- Your bearded dragon will be feisty / fearful / excitable for the first week or two. My leopard gecko hid for a full week. It's just their way of getting used to their new surroundings. Younger bearded dragons tend to have a massive personality, I've learned that from experience. I was doing a five day work experience in a reptile store and the manager told me to stick my hand inside a tank full of very young bearded dragons and see what happened. They all crowded away from my hand for about three seconds, then a lot of them charged forward and used me as a climbing frame. It was a great way to separate the more timid ones.
Don't be worried. :3 you can feed him a variety of things.
Your beardie will probably have been eating small/medium crickets - if the crickets are too small he won’t be very interested in them, and may find them harder to catch. Feed him as many crickets as he can eat in about 10 minutes, and feed him 3 times a day until he is three months old. A good rule of thumb is never feed anything larger than the distance between the beardie’s eyes.
Avoid feeding mealworms as they are not nutritious and their skin is hard to digest. Locusts are a very good food source, but are expensive. You will need to have lots of spare cash to feed a growing beardie on a diet of locusts!
Remove any crickets which are uneaten - if you don’t these can nibble a baby when he is asleep, and at the very least cause him stress.
Put a pinch of calcium dust on his food once a day - this is vital. Beardies grow so fast they need a lot of calcium. Pet shops may try to sell you Nutrabol, which is a good vitamin mix, but you should not use this all the time. 4/5 days a week with a calcium dust, and the other days with Nutrabol would be a good mix.
Fresh veg should be given every day - curly kale is often a favourite. All my beardies (adults and babies) love this. Veg should be very finely chopped so he cannot choke on it. Carrot (grated finely), and finely chopped apple can also be offered, along with a selection of most fruit and veg - don’t feed iceberg lettuce, tomatoes or cucumber as there have no nutritional value and will go straight through their digestive system leading to runny feaces.
Young beardies cannot recognise standing water - I recommend putting a very shallow bowl of water in the viv, but to make sure that he is getting enough moisture, spray his food with a calcium rich mineral water (I use Evian).
If he starts looking unhappy and the skin is sunken in between his eyes this could be a sign that he is getting dehydrated - as well as food, water should be available for the babies - this should be offered in a shallow drinking container or a saucer. Dragons at this age may have difficulty recognising water, so until you are sure they are drinking properly it is useful to spray the sides of the vivarium, or plants, so they can see water dripping down. Be careful not to overdo it though - this is a desert vivarium, and you are not trying to create a sauna!
NEVER put water features, for example, waterfalls, in the bearded dragon's vivarium. This raises the humidity which their lungs are not built to handle. Likewise bearded dragons SHOULD NOT be bathed - unless they are extremely constipated, have run through their poo and are dirty or, if female, after laying eggs. Bathing regularly will damage their lungs. Some people think that beardies like being bathed as they can swim. This is just because all animals have a built in instinct to swim when placed in water. This should never be interpreted as beardies liking water, or it being good for them!
