Bearded dragons, native to Australia, are popular pets known for their docile nature and unique appearance. As omnivores, their diet requires a balance of both animal and plant matter. Understanding the specific nutritional needs of a 6-month-old bearded dragon is crucial for ensuring its healthy growth and development.
Understanding the Nutritional Needs of a 6-Month-Old Bearded Dragon
At six months old, a bearded dragon is in the juvenile stage, a period of rapid growth and development. During this time, their diet should gradually transition from a protein-rich diet to one with a higher proportion of plant matter. Juvenile bearded dragons are in transition, going from eating 20% veggies around 4 or 5 months old to 80% by the time they are 12 to 18 months. Every dragon is different, but this is the general time frame, so keep in mind that this is a gradual transition. A balanced diet is essential to prevent health problems such as metabolic bone disease, obesity, and other nutritional deficiencies.
The Importance of Variety
Variety is key to providing a healthy, balanced diet for your bearded dragon. A diverse diet ensures that your dragon receives all the necessary nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. It's important to incorporate variety in your bearded dragons diet, both when selecting greens and insects. Variety is important to provide them with a balanced diet, so make sure you aren't offering the same food items every day.
Vegetables: The Foundation of a Healthy Diet
Vegetables should form a significant portion of a 6-month-old bearded dragon's diet, offering essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Even hatchling bearded dragons should be offered a salad of nutritious greens and vegetables every day. While they may not lick the bowl clean, it’s best to offer some for snacking, and that will make the transition to a main diet of vegetables later on easier. Fortunately, the list of dragon-safe vegetables is a long one.
Staple Vegetables
These vegetables can be offered regularly as part of the daily diet:
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- Arugula/Rocket
- Bok choy
- Cactus pads
- Collard greens/Spring greens
- Endive/Chicory
- Escarole
- Kale
- Mustard greens
- Mustard cress
- Pea shoots
- Spring mix
- Turnip greens
- Watercress
It is a common myth that kale is high in oxalates and as bad as spinach. However, according to multiple studies, kale is quite low in oxalates and is recommended by kidney health experts as a “safe” green for those prone to kidney stones. So although all things must be fed in a rotation, kale is quite safe to be offered regularly.
What works well for many bearded dragon owners is to feed a salad based off a leafy green mix, such as a Spring Mix or a Field Green mix. Avoid Spinach based mixes. Add in a small amount of an item from the list below as a salad topping. Dandelion greens, Collard greens, Endive, Escarole, Mustard Greens, Squash (acorn, butternut, hubbard, scallop, spaghetti, summer), and Turnip greens.
Mixer Vegetables
These vegetables can be offered occasionally to add variety to the diet:
- Artichoke heart
- Asparagus
- Basil
- Beet leaves
- Bell pepper
- Carnations
- Cilantro
- Carrot greens
- Cucumber, peeled
- Carrot, grated raw
- Clover (pesticide- and herbicide-free)
- Dandelion greens/flowers
- Fennel
- Lemon balm
- Lemongrass
- Mint leaves
- Nasturtium
- Pansies
- Parsley
- Radicchio
- Rosemary
- Rose petals
- Spinach (valuable source of iodine!!)
- Squash, raw
- Sugar snap peas
- Swiss chard
- Thyme
- Yam, grated raw
- Zucchini
Wild Plants and Flowers
Wild plants and flowers (aka “weeds”) can add some highly beneficial variety to your dragon’s diet (after a thorough washing, of course). However, not all found plants and flowers are safe for feeding, and some are deadly. So if you’re unfamiliar with the plants in your area or you’re in a highly urban area, it’s good to grow your own “wild” plants for your dragon to munch on even if all you have is a window box. Arizona Tortoise Compound and ProRep both offer excellent seed mixes for a very reasonable price. Use organic potting soil and no pesticides for optimally edible results.
Preparation
Vegetables should be sliced into thin, bite-sized pieces than your beardie can grab with his/her tongue. Wet or slimy vegetables like cucumber and cactus may frustrate your dragon since these don’t stick to tongues very well. You can hand-feed these to him/her, but your dragon may accidentally bite you in the effort to get it.
