Anyone have a Bearded Dragon?

I was curious, my beardie is like 3 months old and a foot long and eats like A PIG!

I know they are suppose to eat a lot when growing and all that but I was wondering those of you who have had young beardies how much did you feed them? AND when do their appetites start going down?

We have to get 60 crickets twice a week, mealworms, and pinkies, and greens. It is getting quite expensive.

sorry louby, I have no bearded dragon. tbh I doubt a creature like that exists. I mean cmon, a dragon with a beard? What about its fire breath?

Once I killed a dragon and stole an egg hoping to breed it for a dragon mount. But our insane Barb made an omelette and aet it. Ah good times. I was a dragon slayer by profession. Had even a dragonslayer sword, which was nearly impossible to get with our hardcore GM. He was so hardcore that we died usually as teens, lvlwise. The battle with the dragon was a real epic one I can assure you. My first actually, and I died at the second.
But I disgress... I found this:

"Their stomachs are large enough to accommodate large quantities of food."

here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_Dragon_in_captivity

on the bottom of the site are links to pro-bearded dragon tamers.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090805070155AAIiMaH

Some of these confirm what I suspect, and some have links for more info. He does need a lot of protein, but as he matures he will eat more veggies. Also, many animals will routinely overeat because their natural instincts tell them to eat whatever is available so they can store fat for lean times. We had a beardie but he was very young when he died and never reached maturity, sadly. He was a sweetie.

In either case, you should consider raising your own crickets or mealworms. Flightless, muskless roaches are a great alternative to stinky crickets, too. I know it seems like they would be nastier, but they are much better I'm told, if you get feeder breeds. You can raise them in a lidless tank with vaseline around the inside of the top (a line about an inch wide) and they will not escape. You can raise mealworms in little plastic containers, which is even easier. They DO reproduce quickly, though, you will probably yield way more than you need. If you have friends or neighbors who need feeder bugs, just sell or give the extras to them. A friend of mine exchanged feeder bugs for wheat germ (which is what she was feeding the bugs, they went through a lot) from the friends who needed them.

Ok, that was probably too much info. Lol, hope it helps. He will probably continue to eat a lot for a couple more months at least.

Dydrial wrote:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090805070155AAIiMaH

Some of these confirm what I suspect, and some have links for more info. He does need a lot of protein, but as he matures he will eat more veggies. Also, many animals will routinely overeat because their natural instincts tell them to eat whatever is available so they can store fat for lean times. We had a beardie but he was very young when he died and never reached maturity, sadly. He was a sweetie.

In either case, you should consider raising your own crickets or mealworms. Flightless, muskless roaches are a great alternative to stinky crickets, too. I know it seems like they would be nastier, but they are much better I'm told, if you get feeder breeds. You can raise them in a lidless tank with vaseline around the inside of the top (a line about an inch wide) and they will not escape. You can raise mealworms in little plastic containers, which is even easier. They DO reproduce quickly, though, you will probably yield way more than you need. If you have friends or neighbors who need feeder bugs, just sell or give the extras to them. A friend of mine exchanged feeder bugs for wheat germ (which is what she was feeding the bugs, they went through a lot) from the friends who needed them.

Ok, that was probably too much info. Lol, hope it helps. He will probably continue to eat a lot for a couple more months at least.

Thankyou so much that helped alot.

zonetripper wrote:

sorry louby, I have no bearded dragon. tbh I doubt a creature like that exists. I mean cmon, a dragon with a beard? What about its fire breath?

Once I killed a dragon and stole an egg hoping to breed it for a dragon mount. But our insane Barb made an omelette and aet it. Ah good times. I was a dragon slayer by profession. Had even a dragonslayer sword, which was nearly impossible to get with our hardcore GM. He was so hardcore that we died usually as teens, lvlwise. The battle with the dragon was a real epic one I can assure you. My first actually, and I died at the second.
But I disgress... I found this:

"Their stomachs are large enough to accommodate large quantities of food."

here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_Dragon_in_captivity

on the bottom of the site are links to pro-bearded dragon tamers.

lol oooh that made my day xD