Couple dragon questions

I'm looking to get 1 / a few of these guys. I had one before for 6 years and he was awesome.

One of the ones I'm looking to buy has a tail nip. How will I know if it's fully healed or if it still has a chance to become infected? Do they ever heal to a point where you don't have to worry about it anymore? Do they breed OK with this issue?

Can brother to sister pairings be done like other reptiles or do they have genetic issues that discourage such a practice?

Can dubia roaches be substituted for crickets? Can a full grown beardie take down a full grown dubia?

I know varied diets are best, but have they formulated any kind of 'one shoe fits all' food source? How about something that can at least replace the insect portion of the diet to be supplemented with greens and veggies?


Thanks!

I'm not too sure of the other questions, but I feed my dragon only dubia roaches when it comes to insects. I breed my own and search through the colony to find a right sized roach for him. But yes a full grown dragon can eat a full grown dubia.

I'm looking into Mazuri Insectivore as a replacement for bugs, but need to do more research on it.

Dubai roaches are great because they don't make noise, don't stink, and it takes less to fill up my dragon. Instead of 20+ crickets I can give him 3-4 properly sized roaches and he's nice and full.

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Originally Posted by MrLang

I'm looking to get 1 / a few of these guys. I had one before for 6 years and he was awesome.

One of the ones I'm looking to buy has a tail nip. How will I know if it's fully healed or if it still has a chance to become infected? Do they ever heal to a point where you don't have to worry about it anymore? Do they breed OK with this issue?

Can brother to sister pairings be done like other reptiles or do they have genetic issues that discourage such a practice?

Can dubia roaches be substituted for crickets? Can a full grown beardie take down a full grown dubia?

I know varied diets are best, but have they formulated any kind of 'one shoe fits all' food source? How about something that can at least replace the insect portion of the diet to be supplemented with greens and veggies?


Thanks!

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Tail nips heal and you'll see them look a little darker but other than that, they look normal. They don't need any specialized care or anything like that after they have fully healed.

Not sure about the pairings though outcrossing is generally recommended anyways unless you have a particular reason to inbreed or line-breed.

As for the varied diet, I'm one that goes against the crowd with this one. It's almost impossible to get a 100% nutritionally complete diet by offering insects, greens, and supplements. Because of this, I have always and only fed RepCal beardie food with veggies, fruit, and insects as treats. They have a juvenile for youngsters and an adult formula for adults. My 'little' girl is 12 years young, still chases the cats (and wins), and has had no problems with MBD, or any other issues from the time she was a hatchling. There are breeders out there that do this as well because of the same issues mentioned above. Granted, dragons will pick and choose to try to obtain vitamins/minerals they are lacking but I don't like to take chances with my girl that she's missing something crucial. If you're willing to take the time, however, you can get a pretty stable diet for them. It does take measuring out exactly what they are getting through the food (you'll start seeing calcium to phosphorus ratios in your head while shopping...) and knowing what additives to top it off with. The catch then is getting them to eat it all. If you've ever tried making a raw meat diet for your cat, you'll understand what I mean. This is the same only there is less research on exactly what they need which is what makes me wary of it.

The other thing with any diet you'll need to watch out for is them getting overweight. Sounds silly with all the pictures of fat beardies running around on the internet but if you wouldn't let your dog have 3 chins and 5 thighs, why allow that in a reptile? Unfortunately, my brother had a beardie (actually a brother to my own girl) and when he went to college, he asked me to take care of Draco. When I saw him, he was too fat to actually lift himself off the ground and chasing crickets was out of the question. This came down to my brother feeding him lots of treats and as much of the RepCal as he would eat. Sadly, he passed away before he could get back down to a healthy weight and a vet I spoke with said he's been seeing beardies living shorter and shorter lives and the majority that are dying young are the overweight ones. :(

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Originally Posted by Dracoluna

If you're willing to take the time, however, you can get a pretty stable diet for them. It does take measuring out exactly what they are getting through the food (you'll start seeing calcium to phosphorus ratios in your head while shopping...) and knowing what additives to top it off with. The catch then is getting them to eat it all. If you've ever tried making a raw meat diet for your cat, you'll understand what I mean. This is the same only there is less research on exactly what they need which is what makes me wary of it.

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Care to go into more detail on this or do you have any resources you recommend?

I currently have 2 males both over 2 years old. They get a regular diet id dubia roaches, fresh collard and mustard greens, mango, and squash. For treats I give then super worms and raspberries. I have.tried to supplement with the adult blend of food but.they dont seem to care for it. So I just make sure they get ample fresh stuff.

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Originally Posted by Dracoluna

he asked me to take care of Draco.

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That's funny, our beardie is named Draco too!

OP, our beardie gets dubias and crickets for insects and we feed him collard/mustard/kale greens and squash for his veggies.

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Originally Posted by MrLang

Care to go into more detail on this or do you have any resources you recommend?