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Vegetables to Avoid
- Avocado
- Onion
- Mushrooms
Fruits: Occasional Treats
Fruit should be offered only as rare treats in small quantities, not a “staple” or routine part of your dragon’s diet. A bearded dragon’s diet should be made up of approximately 10% fruit items. Fruit should be fed sparingly because it has high sugar and water content, that can cause a laxative effect if fed too frequently. Citrus fruits are best to avoid due to high levels of sugar, citric acid and oxalic acid which can lead to toxicity.
Fruits have a high sugar content, so they can contribute obesity, which in turn contributes to other health problems. Also concerning, “Prevalence and risk factors for dental disease in captive Central bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps) in the United Kingdom” by Rebecca Mott et al. found that “fruit could be the main dietary risk factor for dental disease,” and concluded that fruit should be altogether excluded from pet bearded dragons’ diet.
If you want to give your dragon a bit of a treat, however, a little bit of fruit every once it a while is unlikely to be harmful as long as it’s rare (think 1x/month rather than daily or weekly). And beardies will certainly go crazy for fruit!
Safe Fruits
- Apple
- Banana
- Cactus fruit (aka “prickly pear” or “tuna fruit”)
- Mango
- Melon
- Berries
- Grapes
- Figs
- Papaya
- Peaches
Protein: Essential for Growth
Protein is crucial for the growth and development of a 6-month-old bearded dragon. A bearded dragon’s diet needs to contain protein, the age of your beardie will determine how much protein they need in their diet. A hatchling’s diet should consist of 60-80% protein items, where an adult bearded dragon should get between 15-30% protein items.
When choosing bearded dragon bugs, make sure that they are no bigger than the space between your dragon’s eyes. This rule can be bent for insects such as superworms and hornworms, but is extremely important for roaches, crickets, and pinky mice. To prevent problems, never feed a bearded dragon prey that is larger than the distance between their eyes.
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Good Feeder Insects
- Black soldier fly larvae
- Crickets
- Dubia roaches
- Discoid roaches
- Grasshoppers/Locusts
- Hornworms (captive only; wild are toxic!)
- Silkworms
- Snails
- Repashy Grub Pie gel mix
ReptiFiles’ preferred online feeder insect retailers are Dubia.com, Ovipost, and Beastmode Silks.
Treat Insects
Every once in a while, you can give your dragon a nice, high-fat treat. Your dragon will become obese if fed these too often, but hey, that’s why they’re called treats.
- Mealworms
- Superworms
- Butterworms
- Waxworms
- Pinky mice (no more than 1x/month)
Gut Loading
All feeder insects should be gutloaded for at least 24 hours before feeding to your bearded dragon. Ideally, they should come pre-gutloaded from the breeder. If they weren’t, or you buy your feeder insects in bulk, the easiest way to keep them well fed and gut-loaded is with a rotation of Lugarti Dubia Diet and Grassland Grazer. Remember to gut load any insects your dragon eats - meaning ideally, you'll feed your insects what you're not feeding your dragon that week so your pet gets the nutritional variety and value of whatever the insect has eaten.
Insects to Avoid
Beware of feeding your dragon wild-caught bugs! These may be coated in poisonous pesticide/herbicide, or may be naturally toxic. If you choose to collect wild-caught bugs, this article is a helpful resource on how to do so safely. BeardedDragon.org has a very helpful chart of insects are are toxic for beardies to ingest. Not listed, however, are box elder bugs, which are also toxic.
Supplements: Ensuring Complete Nutrition
Even the best, most balanced, most varied diet is not going to perfectly meet a bearded dragon's needs. Bearded dragons need more a calcium and a multivitamin supplement.
To ensure that your beardie is getting all the vitamins and minerals they need, you need to keep two forms of supplementation on hand: calcium powder and multivitamin powder.
How to Use Supplements
Generously dust feeder insects before feeding. Most people prefer the “shake-and-bake” method of dusting, where you stick all the bugs in a bag or disposable plastic container and shake them until they are evenly coated in powder. Calcium sticks better to some bugs than others. Many people assert that black soldier fly larvae don’t need to be dusted with calcium (including the distributors themselves), but they store their calcium in their indigestible exoskeletons, so black soldier flies still need to be dusted with calcium powder like other feeders.
To use supplement powder, add insects to a container and generously coat them in supplement powder and shake to cover the insects. You may also do a sprinkle of calcium or multivitamin on damp salads. To avoid over-supplementation, every third to fourth feeding you can leave supplements off.
