The home of Bearded Dragons - Pogona Vitticeps
Care sheets | Bearded Dragon Diet, Food & Feeding
Detailed food chart information sheet for live food.
Feeding
Bearded dragons are omnivorous and should feed on both a vegetation (fruit and veg) and protein diet (livefood). Crickets, locust, roaches, mealworms, and a salad mixture should be staple food sources. Never feed your dragon too large of a prey item. We suggest feeding prey no larger than the size of the space between your bearded dragons eyes.
Live food
Insects and worms: You can use cockroaches, grasshoppers(locusts), crickets, silkworms, phoenix worms, butter worms, mealworms, wax worms and morio/superworms. Mealworms for young dragons should only be used if they are white and freshly molted because they have very thick indigestible chitin skins and could cause impaction. They are also not very nutritious. Superworms/morio are a better choice as they have a greater meat to chitin shelling ratio. Waxworms are much too rich in fat to be used for anything other than occasional treats and too many will lead to such complications as fatty liver disease or kidney failure in later years.
Salads & Greens
Recommended Salads/greens: Dandelion Greens inc flower, Bok Choy, Lambs lettuce, Roccet, Parsley, Water crest, Collard Greens, Escarole, Kale, Mustard Greens, Swiss Chard, Chicory, Clover and Turnip Greens.
Vegetables: Bell Pepper, Broccoli, Butternut Squash, Frozen Mixed Vegetables, Grated Carrots, Green Beans, Okra, Parsnips, Peas, Snow Peas, Sweet Potato and Zucchini
Edible fruits: Apple, Apricots, Bananas (With Skin), Dates, Figs, Grapes, Kiwi, Melon, Papaya, Peaches, Plums, Raspberry and Strawberries.
This salad mix can be offered daily using different combinations of ingredients.
When feeding crickets, make sure your source of crickets is clean. You may gutload your crickets with commercial cricket food and/or we suggest offering your crickets fresh fruit, greens, and water. Remove all old food from your cricket container. Mold can be toxic to your lizards. We suggest using a moistened paper towel/sponge, citrus, or carrots to provide water for your crickets.
Whenever possible try and provide a variety of appropriate sized prey items for your dragon including super worms, silk worms, roaches, locusts, phoenix worms, and a variety of other bugs. However, we strongly suggest not using bugs found outside, as they may have pesticides that can kill your dragon. Also, use waxworms in limited amounts, if at all. They contain little nutritional value, and although relished by the dragons, contain high amounts of fat.
You can also feed pinky mice/rats to adult dragons; some people usually feed them to females during the breeding season. However, I don't personally recommend it as pinkys do contain a lot of fat, which can be unhealthy for the dragon in the long run and lead to Fatty Liver Disease. This occurs when the liver is unable to take on rapid influxes of fat. It can happen from feeding a lot of fatty things (not just pinkies, but various worms too) in the diet, and may also occur in conjunction with metabolic disorders like Diabetes.
We feed all of our hatchlings a minimum of three times a day to ensure optimum growth and health. As dragons get older, their appetite will decrease. For adult dragons, you can offer greens daily and crickets or worms 3-4 times per week. As dragons get older, you may decrease the amount of protein offered.
We suggest misting your dragons once a day, especially as hatchlings. Dragons will drink during spraying and may also be "trained" to drink and soak in a water dish inside the enclosure. They also enjoy an occasional warm (not hot) bath. If you dragon is reluctant to drink, I recommend dabbing a drop of water on the front lip of your dragon and 9 times out of then he/she will drink it.
Supplementation
There are many different and often contradictory opinions/views on supplementation. Calcium, D3, and vitamin supplementation are necessary for your dragons. However, supplementation will depend on what you feed your dragons, the bulbs you use, and how much natural sun they receive. Many sources recommend supplementing small dragons daily and decreasing to once or twice per week for adult dragons. But both too little and too much supplementation can lead to problems. Therefore, we recommend going over this with your vet to find a schedule that suits the specific needs of your dragon. We suggest you supplement your young dragons daily with a ratio of calcium powder with Vitamin D3(Nutrobal) for one day and pure calcium powder for three days and so forth.
