New baby beardie issues

[malt_geckos]

You can also try dried mealies on top of his salad. The lady at Draggintails does that. She also tries multiple types of food for them because she said some can be picky. She suggested to me for my picky male to try: roaches, silk worms, hornworms, phoenix worms, crickets, mealies.

I have fed mealies before and they do eat them and are just fine. Make sure you aren't feeding very large prey because I think something can happen with the babies spine?? Not sure....but keep the prey smaller than it's head.

 

[Lena]

No i fed my baby phenoix worms till she was big enough to eat supers and she grew freaking fast iv had her 3 months. When i got her she was 5 inches and now she is 18 inches so i knw phenoix worms are good...oh and she also ate small horn worms so that also could have made her grow fast.

I'm just talking about the actual numbers and also what I abide by from what I've learned from experienced breeders..
5-18 inches in 3 months doesn't sound right at all, btw.

I have fed mealies before and they do eat them and are just fine. Make sure you aren't feeding very large prey because I think something can happen with the babies spine?? Not sure....but keep the prey smaller than it's head.

Well, several things have been known to happen, choking on large prey, impaction in the stomach (particularly with chitinous insects such as mealies, which is why I tend to avoid them).

 

[malt_geckos]

I heard something can happen to their spines?! maybe just a myth. But I don't think impaction will happen because the insect has a chitin layer. Beardies eat chitin insects in the wild so it shouldn't impact them. The only real way of impaction could be if the insect is too large because I think baby beardies have particularly narrow intestines.

 

[LadyGecko]

I heard something can happen to their spines?! maybe just a myth. But I don't think impaction will happen because the insect has a chitin layer. Beardies eat chitin insects in the wild so it shouldn't impact them. The only real way of impaction could be if the insect is too large because I think baby beardies have particularly narrow intestines.

It is not a myth-there can be a problem with their spines from feeding very young babies large prey items
They can get paralyzed and it can even cause death

I'm sorry-I don't remember the exact details at this moment but I seem to remember that death can be very quick from ingesting too large of a prey item

I have never heard of a beardie growing 13 inches in 3 months
That has to be some sort of record!

I would love to see pics of when she was first received and now

and just my .02 in reply to Supers not being good when use as a staple-no one insect is good for a staple diet for any reptile if it can be avoided-variety is always best

Sandy

PS-Sunshine State Exotics
Beautiful babies!

 

[Echostatic]

the chitin layer is what usually causes an impaction. mealworms have a lot of it which is hard for a dragon to digest. crickets and roaches have chitin too but much much less. another big reason not to feed mealworms, at least not regularly, would be their Ca ratio. they have 25x more phosphorous than calcium. all that phosphorous is going to seriously hinder their calcium absorption.

if you are wanting to feed variety silkworms, crickets and roaches can be fed regularly without any problem, throwing in superworms and horn worms as treats.

and as for the spine thing, an impaction in the digestive system can press upon the spine, causing severe pain and paralysis of the hind legs. this is fatal if left untreated. the risk of impaction from mealworms is much higher than other insects, which is why i will not feed a mealworm to my bearded dragon. it just isnt worth it when there are decent feeder bugs out there.