Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In one of our enclosures whe put a sand box for our beardies to play in. we also feed them their crickets in there. The sand box is 17in. deep so when she is ready to breed later..etc. it is made of half washed play sand and half potting soil.
After she eats her crickets Lily has a habit of eating some dirt, she loves it! She likes to eat those little white things from the potting soil-Does anyone know what those little white things are? they are always in potted plants and stuff? Besides those, she likes to eat little dirt bits. Does anyone know why she is doing this? I know that parakeets eat gravel and sand bits to help them digest, could that be the reason? My male doesn't do this.
Also I know that back before the american civil war it is mentioned how slaves would sometimes eat dirt- this is because their diet was lacking certain minerals that they craved and so they would scrape minerals off the mortar walls and eat soil-
I don't know if this has anything to do with lily! Her crickets are supplemented with repcal, so I don't know what she's missing-
-- thanks for any input!

It kind of depends on what kind of potting soil you are using. Here is somthing I had pulled off the net about potting soil on hgtv.com
"Potting soil isn't dirt," says Ross. "It's made up of amendments." According to Ross, great potting soil is similar to a time-honored recipe, and to achieve the best results, you need to start with the best ingredients. "I look for a good mix of peat moss, also compost, fertilizers and some pumice for aeration of your potting soil."

The fertilizers is what I would be concerned about although I hear there are many organic potting soils out there.

The little white things could be vermiculite (wouldnt be too concerned) but if it is some sort of fertilizer I would not be too happy. Hope this helps

You should be very concerned. Sand and soil eaten in enough amounts can cause impactions in bearded dragons. The little white things most likely are some form of soil aeriators, such as vermiculate or perlite. These are not good to be consumed by dragons, as neither are digestable and again, can cause impactions. Also, especially with vermiculate, they do retain moisture, and swell, making them more likely to cause impactions.

Remove the soil/sand mix completely from your cage. When she is gravid and needs a nesting site, then add it back in to give her a place to lay eggs, but take it out after the eggs are done being laid for that clutch.

Some people do keep 'sandboxes' in bearded dragon cages, but these are filled with regular washed and sifted children's play sand, which still can cause impaction if ingested in large amounts but the risk is much less compared to other loose substrate choices. However, since your dragon seems to have a liking to eating dirt, it is best not to have it in teh cage at all, except to allow her to lay eggs in.

Many animals do indeed ingest soil and dirt to obtain trace minerials they are lacking in their diet. Bearded dragon's shouldn't have a need for this, unless they are not getting the right diets and insect dustings with a multi vitamin and calcium powders. It would be saver to add an additional dusting of the multi vitamin to teh weekly routine to help ensure she has all her minerals, and making sure you are giving her the most varied diet you can (lots of different greens, with stables consisting of two or more of the following, collard greens, dandelion greens, endive, escaroli, mustard greens, turnup greens. Mix with various vegetables, (squash, carrots, zuccini, cucumber, green/red/yellow bell peppers, etc) Some fruit (non citrus) and edible flowers (dandelion flowers, panseys etc)

A variety of insects is good to offer instead of just plain old crickets. Give superworms, silkworms, roaches (various species can be fed to bearded dragons, orange head, orange spotted, deaths head, hissers, lobsters, discoids etc), butterworms, waxworms(sparingly due to high fat), horn worms, locusts etc.
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PHLdyPayne

I just typed a huge message and it disappeared and the forum made me re-login cus I didn't send it right away! argh.. does it always do that?

anyways, thank you for the sand box advice, i will remove it right away.

I'm not sure what she could possibly be missing from her diet: she gets collards, mustards, bok choy, chards, turnips, dandelions ( not the same every day of course) with green beans, carrots, and squashes on the side. She gets crickets every day and supers or mealies once in a while .. and one pinky a month. I dust her crickies with Rep-cal 5 days out of the week and with beardie dust T-rex(vitamin supp) on the weekends.

I also had a question about her shape. Lily has had a slight hunchback ever since we got her 4 mo. ago. she was 5 mo. approx when we got her (from PETCO.. theyre so bad!) she already had this little hunch.. it's barely noticeable and kinda cute.. I was just wondering If you think that this was caused by a UV or vitamin deficiency when she was young, or could this be genetic?
Here are some pics of her, It's probably nothing, i'm probably just an overreacting beardie mom!

Also, I was wondering about her growth rate. she was smaller than my male (they are presumably the 'same' age) at 5 mo. (she was 15 in.) and now that they are 9 mo. old she has surpassed him. she is now 19 in. long and kunji is only 18.5!! Poor kunji(he mounts her and she runs with him on her! it's really funny) Does this mean that she is going to reach 20" or longer by the time she's done growing!? that'd be awesome.. she's not even a year. Also, is there a reason that the male's growth has slowed? they both have the same diet and amount of space available. Do the females typically get smaller or bigger than the males? or is size just predetermined by the genetics. I'm kind of sad because Kunja's growth has slowed alot more than hers - I want my boy to get bigger! Do they continue to grow after they've reached a year?

They have 2 large 'enclosures' each is 4x3x3. but they are never locked in them and basically have the whole bedroom and the whole appartment to run around in when we're home! I know that the smaller the cage one keeps an animal in the smaller they'll be...but i don't think that is an issue here!

Thank you for the dirt advice and let me know if there is anything i should do else for the diet of my little muppet!

~Kristen

I'm not sure if you can see her hunch(she's the yellow one) it is her upper back- it's very slight

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1.1 Bearded dragons (Kunja and Lily)
1.0 Algerian Uromastyx (Jacques)

Thank you for your advice!