a day max." He told me to print out my source of information and show it to him. So, could you guys do me a huge favor and outline the basic care for these guys as juveniles(substrate, feeding, etc.) so I can prove to him that I am correct. He is a real jerk and is hard to talk to. You can't talk to him without him giving you an attitude. We seem to clash with opinions on most matters cause he thinks he is always right. I would really appreciate your cooperation. Also, could you please state if you are a breeder, vet, or an expert in your posts?

Thank you
Janelle

Ahhhh, another classic example of the person in charge of these reptiles knowing jack about them and being too stubborn to learn. Fantastic.

Unfortunately I'm no expert, or breeder, or vet.... I'm just a casual beardie owner who cares enough to research them and try to expand my knowledge and understanding of their husbandry. In my experience, closed-minded pet store manager types don't listen to what my types have to say. Furthermore, I don't know if any online source of information will be reputable enough for your manager to care. Oh well, we can only try.

Looking around I don't see any caresheets that say exactly how much a baby beardie should eat per day. They're all a bit different. The general rule of thumb is as many as the dragon will eat in 10 minutes, twice a day. This could be 40 or it could be 100 in one day. It should be up to the beardie how much they can consume, not the person feeding it. If a beardie is a fast grower, but it's only being allowed 50 crix a day when it could easily consume 100, in my opinion it is being deprived... plain and simple.

Good luck w/ your manager. It's good of you to at least try to stand up for what's in the best interest of the animals.
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2.0 bearded dragons (Ocho / Domo-kun)
0.1 kingsnake (Rio)
1.0 ferret (Playstation)
1.0 cat (Wally)
0.1 dog (Tima)

eh...50 each morning/night is kinda excessive if u are feeding the correct size prey..but if its 50 morning/night for all the beardies thats too little...caresheets can be found:

http://www.beautifuldragons.com's general care sheet

http://thelastplace.tk's bearded dragon section and click on the link for the caresheet

http://www.reptilecare.com/dragonlist.htm's number 7

im not compiling and outlining one for u not because i don't wanna..its cuz frankly ive only done research on Bearded Dragons and haven't kept one of my own...looking forward to it though..hope any of this helps...thanks...
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"you won't know success if you haven't failed..."-eric chen
1.1.1 Hi-Yellow Leopard Geckoes-Gecko Party, Town and Country Pets
0.0.2 Blizzards-AAA Reptile Supply
0.1.0 Western (Plains) Hognose Snake-La Habra Pets
1.0.0 Dark-Fire Crested Gecko-Reptile Depot
0.1.0 Boxer Dog-Local Dog Shelter

o gosh, lol, yea, pestmart is like that, i werked there for about 7 months, same thing, he was convinced the mali uros needed water, in fact i almost got fired for not giving them water, he was convinced that baby beardies should be fed no more than 15 crickets a day, lol, and that they didn't need any water sprayed and that iceburg lettuce was a great veggie lol, yea, it was horrible, we nvr really kept beardies alive we finally just stopped ordering them, it was really sad, yea, just tell him hes stupid and kick him in the @$$ lol, no but , i do applaud you for trying btw you can post up the number for care complaints for youyr peticular store and we can call it and tel them whats up
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my animals
1.0.1 leopard gecko (goliath, gebco)
0.1 hypo red bearded dragon (puff the magic dragon)
0.0.1 schnieder's skink (ghandi)
0.1 white's dumpy treefrog (un-named)
1.0 house gecko (geico)
0.0.1 red eared slider (carl)
0.0.1 fire belly toad (escaped..)
1.0 lop eared wabbit (oreo)
1.1.too many to count, brown recluse (i think)
the rest of the animals in the hizouse
1.0 westie puppy (gabriel)
1.0 plain ol' outdoor alley cat (joey)
0.1 indoor rag doll kitty (tinkerbell)
2.0 goulian finchs