Bearded dragons are the only known reptiles that express affection and can snuggle up to their owners, making them ideal exotic pets.Although a baby bearded dragon fat belly looks adorable, be careful as it must be balanced against your beardie’s health. Your bearded dragon may develop health problems if excessively nurtured.Bearded dragons are at about 67% higher risk of developing fatty liver disease than other reptiles. They also have a significant risk of organ failure or diseases like prolapses and dystocia. Female bearded dragons may have hormone imbalances and difficult delivery. One of the most severe issues with overweight female bearded dragons is the increased chance of egg binding. Eggs remain inside the female lizard’s body, preventing her from passing them. Being overweight affects your beardie life span.Keep reading to learn more about tips to manage the fat bearded dragon. Don’t miss discovering more about these reptiles in our most recent posts, such as can bearded dragons consume strawberries and can bearded dragons eat oranges?How do you know if your bearded dragon is fat?We sometimes pamper our pets to the point that they become overweight. Many owners are familiar with the bearded dragon being obese but ignore it as they like that charming chubby bearded dragon. However, being chubby means that your pet has to carry more weight, and all of that additional weight causes stress on their body, mainly their bones. This will weaken their skeleton as a consequence. Furthermore, it interferes with daily tasks of your pet, such as moving, climbing, and leaping. After growing fat, you may observe your beardie being more inactive, moving more slowly, remaining in one spot all day, and breathing heavily, producing wheezing and straining sounds.It’s important to identify whether your bearded dragon is overweight or not. It is essential to inspect your dragon’s physique for symptoms of obesity physically and note whether your pet is active enough to burn off the calories it consumes. If not, your bearded dragon stocks fat in multiple parts, such as the tail, belly, chin, and fat pads behind the eyes. Watching for these things will provide you with a better understanding of your bearded dragon’s physical condition.Primarily, as bearded dragons store fat in the base of their tail, an easy way to detect whether your bearded dragon is overweight is to check its tail. It should be round and firm; if it gets thicker at the bottom, your reptile may be overweight.Furthermore, watch out as you should be able to see the spine and ribs of your bearded dragon readily.While these lizards store fat all over their bodies, looking at tiny fat pads behind the arms is an excellent approach to assess if your dragon is healthy, overweight, or even underweight.The fat pads of a healthy lizard will be somewhat plump and spongy, never sunken in its skull.A malnourished bearded dragon fat pads seem sunken, whereas an obese dragon’s fat pads would bulge and extend slightly from behind the eyes. However, never poke or press into the bearded dragon fat pads since they are extremely sensitive, and applying pressure on them will negatively impact your lizard’s eyes.Moreover, if your bearded dragon has excess fat around its belly or has a hump under its chin, similar to a camel, it could be a sign that you need to worry about your reptile being overweight.If your pet is female, it is also necessary to conclude if this excess bearded dragon belly is due to body fat or because it is pregnant. To make sure, you should visit a vet.How do bearded dragons get fat?In the wild, we never encounter any animals who are obese. Animals in the wild follow a consistent diet and only eat when they are hungry. They modify their foods based on their age, gender, and body size. However, when they are kept as pets, the situation changes.Pet owners have such a great bond with their animals that they stock large quantities of food and sometimes overfeed their pets, while their pets have little energy needs, causing them to become overweight and have health issues. It has also been observed that feeding high calories to newborn and juvenile bearded dragons causes them to grow much quicker and look fat.Moreover, it is crucial to note that bearded dragons go through a type of inactivity known as brumation, just like most reptiles. Here, the animal’s body temperature, metabolic rate, heart rate, and respiratory rate drop, which burns a lot of energy and might increase food consumption. In captivity, they do not have situations that promote brumation.Other reasons for a fat baby bearded dragon may include less energy demands in captivity, as in the wild it has to adjust to the temperature of its surroundings. It could also be stress that causes your reptile to become overweight.What is a healthy bearded dragon weight?It’s vital to keep track of your beardie’s weight, but remember, weight varies according to the breed, age, and gender, making it difficult to determine whether your bearded dragon is fat or not.A bearded baby dragon is born weighing about 0.07 -0.1 oz (2-3 g) and grows to weigh 8.8-24.7 oz (250-700 g). A healthy adult beardie weighs about 8.8 oz (250 g), while a large dragon weighs 24.7 -29.9 oz (700-850 g).If your beardie is at the age of six months, it should weigh between 3.5-4.2 oz (100-120 g). By the time your beardie enters 10-12 months, weight often differs greatly among different bearded dragons, with some reaching a mature weight of 10.5-14 oz (300-400 g) or even more.If your beardie weighs more than 31.7 oz (900 