feeding adult beardies

[beknluke]

OMG!! :lol: That's is just amazing! We need a 'biggest looser' for beardies!
My advice would be to cut him back to salad for 90% of his diet. That's how adult beardies diest should be and are in the wild. Only give him roaches once a week (maybe 5 adult roaches all up) and make him RUN for them. ie, if he's down one end of his enclosure and sit the roach at the complete opposite end.
I have some huge males here who are about 460g at their heaviest. 600g+ is dangerously high for a beardie :?
Good luck
Bex

 

[Chris1]

yeah, i think i'm killing them with kindness,...not really my intention, i'd like them to live froever,.!

their diet has been mostly veges already, but i'm guessing greens are probably not as heavy as the beans and pumpkin....i keep reading that the ones in the US eat like 5 times the amount mine do,...with alot more live feeders, which is y i'm so surpised @ how their weight has blown out,..

cool, i'm happy to do 5 roaches once a week, i'm gonna post weekly weight updates to let u all know how they progress,....

i'm gonna take them up to the park fro a run as well on the weekend, put them in the middle of a football oval so they cant hide anywhere, but can run.

if its sunny on the balcony they run along the door trying to get out, so i'll tease then with that , a jar of roaches out there fro extra incentive and anything else that will make them move their butts,..i already play toss the roach, or toss the tiny mealworm to make them move,...but food cant be their only incentive for moving anymore,....

Chub doesnt live in her enclosure anymore, i leave the doors open and she likes to sit on the beanbag in the balcony doorway on a heat baggy.

 

[koubee]

OMG, Chris they are seriously HUGE.
Do as Bex has said above. I thought Loki was fat.
Maybe Chubs is just living up to his name.

 

[koubee]

Hey Liz, as mine was hatched on 3/12//06 does it matter how many woodies he/she has?? Or at that age it doesnt matter as it is still considered a baby.

This morning, for example, I cut up some mustard greens (home grown), coriander, a strawberry and a couple of grapes and endive.


Thoughts on too many or what for a beardie my age???

At this age i would be making sure that he/she has live food each day but not huge amounts.
And alternate between Crix and woodies. Lots of salad too.

 

[Chris1]

yeah, huge is an understatement,...Loki definately wasnt fat in comparison!

 

[MannyM]

Chris, change both of their names to Garfield.

 

[Chris1]

hehe, garfield 1 and garfield 2, if they were oranger i would!

well, the diet seems to be going ok, i spent saturday poking them and making them move their lardy butts,...they had nothing to eat on saturday, some greens on sunday and watered down juice today. they've lost about 10g already,...still got a long way to go,..!!

 

[MannyM]

What's with the juice? First i've heard of anybody giving their beardies liquids, not to mention juice.

 

[Chris1]

its only a splash of juice to flavour their water, (their favourite is breakfast juice, the no added anything variety from the fridge section)
they drink about 15mls from a feeding syringe every 4 days and they love it!

 

[Chris1]

so after a week of dieting, theyre just getting a few leaves from the shanghai mix daily, had diltued juice instead of the salad on 2 of the days, Bug has lost 9 grams, and Chub has only lost 3g.

i guess its a start, but this is gonna take ages.

 

[liasis]

its good to hear that they have lost a little weight though keep it up and they will be skinny in no time

 

[MannyM]

Here's hoping they hibernate for you... although that's not going to happen if you keep heating them at night.

 

[Chris1]

the vet said its not good to hibernate them, and advises against it.

i'm figuring once they start losing weight it will start to go down a bit quicker, im just worried that if i do it too quickly and all the fat mobilises @ once they'll end up with fatty liver disease and that would just suck.

 

[JEMMI]

diet

you could try just giving them 1 woodie per day and let them out inside the house to catch it.
this is probably what would happen in the wild maybe. I mean they may only see one bug per day
be very careful taking them out to exposed areas like ovals watch them like a hawk and stay very close by.
I pierce the head of the woodie with my fingernail before releasing it so it can't run too far or go under the furniture .
doesn't fruit juice contain loads of sugar?
plain water should be fine.
what about dandelion flowers for a treat or the leaves?

 

[Chris1]

yeah, fruit juice does contain heaps of sugar, which is why i only put a little bit in to flavour their water a bit., like 1 part juice to 4-5 parts water.

i gave them 5 woodies each on saturday, they were watching me clean the tub so i couldnt help myself, but aside from that they're just getting a few leaves of greens a day, im happy fro them to lose weight slowly i guess, as long as they are losing some.

tehy did a fair bit of running on the balcony over the weekend, and i gave them 2 baths a day so they'd swim as well.

 

[Isis]

cut out the juice completely, dont give in to them with the treats at all. I would cut feeds back to every second day. No mealies and try ro get them to eat crickets.

 

[Chris1]

the reason i dont want to do it too quickly is cos i'm worried about fatty liver disease, my understanding of that is if theyre forced to mobilise alot of fat too quickly, their liver cant handle it and stores it. i gave all their mealies away last week, and theyre only getting a max of 5 roaches a week, and theyre medium sized ones instead of the big ones.
i hate crickets, they carry parasites and made the lizards sick as babies, i'll never feed them crickets again.

i'll be taking them to the vet in about a month for a check up, just to make sure everything is going well,....

 

[Chris1]

i weighed them again last night, Chubby weighed 646g and Bug weighed 595g, so over 13 days thats a loss of 9g and12g!!

still a long way to go,...but its a start!!

 

[Chris1]

and i weighed them again yesterday and Chub was 636g, and Bug was 593, thats a loss of 19g and 14g!.
so slowly but surely the wieghts coming off!

heres a pic of them snuggled up together after running around the balcony,...!!


Chubbys on the bottom, Bug's on top!

 

[Chris1]

Chub now weighs 632g and Bug 586g,..i'll post pics again next week, they look different already! ....the diet is continues