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Sure. At the moment, I'm on phone internet only as the regular net is acting up. Once I get that back up and running, I'll get you the links to some of the tables and such for various greens, veggies, fruits, etc. It is very beneficial to have those so you don't end up feeding too much phosphorous and too little calcium.

Alright, sorry about taking so long. My internet finally decided to start working last night again (thank goodness!!!). Here are just a few charts I've found but like with anything where diet is concerned, I'd recommend looking up multiples and comparing. Get a chart together of your own that you're going to use. Make sure that you offer a wide variety. This will allow them to grab what they need. Note: they will go after anything bright red/orange/yellow first (as my finger can attest to after this morning as I'm wearing bright pink nail polish which now has dragon teeth marks in it...) so try to keep the main diet mixed with mostly green items. That way, they will get the good stuff and you can use fruit and such as treats.

http://www.parrottalk.com/calcium-ph...us-content.htm
http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/health/calphos.htm
http://blackninjakitty.com/herps/car...reeniglist.htm

Thanks so much. So the calcium:phosphorus ratio should be high calcium for low phosphorus? I didn't read this on any care sheets. Why is phosphorus bad?

I've been feeding them a mix of collard, turnip, and dandelion greens with a small amount of grated sweet potato and they really seem to be enjoying it. My local Walmart has the collard and turnip bunches for 98 cents a piece, and Hannaford's has 2 dollar bunches of dandelion greens so I can live with that.

Have you had more success with soaking the bearded dragon diet in a little water before putting it in the salad? My dragons seem to be picking around it at this point and I thought it might sneak in a bit better if it were soft.

I'm also feeding around 5 adult crickets a day (it's not bigger than the gap between the eyes) and 1 superworm on top of their salad. 6 days RepCal calcium and 1 day Herpetivite.

Thanks for all of the help

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Originally Posted by MrLang

Thanks so much. So the calcium:phosphorus ratio should be high calcium for low phosphorus? I didn't read this on any care sheets. Why is phosphorus bad?

I've been feeding them a mix of collard, turnip, and dandelion greens with a small amount of grated sweet potato and they really seem to be enjoying it. My local Walmart has the collard and turnip bunches for 98 cents a piece, and Hannaford's has 2 dollar bunches of dandelion greens so I can live with that.

Have you had more success with soaking the bearded dragon diet in a little water before putting it in the salad? My dragons seem to be picking around it at this point and I thought it might sneak in a bit better if it were soft.

I'm also feeding around 5 adult crickets a day (it's not bigger than the gap between the eyes) and 1 superworm on top of their salad. 6 days RepCal calcium and 1 day Herpetivite.

Thanks for all of the help

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Phosphorus is not bad, per say but they require more calcium otherwise the body will pull calcium from the bones in order to balance the body. This link explains it better than I can under MBD.
http://www.thebeardeddragon.webs.com...uesdisease.htm

As for the mix, sounds decent. Just make sure that if you are dusting, use straight calcium and NOT the calcium with phosphorus.

With the diet, I feed it pretty much exclusively when I feed. When I give her greens and fruit, it's always at separate times. As a baby, I soaked it for her because I was afraid that it was too rough on her teeth but it would also make it easier to eat. I still add a bit of water now as she's older and though she's only lost one tooth so far, I don't see the point in putting more stress on her teeth than necessary. In the wild, they wouldn't be grinding up things that were so hard. Besides, between greens and hard pebbles, they will pick around them and I don't blame them. When fed together, Wyrwrenth will eat all of it but she's also been on this diet since she was a baby. As a baby, she probably would have picked around it because they don't immediately recognize the pellets as food. In the wild, there are not pellets laying around, so they need to be taught that it is a food source. Once that happens, you're good.

You can actually mix the calcium and herptivite together. I believe it's a 50/50 ratio. Just dust the crickets in that. Herptivite doesn't contain straight vitamin A so you don't need to worry about toxicity with it. Also, I'm assuming your crickets are gut-loaded? You can use high calcium food sources to gut-load as well. I forget who told me this but it's true if you look at it. Think of a cricket as a gelcap. Whatever you feed them is what your dragon is getting. You need more calcium? Give the crickets a high calcium diet. As a treat? Don't bother gut-loading and you end up with relatively little nutritional value other than the base protein.

And no problem on the help. When I first got into them, I had several breeders who were kind enough to talk to me at length about diets and such. Their experience is why I use the pelleted diet. With one dragon, I found I was wasting more greens than using as they only keep a few days. One thing I do like getting her are the organic spring greens in the little plastic containers. Those keep about 5-6 days and she enjoys the treat when I can't get stuff out of the back yard for her.

My guys get supers and dubias I hate crickets. They also get greens and a little fruit which my adult completely refuses. I however would not feed the pre made stuff. A good vitamin can help make up for what they might be lacking.