Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all,
I have tried everything to get my beardy to try veggies, to no avail. He is around 5-6 mos old and 11.5 inches from head to tail tip. He eats crix fine, but absolutely no veggies ever. I have tried fruits, different leafy greens, carrots, peas, corn....nothing. I have put meal worms and wax worms in them to entice him....nothing. I have even put the veggies in first and withheld food until the afternoon hoping he would eat veggies. Help me out, is he just too young to care, or what?
Rachel

Hi Rachel,

Dragons can go a long time without food. If you want you can hold off on bugs for a number of days (if it is really important to you that your dragon eat veggies right now). That might work.

Also, I find that my dragons go through lots of changes/cycles regarding what they eat (prefer) and how much they eat. Age, season and conditions (both of the dragon and the environment) are just a few of the variables that can affect diet. I just continue to be consistent and offer both bugs and fruits and veggies. Some of the animals eat their veggies every day, some seem like they almost never do, some are in between and some are on and off.

I don't sweat it too much. I just make everything available and let them choose.

Good luck,

Ian

He is not too young, i have gotten beardies as young as 2 weeks nibbling on veggies. There are a few tricks to getting a beardie to accept veggies:

1. The best method is to, of course, have him exposed to veggies since day one. It is a bit late for this though, lol.

2. Have you tried wiggling the veggies? Dangling a green or strip of carrot in front of the beardie sometimes intices a feeding response, especially if your beardie is used to being hand fed. If he is not used to being hand fed start by hand feeding him worms and pinkie mice until he is comfrotable and then try the veggies.

3. Sometimes putting a dish of veggies int he tank and then putting mealies into it works well. The worms move around and the beardie will attack them, and hopefully will get a few bites of veggies too and realize they aren't so bad.

4. Some beardies are attracted to certain colors. Red and orange seem to be a favorite in many lizards. Try roses or other edible flowers (www.beautifuldragons.org for a full list of edible plants), also try carrots or purple cabbage. Although these are not good staple veggies, they are sometimes a good way to get them started.

5. Withold food for a day or two and then try giving veggies, a hungry beardie is more likely to eat veggies than one that is full or knows crickets are right around the corner.

6. Above all, don't give up. It is extremely important to the health of your beardie that he eats veggies, especially as he gets older. Constant acess to veggies gets them used to them over time and contantly trying to intice them to feed almost always results in a happy veggie eater!

Hope this helps!
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0.1 Bearded dragon
0.1 mexican kingsnake
1.0.2 Leopard Gecko's
0.0.1 Rose Hair Tarantula
1.0 BTS
0.0.1 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Bullmastiff
4.1 Cats

I had exactly the same problem with my beardie, he frightened me to death when he wouldn't eat them becasue he is my first and everyone was telling me how importat they were. i tried all the tips on the last post and at first none of them worked. i thought that maybe it was the dish i was giving him the greens in so i got him to eat out of the bowl by using mealies in the bottome themn on day i left some veg in the bowl with a few mealies while i was getting his crickets and when i turned round he was eating them. i don't know how your beardie will act but the best thing i think is to be persistent becasue trust me you will fell like giving up. crinckly cabbage when wiggled is a big hit.
personally i wouldn't not give them crickets for days just so he will eat his veg i would go for the making the food wiggle or adding meal worms. he'll come round.

hope this helps a bit
good luck
kay x x

When I first got my dragons I did the research and found that they eat more vegetables as they get older. The person that gave me my dragons didn't really have any luck in getting them to eat their vegetables but since I've had them they eat more vegetables than anything. My male prefers anything leafy and my female prefers anything with a sweet flavor so it all depends on the dragon. I give them crickets in the late morning then vegetables right after that and then I give them more crickets at night. When I try to give my dragons anything new I have to get one to eat it before the other will even think about trying it. The way I got mine to eat vegetables is I gave them crickets in the morning and if they didn't eat their vegetables they didn't get their crickets at night which worked well for me since they eat more vegetables than anything now and they really prefer the vegetables to the crickets. I hope this helps and good luck