Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been talking to the reptile person at a very good pet shop in my town (their reptile department is top notch). They have always had the healthiest bearded dragons there I have ever seen, and I finally asked them how they do it.

The thing that caught my attention was that they said that as babies the dragons are fed crickets no more than 3 times a week, and usually no more than a dozen crickets per dragon. Because of this, they eat their greens and veggies heavily. This seems to lead to a slower growth, but an overall healthier, less picky dragon.

Now, I know some of you are going to say that this is not a good way to do things (mostly because it's treading off the beaten path). But let's look at it in the long run. They have a customer that comes in with her bearded dragon, which is now 15 years old! That's old for a beardie! The dragon is only fed greens twice a week, and crickets every 2-3 weeks.

So this leads me to question....are we feeding our reptiles too much? In the wild reptiles do not get access to nearly as much food as we offer them. I would guess that maybe we are thinking of our reptiles as being too much like people (thinking that they have to eat everyday, and poop everyday). I think that maybe it's better to just think about it as how they would live in the wild.

It's just a new theory I've been coming up with, but I think there might be something to it. Feeding in smaller portions might make sense too.

I think you should also look to the behavior of your beardie. As babies, beardies are active hunters, they will eat anything that moves. This is instinctual, and tells you that the beardies needs and wants live prey on a daily basis. They are young, growing animals. Once a dragon reaches sexual maturity, that apetite drops quite a bit. They no longer hunt so hard, and are more content to eat their greens. My adult gets insects 2-3 times a week, greens every day. The reason the babies at the pet store eat more greens is because they are starving for food, they need to grow, and the only thing around is the less preferable vegetable.
The thing about the wild is that the fastest and largest growing dragons are going to be the most successful. The goal of a wild animal is not to live the longest, but rather to reproduce the most quickly (because you are living at the edge of death every day). The faster you become an adult, the faster you make babies, regardless of how long you live. When we start looking at dragons like humans (ie hoping to make them live 20 years), is when we begin to forget about nature.

You talk about 'forgetting about nature' when you yourself refuse to consider the fact that there is not that many live prey items available to bearded dragons on a regular basis. I think it is more natural for them to eat more vegetables than meat even at a young age. I think that letting them eat as much as they can is kind of the way people humanize them, because they feel that they need to feel full. However, in the wild, baby beardies are probably never full, and this keeps them on a quest to find more and more food items. I doubt wild baby bearded dragons have access to 25 live insects every day. Sure, they are out there, but then you have to factor in that the beardie cannot not find all of them, nor catch them. The dragons are not starving. In fact, the beardies at the pet shop I mentioned are actually nice and plump, and not very far off the regular growth curve for their ages (they are all about 8-10" long, and a little under 6 monthes old). People feed large constrictors a lot if they want them to grow to a good size, and usually the snakes are all too eager to eat the food. In the wild they will often go monthes before finding a good meal.

Besides, there are reports from australia of bearded dragons living over 15 years. I think this is more on the right track, however it is just a theory. I think too many people fall into the idea that captive care of reptiles needs no improvement. There is always room for improvement though. For instance, the existance of substrate impactions shows that there are problems in husbandry, because lizards that have all other needs taken care of correctly do not become impacted. The reason many do is because of dehydration. No desert reptile really lives in low humidity. They all (bearded dragons included) utilize areas of higher humidity by burying themselves underneath things or digging burrows. Otherwise they would not survive.

I think this is a good debate though, because it's something that not a lot of people really sit down and think about. The vast majority of owners just rely on care sheets.

Yeah, you are right, beardies are being, some would say, spoiled! It is true they will go a long time without food in the wild, as you said, but being that they are captive bred and kept as pets, people tend to want to pamper them like a dog or something. The reason is: people want the dragon to live long, get big, and look as good as possible. You are deffinately right in many points, but, people are not willing to treat a pet as though it is wild, possibly because the dragon may be more aggresive when it is hungry.
peace out-draco92
Florida bearded dragons

Has anyone here traveled to the outback and done an insect biomass calculation? I live and do biology research in a desert (the sonoran), and let me tell you, the most abundant animal food source in ANY desert are its insects. The reasons deserts can support such a variety of reptile life is due to the fact that insects are highly abundant. I seriously doubt any of the above posters have enough experience with desert biology and biodiversity to make any statements on the amount o food available or ingested by wild beardies. I would also be interested in hearing the sources from where this "theory" was gleaned. And how would you decide how much to feed your beardie? Are you going to average the intake of wild beardies over a ten year period, to reduce the effects of rainfall on insect populations? I am willing to bet beardies do better in a wet year than otherwise. What if you only collected data in a dry year, and end up starving all of your beardies....Seems difficult to mimic nature.
Don't get me wrong, there are more problems with reptile husbandry than with any other commonly kept animal. However, basing a feeding regime on a petstore and on some belief that insects aren't available in the wild (with absolutely no evidence to the contrary) is ridiculous. Do your research, tell me of the insect fauna of the outback, their availability for dragons, and the typical intake of a wild baby dragon, and I will be the first to change my feeding regime. But until then, I will stick to letting my babies eat as much as they want, and limiting my adults insect intake.

For a dragon's first year of life, especially the first 4 months, insects should be the bulk of their foods. As they get older, greens should be introduced and become a regular part of their diet, increasing in amount as the dragon gets older. Once a year old, dragons should be eating about 90% greens every day, about 5% insects and 5% other (grains, etc).

What can reduce dragon life is getting too much food after a year old and getting fat. Fatty liver disease is a big killer for many reptiles, no to mention other animals.

Unless much more detailed studying about the recommended amounts of food dragons receive in captivity to what they need to remain at a healthy weight, it's very hard to say what is too little and what is too much.