Erin Ellis
Bearded Dragon Egg
- Messages
- 6
I have acquired a 10 year old beardie from a family member who was moving abroad.
We got her around the end of October and she was really, really skinny.
Her previous owner had a loud dog so he never got her out. Her heat lamp was broken and UV lamp wasn’t suitable (we’ve fixed this now and it’s all good). He says she stopped eating crickets a few years ago so she’s had a plant based diet (he told me to just throw some lettuce in with her once a week, which I’ve now researched and I’m annoyed).. She’s also had calcium sand as a substrate which I don’t suppose is too much of an issue as that’s what she has had for the whole of her life and, well, she’s alive. I’m not sure how really.
I bought some repashy grub pie which she loves actually, so I thought I’d buy some calci worms to see if she likes them and she does, I am aware that she can’t have too many though or she will get fat.
She has been eating loads, I’ve been feeding her veggies, frisée, endive, watercress, pea shoots, occasionally pak Choi and bell peppers. She has quite a varied diet with me but I’ve noticed that she poops once or twice a day and they’re quite runny and green in colour. Sometimes it’s just liquid…I put this down to the fact that maybe she was eating too many watery greens so I tried to feed her less bell peppers and watercress etc.
She’s definitely active and alert, always running around the house when I let her out, she tends to glass surf until I open the vivarium and then she’s off.
She really is a lovely girl, I just want to make sure I do right by her. She’s put on quite a bit of weight in the last 3 weeks (I’ll try upload pictures).
I suppose the main questions I have are:
We got her around the end of October and she was really, really skinny.
Her previous owner had a loud dog so he never got her out. Her heat lamp was broken and UV lamp wasn’t suitable (we’ve fixed this now and it’s all good). He says she stopped eating crickets a few years ago so she’s had a plant based diet (he told me to just throw some lettuce in with her once a week, which I’ve now researched and I’m annoyed).. She’s also had calcium sand as a substrate which I don’t suppose is too much of an issue as that’s what she has had for the whole of her life and, well, she’s alive. I’m not sure how really.
I bought some repashy grub pie which she loves actually, so I thought I’d buy some calci worms to see if she likes them and she does, I am aware that she can’t have too many though or she will get fat.
She has been eating loads, I’ve been feeding her veggies, frisée, endive, watercress, pea shoots, occasionally pak Choi and bell peppers. She has quite a varied diet with me but I’ve noticed that she poops once or twice a day and they’re quite runny and green in colour. Sometimes it’s just liquid…I put this down to the fact that maybe she was eating too many watery greens so I tried to feed her less bell peppers and watercress etc.
She’s definitely active and alert, always running around the house when I let her out, she tends to glass surf until I open the vivarium and then she’s off.
She really is a lovely girl, I just want to make sure I do right by her. She’s put on quite a bit of weight in the last 3 weeks (I’ll try upload pictures).
I suppose the main questions I have are:
- Her vivarium is quite boring, it has a calcium sand substrate and nothing really good in there. With her age I’m concerned that if I change her enclosure too much, it’ll massively stress her out. What do you think?
- Other than crickets, what other bugs are best for a beardie? I don’t really want to keep feeding her these calcium worms for very long.
- How does she look in the 2nd photo which is now? Is that how she’s supposed to look?
- Anything else you’d suggest? Any advice is helpful.