Vegetarian Beardy

I have a 3 month old German Giant mix dragon I got nearly 2 months ago. The week after I put her in her new home, she started feeding heavily on crickets, eating around 25-30 per day. Feeding her twice a day too. Shortly thereafter I started introducing greens and assorted veggies to her diet. I put a plate of greens/veggies in a little bit after her lights go on, and she devours them all within minutes. Now, she seems to prefer veggies to bugs. If given the choice, she would rather have ANY leafy green veggie to ANY bug. Ive tried crickets, butterworms and waxworms, but she usually ignores them and circles her veggies instead. She does not like any sort of fruit.

I moved her from a 30 gallon long aquarium to a 4x2 foot Animal Plastics cage last month- she's growing like a weed. She has a 100 watt Mercury Vapor Bulb on one side, temps range from 86 degrees under the wood piece to 111 degrees on her highest basking point. On the cool side, it's in the 79-81 degree mark. I spray her, and although she doesnt like to be sprayed, she does drink, every evening. She moves from one end to the other with no problems, and she is in general good health (or so I think), but she just happens to prefer leafy greens and colorful veggies to bugs.

Is this normal? I got her form Sundial Reptile as a German/Color possible female, so she could be a he.

thats nothing to worry about . I wish my beardies would just eat veggies. theres nothing to worry about. just try to feed it some bugs now and them for protien or a commerical bearded dragon food.

She will take the juvi Reptical pellets if I hand feed them. She'll accept anything by hand usually, but sometimes when I give her something she doesnt agree with she'll open her mouth and hiss. I saw her 'beard up' for the first time last Tuesday. Thanks for the info.

Chris,

That's good that she's eating so many greens, usually it's the other way around. At that age you need to make sure that she gets protein (crickets etc) in her diet though as she needs that to build her body. There seems to be a push for cricket-free hatchlings due to our (meaning people in general) dislike of dealing with crickets but they still need the protein that a live prey diet provides (and the movement of the prey tends to stimulate their eating from my experience).

You definitely started off on the right foot by getting them from Sundial. We have a male from them and he's a breeding brute

Well, I got her to eat crickets steadily. I think the reason was that I was giving her medium sized crickets (Big Apple Herp size C), and she would avoid them. On a whim, I decided to try a larger size, and as soon as she saw the bigger ones, she started to stalk and pounce on them. Right now, she is almost 5 months old and is eating around fifteen to twenty large crickets a day, along with her morning salad. She is constantly shedding too. When she grows up, she is going to be a MONSTER!