Recommended Supplements
The following are supplements and supplement combos that ReptiFiles recommends for use with bearded dragons:
- Arcadia EarthPro supplement system
- Miner-All Outdoor + Repashy Supervite
- Repashy Calcium Plus LoD
- Miner-All Indoor + Herptivite
Supplementation Schedule
Use these supplements (with the Arcadia supplement schedule being an exception) according to the following schedule:
- Calcium powder on all insects and salads
- Multivitamin powder on salads 2x/week
Some will tell you that bearded dragons don’t need calcium powder on their salads. What they’re missing here is that many of the veggies commonly fed to beardies are high in phosphorus and low in calcium, which is a problem because Pogona vitticeps evolved to munch on the high-calcium vegetation plentiful in its natural environment. Adding a bit of calcium powder helps fix that problem. (Just make sure not to go overboard - put supplement on your beardie’s salad like you salt your food. It shouldn’t look like a blizzard just landed in your pet’s food bowl!)
It is alright to occasionally skip a dusting so your bearded dragon’s system doesn’t become overloaded.
Water: Staying Hydrated
Part of good reptile husbandry is making sure that your pet has free access to clean drinking water. Dehydration is a major problem in bearded dragons, and giving them a water bowl helps prevent that.
There is a common misconception about bearded dragons that they shouldn’t have water bowls because they don’t readily drink water from bowls/can’t see standing water. Or you may have heard that water shouldn’t be provided because it will make the humidity “too high”. Both are false.
Providing Water
Use a medium-sized, shallow water dish. It shouldn’t be big enough for your dragon to soak in, or deep enough for it to potentially drown.
Make sure to provide tap water, not distilled, reverse osmosis, or softened (too much salt). Filtered and spring water are fine.
Soaking greens is an easy way to help your dragon get extra water if you’re worried about dehydration, and it helps keep your greens fresher for longer. It’s a win-win situation! Just cut off excess stem, slice the leaf lengthwise through the central stem, cover with water, and then store in the refrigerator. After 24-48 hours, pour out the water, pat dry the leaves, and store between layers of paper towel.
Soaking and Bathing
It’s a good idea to give your bearded dragon opportunities to soak voluntarily in its enclosure. It’s a bad idea to force it to soak by giving it regular “baths”. This is because water - especially warm water - has a laxative effect on bearded dragons, which can cause them to poo before they’re done fully digesting or poo more often than they should, which can actually encourage dehydration.
Environmental Factors
For your dragon to maximize absorption of these nutrients, there are some environmental factors you should consider: Bearded dragons are ectotherms and control their body heat, and subsequently their metabolism, through their environment. They require heat and UVB lighting to metabolize Vitamin D3 which is essential for their bone health.
- UVB Lighting: UVB bulbs should be replaced every 6 months, even if the light itself is still working. UVB levels will deteriorate over time. UVB lighting can be tricky, because in order to get the right strength of UVB (UV Index, or UVI), distance and potential mesh obstruction must be considered. Bright light with a color temperature of 6000-7000K is suggested by experts to be important to bearded dragons’ mental health.
- Temperature: A digital thermometer and humidity gauge in your dragon’s enclosure is essential. Heat from a heat emitting bulb or ceramic heat emitter (CHE) should be provided in a basking area on the “hot side” of the tank with the ability to retreat to a cooler side. Recommended temperatures vary even among experts. A good place to start is 76°F (24°C) on the cool side to 86°F (30°C) on the warm side, with a basking area ranging from 90°-100°F (32°-37.7°C). Generally speaking, 100w PAR38 halogen flood bulbs should be plenty to achieve those basking temperatures in a 24” tall enclosure. However, if you notice that they’re getting too hot, dial it down with a plug-in lamp dimmer. To measure the basking surface temperature, use an infrared thermometer (a.k.a. temperature gun).
- Humidity: Bearded dragons should have an average ambient humidity of 30-60%, as measured by a digital probe hygrometer with the probe placed on the ground on the cool side of the enclosure.
Addressing Picky Eaters
What can you do if your bearded dragon just doesn't seem to want to eat their greens and vegetables? Whatever you do, don't give up! Some bearded dragons are picky and it takes patience to get them to try new things. Let them get hungry - make sure your bearded dragon is hungry and use some tough love. If your bearded dragon is always filling up on insects, they won't be hungry enough to try that "boring salad" that is no fun to hunt and chase. Cut back on the number or frequency of insects you are feeding.