Vladie's getting spoiled, only wants to eat WORMS

[imderanged]

Vladimir Putinontheritz , my Bearded Dragon, is about 1 year and 3 months old. He is 17 inches long. he lives in a 40 breeder. His UVB/heat is a MVB, and his spot gets to around 110F. A little while ago, as his growth slowed down his appetite really seemed to drop off quite a bit. At first I wasn't too concerned as it seemed he was just giving up the protein (crickets) in favor of veggies...but then I noticed that he was leaving his salad in his bowl more often. He eats some vegetables but hardly ever touches the crickets anymore.

He has gotten too large for the little scale I had, but he doesn't look like he has lost any weight. In fact, I don't THINK he's fat, but he looks to me to be in a heavier body condition than many other dragons I see on say, Youtube or something like that ( other dragons heads usually look skinnier to me and I didn't know why until I found out they have those little fat pockets on top of their scull, Vlad doesn't look pudgie to me but his head is nice and "filled out")

Then the other day I was feeding my Boxie mealworms, and I decided to give Vlad one as a treat and he ate it right away. But I've always read Mealworms are not a good staple for Beardies so I didn't want to keep giving them to him. I did a little reading and from what I found, Superworms are safer and a better staple than Mealies, so I got some Supers. He is CRAZY about them. I gave him 6 or 7 in a row yesterday and today, and both times if I hadn't stopped he would have just kept eating. But today after he got the supers he went nuts! He was running around the tank which he never does, clawing at the glass, and then his beard turned black! I took him out and he calmed down while I stroked him but when we put him back he started up again...

I watched him for a little while and realized he was banging on the glass on only one side of his tank. Below and to the left side of his tank is my Boxies tub. He saw us give Gherkin a superworm and he was going nuts watching gherkin eat. He kept tilting his head so he could look down at Gherkin and then he would start banging on the glass all over again trying to find away to get down there and steal the turtles dinner. He's still mad about it right now! I've never seen him act like this about anything!

I'm a little nervous that he will become fixated on Supers and not eat anything else. I'm also a little confused... I'm having trouble finding a definitive answer on just how much he SHOULD be eating at his age. I want him to have a healthy varied diet ... he gets greens and squash and some other fruit & vegetables, but I have trouble finding different sources of protein. He turns his nose up at crickets, he loves waxworms too, but he just gets those as treats, I am not allowed to get roaches, and I have looked but I cannot find Phoenix worms anywhere. Any advice would be great! THANKS.  

[Krissim Klaw]

Lol when I was up at college I got some superworms for my mantis. When she passed and I still had a container full of extra worms left, I brought them over to my relatives who had two bearded dragons. They were sitting in tank with a number of crickets scurrying around, looking bored as hell. I think we dropped about 30 worms in and the pair of them went crazy gobbling them all up.

Sometimes I think people back themselves somewhat into a corner with feeding crickets because if that is just about all they use in terms of live prey, it can get pretty boring. I don't think it helps when live prey are left uneaten in the tank, which I know a lot of people do with crickets. (not saying you are.)

Unfortunately I don't know enough about bearded dragons to tell you what the proper combinations are. Also I'm not sure what to do about his lack of interest in crickets to make them seem more tempting. ;o;


Edit- What about some blue bottle flies? Probably not the most economical things for a large lizard but they are a decent size.  

[Shanna66]

try goliath worms, you may need to order them online but they are huge. they are also soft bodied so you can feed the big ones to your beardy. silk worms would also be a fine food but those you do need to order online and will need special food. i think that most of the bugs besides mealies, supers, and crickets will need to be ordered from online unless you have an exotic pet store or reptile store near you

supers are ok as a staple for beardies, still have alot of shell and can be a small risk, but not nearly as bad as mealies

maybe covor his tank while you feed everyone else? vlad sounds like a greedy little thing lol