Bearded dragon 101 - Food

Bearded dragon 101 - Food

Mar 30, 2021

Hello and welcome back dragon lovers, today I will discuss with you the most important aspect of keeping a bearded dragon, food.
Like you wouldn’t let a dog eat a fish bone in order not to choke, there are a lot of things you shouldn’t feed your lizard so he doesn’t have any health problems. So let’s get started.

Bearded dragons are omnivores which means there is a huge variety of food from both worlds you can let them eat. Their main diet are insects such as dubia roaches, superworms, locust crickets etc. This means that feeding a bearded dragon won’t be much fun for you if you aren’t comfortable with keeping insects around you.
Down here we have a superworm and a dubia roach from the storage I keep for my dragon.

During the first year (the period when they grow and reach full size) is the one where the ratio of insects and plants changes over time. This means that babies are fed 80% insects and 20% plants because they need protein and vitamins for steady growth. You slowly change that to 60% - 40% while they get to the juvenile phase. And continue changing it proportionally to get to 20% - 80% once they are fully grown adults. You can also give them some fruit from time to time if they fancy it. In addition to giving it food you also need supplements (calcium is the most important so their bones don’t get fragile, also various vitamins). You give them the supplements by powdering the worm or bug in the mixture before feeding them.
You should completely avoid feeding them: lettuce, spinach, avocadoes, fireflies, and basically any bugs caught in the wild.

There is also a rule about the size of their pray: “Don’t feed them anything bigger than the distance between its eyes”! Follow this simple rule to avoid the possibility of choking. Other than choosing the food and its size, keeping the dragon well-fed is simple. You can feed it only once a day while they are younger than one year and after that, it gets even easier. Although it shouldn’t happen often you can leave them alone without food for a few days if you need to leave the house for some important reason and they won’t mind at all if you just keep their lighting set up properly (which I will discuss some other time).
That would be it for the most important information about a dragon’s diet and if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments!

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