What To Include In A Bearded Dragon Diet
Bearded Dragon diet consists of a wide variety of animal and plant foods. When Bearded Dragon lizards are young they eat about 50 percent live food and 50 percent plants. As they mature, Bearded Dragons mostly eat plant matter.
If you’re keeping a Bearded Dragon as a pet then give him live, moving prey when he is young such as crickets, cockroaches or mealworms and as he reaches middle and old age offer mainly vegetables and plant matter such as a mix of green and red vegetables.
The main source of animal food are insects. Bearded Dragons eat and love crickets which in captivity would be their main food source. Crickets can be bought as live food at most pet shops. We keep our crickets in a cricket keeper which keeps them alive for over a week as long as you keep adding fresh carrot and gut load for them to eat. The cricket keeper comes with black tubes where the crickets hide when not eating. This makes it incredibly easy to feed your beardie, just take out a black tube and shake it into your bearded Dragon enclosure.
Click Here To Buy Cricket Keeper
Other insects that appeal are mealworms, giant mealworms, superworms, wax worms and cockroaches such as woodies. Don’t feed household cockroaches to your dragon, only commercially farmed ones from pet shops.
Adult Bearded Dragons can also be fed Pinkies which are newly born mice. These provide nutrients such as calcium, vitamins and minerals.
A good mix of vegetables such as spinach, colored lettuce, tomatoes, grated carrot, broccoli are all fine. Some fruits such as grapes and apples are good. If the Bearded Dragon is young then it’s best to chop the food up finely.
Vegetables To Include
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Fruit to Include
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A Bearded Dragon diet also includes plants that they would normally come across in the wild such as leaves and blossoms from clover, dandelion and mustard. Petals from roses, hibiscus and calendula are a great treat.
There are also dry pellets that are available from pet shops which are commercially made. In my opinion it’s best to feed a bearded dragon as close as possible to what they would eat in the wild. Pellets can be fed along with other fresh food. Pellets have the advantage of having all calcium, vitamins and minerals added to them.
Click Here For A Range Of Bearded Dragon Food
It’s a good idea to supplement your Bearded Dragon’s diet with calcium. Calcium is really important for healthy bone growth in dragons. Invertebrates such as crickets, mealworms, superworms and wax worms don’t have a skeleton and therefore don’t supply the dragon with calcium. Fortunately you can buy a calcium powder from a pet shop which the crickets can be dusted in before feeding to your Bearded Dragon. You can also buy calcium at the link below. One tub of calcium lasts a very long time. Remember, you are only lightly dusting live prey NOT smothering them in calcium powder.
Click Here To Buy Calcium Powder
Don’t forget that your lizard relies solely upon you to feed him. In the wild he can pick and choose his food and gets a large variety plus natural sunlight. So it’s really important to do all your homework regarding Bearded Dragon food. It’s not complicated but it’s an important part of owning a Bearded Dragon. Once you know exactly what food to give and what food not to, it’s quite easy. In the beginning we had a list of foods and systematically offered her each one to see what she liked. Most food is readily available, its just a matter of compiling a list for your Bearded Dragon diet.
