how do you feed your BD?

[Spikeithard]

Seperate feeding pen? in the vivarium itself? hand feed? lol

great to hear others ways of feeding time. I have tried a seperate box. nightmares! it doesnt like the enclosed area its not familiar with and starts to freak out. so now I am back in the main tank again.

 

[tdrost]

I feed mine in the middle of the floor. hand feeding some and letting them "hunt" some. never more active then when they are chasing down a bug! but then i put greens in the main viv every day.

 

[Spikeithard]

Do you find when they are young.. a few months old that their hunting sucks the big one? haha

dont get me wrong, most crickets are FAST. but my BD only get about them half the time. I feel bad for her.

 

[tdrost]

ahh! I can't help you on that one. She will get the hang of it though! Have you tried hand feeding her?
My guy was adopted-i was told he was about 3 years old. He is just like the kids running through my house; you see food and you grab it before someone else does! LOL!!

 

[Spikeithard]

must be nice. Im just getting over the stress of its new move a few weeks ago. between that and some shedding the eating has suffered. just now getting back into a few crickets a day. but its very very picky on when it will eat. will watch crickets go by for hours then out of the blue jump off from her branch way up high to get just one cricket lol. strange strange creature.

also off topic here but I have a exoterra fake rock wall, it likes to cling to that for a while and last night slept on it, clinging to it?! crazy guy! this is normal?

 

[richard]

Do you find when they are young.. a few months old that their hunting sucks the big one? haha

dont get me wrong, most crickets are FAST. but my BD only get about them half the time. I feel bad for her.

this is normal. most people dont realize how poor their eyesight really is. they get better with age. if you dont believe me about the poor eyesight, wait till they get older and you start hand feeding worms. your finger will always be the BIG one.

 

[Strange_Evil]

I noticed mines are a bit on the lazy side now that i hand feed with tongs, i use tongs for all my reptiles. Sometimes when i am lazy i just sit them in a bin with some crickets,i hate putting the crickets in cage because i have a lot of decor and they get lost in there.

My beardies are very observant.

 

[Dragonsx6]

this is normal. most people dont realize how poor their eyesight really is. they get better with age. if you dont believe me about the poor eyesight, wait till they get older and you start hand feeding worms. your finger will always be the BIG one.

Thats why I use long tongs to feed them worms, especially if I have brightly coloured nail polish on as that always seems to look more apetising lol

 

[richard]

Thats why I use long tongs to feed them worms, especially if I have brightly coloured nail polish on as that always seems to look more apetising lol

thats no fun! you havent lived until you've been chomped on BEARDIE STYLE! lol

 

[Dragonsx6]

thats no fun! you havent lived until you've been chomped on BEARDIE STYLE! lol

Aha, but I have, that why I use the tonge hehe

 

[Missy]

Gobi gets fed primarily in his viv. Crickets in the morning, and his bowl of veggies in the afternoon. While out and about, before being placed back in to the cage, he gets his superworms.

Crickets are served via a "shaker" (to help dust them).

Veggies are either in a small, round dish, or in his "special" leaf dish.

Worms are fed with the tongs and he either grabs them in air, or after I lay it on the couch.

 

[Julie]

Charlie is a bit of a glutton. he gets crickets 1hr after his lights kick in and roughly 1.5hrs before they shut off.. I believe the little monkey can tell the time, as he'll dive from his hiding place and stands staring at the glass door that I always slide to feed him.. He has a cricket termite rock feeder for the dusting required etc.. he stands staring at the hole they come out of and grabs em as they jump out. not sure so his eyesight is poor. he can spy a cricket all the way on other side of his viv.. he has veggies in middle of the day. loves his spring (collard) greens n cress.. hehe.. Sometimes my boyfriend feeds him and he puts the cricket feeder inside the viv to get the crickets out (he hates catching them!) and Charlie dives down and practically drools at the plastic case and keeps tapping it with his nose to make em move so he can 'catch' them. lol.

 

[LittleMerlin]

Okay I wanna know if I'm over feeding my beardie. I know the rule of thumb is to let it eat as many crickets as it can within 10-15 minute time span, but seriously, sounds like a lot of people have different opinions about how much they feed their dragons. Jethro had like 30 crickets this morning for breakfast. Is that too much for him? They're small crickets since he's still small. Also give him turnip greens or kale, or a mix depending. And he ate from my hand the first day I brought him home, but doesn't like to eat from my hand anymore, just likes to hunt or have food placed right in front of him, lol.

 

[Dragonsx6]

Okay I wanna know if I'm over feeding my beardie. I know the rule of thumb is to let it eat as many crickets as it can within 10-15 minute time span, but seriously, sounds like a lot of people have different opinions about how much they feed their dragons. Jethro had like 30 crickets this morning for breakfast. Is that too much for him? They're small crickets since he's still small. Also give him turnip greens or kale, or a mix depending. And he ate from my hand the first day I brought him home, but doesn't like to eat from my hand anymore, just likes to hunt or have food placed right in front of him, lol.

Thats fine, you got a healthy hungry dragon, the amount he eats will reduce as he gets bigger and starts eating larger food.

 

[LittleMerlin]

Okay also I want to know, I've been gut-loading my crickets with carrots and oatmeal since I don't like the Fluker's stuff. Cheaper that way too. So here's my question, how often should he be getting his extra vitamins (either rep-cal, spray stuff, or whatever). People at pet store said since I gut-load my crickets with my own food, just once a week is necessary. But I'm not so sure, others say that less than a 1 yr old needs it 4-5 times a week and that's without D3. The stuff I have has D3, except the pure calcium stuff I got when I first got Merlin, my leopard gecko. I don't want to not give him the appropriate amount, you know? I don't want a chance of him getting MBD or something worse. Same for my leopard gecko.

 

[Dragonsx6]

I give calcium 5 days a week and the vitamin twice a week. I dont use the d3 as my UVB tube is a 12.0% with D3. But before I changes to this uv I always used the calcium with the D3 as living in Scotland I cant get my dragons out as much as I would like in natural sunlight as it's just too cold for them. This is the way I have always done it, but someone else may have some other advice for you. You will learn what works best for your little guy, I know I'm still constantly learning new things all the time about them.

 

[LittleMerlin]

Yea I learn new things about my lizards just about every day. I've been doing tons of research to make sure I'm doing it right, but I get so much different advice that it scares me to think I may not be doing it right. I appreciate the advice and I'll consider that, I just don't want him to have an over dose. The lighting I have is the long uvb light, and a uva light source as well for the basking spot. Before the basking light I had just a 60 watt blue day bulb. But now I have a 50 watt basking bulb. It gets the right temps, especially with help from the UTH pad.

 

[ajandj]

I feed in his enclosure. I use a freezer bag to collect and dust the crickets and to also release them in the enclosure. I offer 1 cricket at a time and don't offer more until he has caught and eat the first, that way l have NO RISK of leaving any nasty crickets in the enclosure. I offer fresh greens 3 times a day and leave then in the enclosure.