Once you have your Beardie, you’ll need to know how to feed Bearded Dragon. The type of food and how often to feed will depend on how old the lizard is. The nutritional needs vary from juvenile to adult and you want to make sure you don’t underfeed your pets since this can lead to malnourishment. The primary food source for a Beardie is made up of two parts-plant and insects. Insects are considered meat for a lizard. When you have a young dragon, his diet will consist mainly at first of insects. You can make sure your juvenile eats a proper diet by remembering the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of his food needs to be from insects and twenty percent of his food should be from plants. You should feed a young Beardie at least twice a day.

While you can feed adult Beardies pinky mice, you cannot feed juveniles the mice. The insects you can give the younger lizards include mealworms, waxworms, crickets and earthworms. When you give insects to Beardies, you want to be sure and gut load them. Gut loading refers to feeding the insects either foods you have at home or a commercial based product designed specifically for gut loading. Some of the foods you can use to gut load insects are carrots, cornmeal, and cereals. Juveniles should also be fed insects that have been dusted with calcium carbonate.

Handling the food is also an important part of how to feed Bearded Dragon. You can train your Beardie to take insects from your hand but you’ll want to be nimble to avoid getting nipped until they learn how to take it from you. It’s important that you feed your pet enough at mealtimes. If they don’t get enough to eat, they’ll develop the habit of biting on their tank mates or even their own tail.