Inland Bearded Dragon – nutrition and water
Water
Clean water must be provided at all times. A water dish that lizards can easily climb out of if they were to get in should be provided. Water must be checked twice daily and should be replaced once per day. Water dishes must be cleaned and disinfected regularly. Juvenile lizards should be provided with a very small, shallow water dish to prevent the possibility of drowning.
Nutrition
Inland Bearded Dragons are omnivorous, meaning they eat both animal and plant products. Lizards should be fed a variety of food items to achieve a high level of health and nutrition as not one single food item provides complete nutrition. Suitable food items that can be included in the diet include:
- Insects
- Boiled egg whites
- Alfalfa
- Salad mix
- Greens + vegetables
Crickets and wood roaches are the most commercially available insect that can be purchased for reptiles and are available at some pet stores (before sourcing a Bearded Dragon it is probably a good idea to ensure that you will be able to have regular access to these food sources). The diet should also be supplemented with calcium and multivitamins to ensure good health. Suitable multivitamin and calcium powders can also be purchased from pet and reptile stores. Follow the product directions for how to use these supplements. Calcium and multivitamins can be incorporated into the diet by dusting the insects prior to feeding or mixing the powder into the salad mix.
Juvenile lizards should be fed every day and adult lizards with good body condition should be fed 3 times per week.
An example of an amount and type of food to feed an adult Inland Bearded Dragon weekly is:
- 50 grams of ‘Salad mix’ three times per week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
- 20 insects (adult crickets or wood roaches) dusted with multivitamin and calcium powder 3 times per week. It is recommended to use forceps to feed most of the crickets to lizards and to release some into the enclosure for the animals to feed on naturally.
This diet is an example only. Individual animals may require more or less depending on their body condition, size and age.
Any uneaten food or insects should be removed from the enclosure daily.
Food dishes that are used for salad mix and vegetables should be cleaned with detergent and rinsed after every use and any food left in dishes should be removed daily.
Salad mix recipe
The mix should include the following:
1. Chopped into bite-sized pieces:
- Chicory
- Kale
- Parsley
- Endive
- Bok choy
- Cos lettuce
2. Diced or grated into very fine pieces:
- Carrots
- Sweet potatoes
- Squash
- Zucchini
- Tomatoes.
Add alfalfa sprouts, mung beans and chopped hard-boiled egg and dust with calcium and multivitamin powder as per the product directions.
Feeding the bearded dragon
Watch Feeding the bearded dragon. (1:20)
Narrator: Taronga Zoo keeper
Feeding Bearded Dragons. Hatchling Bearded Dragons and juveniles tend to be insectivorous, that is they eat mostly live insects. And they need that movement, they won’t eat a dead insect because they don’t recognise it as being a live animal.
So, a little cockroach, cricket they’ll come down and grab it but as they grow older they become more omnivorous, that means they eat just about everything. In the wild they’d be eating the flowers and new shoots and some fruits but they’ll never miss a chance to grab an insect if they see one. So, these are adults. So, here we feed them three times a week.
And today they get their calcium supplement. So, this is all vegetable matter there’s about six different leafy greens in there. There’s espiral and all sorts of other chopped up fruit and vegetables. We give them grated carrot sometimes.
A variety is really important but just about any vegetable or fruit you can eat, you can feed your Bearded Dragon as long as it’s the right size and you chop it up or you grate it.
So, we’d feed them a big amount of green vegetables stuff three times a week and then a couple times a week we’d give them live insects, crickets, cockroaches, mil worms, that’s their protein boost. They do need a bit extra. But the bulk of their food is vegetable matter especially when they’re adults like these ones.
[End of transcript]