g), you need to consider that it is getting overweight. You should be concerned when your beardie weighs more than 28.2 oz (800 g), and your beardie isn’t fully 22-24 in (56-61 cm) long.How do you get a bearded dragon to lose weight?A beardie generally lacks self-control in its dining habit. It will eat everything you offer it and quickly acquire weight. Overweight or obese bearded dragons later suffer from a slew of health problems.When it comes to avoiding obesity or even the slow creep of extra pounds, the first step is basic awareness—you should know your pet’s ideal weight and feeding frequency and keep note of any deviations. You don’t have the compulsion to do it every day, but you should do it at least once a week. Keep track of your bearded dragon’s weight in a notebook or database so you can track it.The general feeding frequency of young dragons should be two to three times a day with greens and protein mixture until six months. As they grow between 6-12 months, juvenile dragons should be fed once a day. Adult dragons over the age of a year should be served three to four times per week. Ensure your pet dragon isn’t eating repeatedly throughout the day to avoid being obese.Bearded dragons require a variety of foods. It would be best to make sure your bearded dragon consumes more greens than meat at a young age. Up to four months old, baby bearded dragons can eat 20-40% greens and 60-80% feeder insects, whereas adult bearded dragons eat 15-30% feeder insects and 70-85% greens. Young dragons require more live foods than adults, so feed them 65% live foods and 35% vegetables and plants, gradually increasing the amount of greens as they develop.If your bearded dragon is becoming overweight, alter the ratio of vegetables to meat in its diet. Provide it with more greens and fewer insects for less calories.You can provide a wide range of vegetables such as peas, green beans, sweet potato, bell pepper, broccoli, cabbage, asparagus, okra, and more; plants such as rockets, watercress, grated butternut squash, dandelion, and clover can help your bearded dragon lose weight. You can even include fruits to a fat belly bearded dragon such as melon, figs, apples, papaya, mango, dates, peaches, kiwi, plums, and strawberries.They devour many live invertebrates like crickets, locusts, and calciworms. While feeding insects to your bearded dragon, monitor if it is consuming too many of them. If so, you will need to cut back. An adult bearded dragon can typically consume 15-20 crickets every meal, which should take about 15 minutes. If your bearded dragon has to reduce weight, limit its intake to 30 insects each week. Offer bugs first thing in the morning, and your bearded dragon should hunt and chase them before it can eat them. This helps your bearded dragon burn more calories throughout the day.If your adult bearded dragon turns fatty, feed it with bugs twice a week and salad three times a week.Crickets might be combined with other insects such as worms like phoenix worms and silkworms, cockroaches, locusts, and other insects in their food. On the other hand, worms contain more fatty acids, making them unfit for weight loss for your bearded dragon. Thus, if your bearded dragon is overweight, avoid feeding it fatty worms like butter worms, mealworms, waxworms, super worms, and other bugs until they lose weight. Remember never to feed your pet any bugs that move around your home since these may infect your pet with parasites.One approach to assist your bearded dragon in losing weight is to reduce the number of calories it consumes. The other is to increase the amount of time you exercise your bearded dragon. Hence, behind modifying the menu of your bearded dragon, you need to make sure that you engage your bearded dragon in a variety of exercises.You can make it do different sets of exercises. For instance, stop serving salad in a bowl; instead, hang the salad from a clip so that your bearded dragon can crop it like it would in the wild. This provides some workout and encourages your bearded dragon to enjoy it. You may also add extra ramps, hammocks, branches, and tunnels to its tank. This enables your bearded dragon to move around and climb more. Allow your bearded dragon to roam throughout your house; this will provide lots of exercise to these lizards. Swimming is another physical activity that your bearded dragon could benefit from a couple of times per week.Allow your bearded dragon to brumate since this can also help it burn fat stores.Give your fat-bearded dragon detoxification nutrients like serrapeptase or milk thistle. Serrapeptase is an enzyme obtained from the intestines of silkworms and milk thistle is a herb that limits the extent of fatty liver disease by cleansing the blood and liver. You can feed it to your bearded dragon even if your bearded dragon is in good shape to help it maintain a healthy weight.Your vet will be able to assist you in determining the optimal body weight to aim for when establishing your pet’s food program. In fact, seeing your vet on a regular basis can help your animals encounter fewer health issues.Remember, once your bearded dragon becomes overweight, it takes longer to shed weight since its metabolism is slower than that of other animals. Hence, a good deal of patience is required.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for fat bearded dragons, then why not take a look at how long can a bearded dragon go without ea
Bearded dragons are the only known reptiles that express affection and can snuggle up to their owners, making them ideal exotic pets.
