Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My son's little guy is 5 weeks old and we have had him about a week now. He will eat romaine but hasn't touched turnip greens or dandelions. Should we push the other greens? From what I've read there isn't much nutritional value in Roamine compared with the others that we have offered. Next question, my son will fill his dish with greens before he goes to school and he feeds him dusted crickets (6-8) when he gets home. Should we offer him crickets in the morning too? We're afraid that he won't eat his salad then. Thanks for answering.

Babies need a diet of almost all protein...offering greens is great but protein should be about 90% of their diet until they are adults when that reverses--adults 80-90% greens 10-20% protein. I'd suggest that you slowly reduce and eliminate romaine from the salad. Mist or soak your baby daily to keep him hydrated. If you mist make sure the tank does not get too wet as you do not need that much humidity.

Babies grow fast and need the protein to thrive. If you can get your baby to eat pellets with his salad you can reduce the amount of crickets--but 6-8 crickets a day is not enough!

Offer all the crickets your baby can eat in 5-10 minutes two to three times a day. Offer the veggies all of the time. A healthy baby will eat 25-100 crickets a day!

You will most likely find that it is much cheaper to purchase your crickets online. When ours was a baby I ordered 1/4 inch crickets---slightly larger than pinheads. 1000 lasted 4-6 weeks before they got too big (feed no larger than the space between their eyes to prevent choking). I paid an average of $15 for 1000 (postage paid)--much cheaper than the pet shop!

Now our beardies are adults I only feed crickets as a treat...I have a silkworm colony established and hatch out a few every week or so...both of our dragons prefer their worms!

Good luck with your baby...

What kind of a set up do you have...size, temperatures, lighting?

Thanks for the info. We've tried to feed him crickets more than once per day but he didn't seem too interested. That's why we started offering him greens with the pellets. He will eat the romaine but not the pellets. I thought about trying to offer him canned crickets as a topper to his salad. What is your opinion on that? As for the set up he is currently in a 20L. his cool side is about 75` and the warm side is 88`. We have a 100 watt spot light (mounted pretty high) that the produces 105-113 basking temp on a large rock. Again thank you for your insight!

Hi,

I just got my baby (2 month's old) and have a great way of feeding him crickets. It had been suggested but it took me a day or two to "perfect" it to my setup. My guy is in a 30gal and what I do is lightly dust my crickets (you do know that you need to dust both with Calcium/d3 as well as a vitamin dust? But not at the same time) I then place the crickets in about a 4 inch square, 3" high gladware plastic container. I tip the container just enough so beardie boy (no name yet) can see the movement then I place it on the floor of his tank. once he sees them he jumps in and eats them all (like 30 at a sitting 1/4" crix, but yours would need pinheads). It is so cute to see him bouncing around in there! It keeps the crickets contained and gives him a chance to "get 'em all!"

I noticed in your post that you do not have a UVB light source. this is crucial.

There are lots of good beardie sites out there but so far this is one of my top favorites (and this is another http://www.beardiedragon.com/)
beautiful dragons

-----
0.1 Veiled - Luna
1.0 Beardie - For now his name is Kinky Boy
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha
Chameleon Help & Resource Info

Thanks for the reply. We do have a 18" flourecent bulb for uv and his basking lamp emits uv too. What is the definition of a pin head cricket? The crickets we are feeding him are around 1/4" in length, there are smaller ones too and we avoid the larger ones. We are careful to make sure that they are smaller than the space between his eyes. Thanks for the referal to beautiful dragons too!

make sure it is UVB not just UVA.

Timberline has a great cricket size chart. Pinheads are first born and barely dots! They may be too small for your guy. My 2 month old is eating 1/4" and 3/8" Stick to the rule of thumb and you can't go wrong. Here's the cricket size link:
cricket sizes

-----
0.1 Veiled - Luna
1.0 Beardie - For now his name is Kinky Boy
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha
Chameleon Help & Resource Info

Thanks for the info! It's great to have access to all this information. We're going to change up our feeding regiment a little bit and offer him crickets more often.

glad to help! I am new to bd's but have a chameleon and have had other herps in the past. These forums are great, aren't they!
-----
0.1 Veiled - Luna
1.0 Beardie - For now his name is Kinky Boy
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha
Chameleon Help & Resource Info