Can bearded dragons eat slugs in their meals?
Yes, bearded dragons can eat these slimy critters, but you shouldn’t serve them in their regular meals. While slugs contain a lot of protein, consuming too much of it could cause your reptile to acquire ailments like kidney disease. Moreover, you must remember some vital points when preparing slimy meals, as slugs may carry parasites that could harm your pet.
So, I searched more about these slimy critters and how they can affect beardies’ health. It’s to learn how to get the health benefits slugs can offer to the dragons without causing harm. And I placed the vital information in this article as a guide.
Can Bearded Dragons Eat Slugs?
Bearded dragons can eat slugs but with certain feeding restrictions. They should only consume slimy critters from pet shops, as yard and farm slugs may carry harmful parasites. Moreover, the squishy animals contain a lot of water and minimum nutritional value, making the reptile full but with minimal vital nutrients.
What Benefits Bearded Dragons Get from Eating Slugs?
Feeding slimy critters to your beardy offer excellent benefits like:
1. Alternative Protein Source
These squishy critters contain a high amount of protein, which is excellent for your scaly friend. Protein helps build muscles and promote growth, making it a vital nutrient for baby beardies.
2. Stimulate their Hunting Skills
Bearded dragons are predators that hunt for bugs in their natural habitat. So, offering them live, slimy prey could help exercise their hunting skills.
However, it’s better to offer slightly fast-moving prey for this purpose, like Dubia roaches. These meals could better satisfy your pet’s predatory instincts.
3. Add Variety to their Diet
While you should only offer this food to your beardy occasionally, it’s still an excellent way to add variation to their meals. For example, the squishy food could stimulate the reptile’s taste if it often eats crunchy crickets. This variation could improve your pet’s appetite, helping them consume more nutritious food.
What are the Risks of Feeding Slugs to Bearded Dragons?
While slugs are great as an alternative food option, they also pose certain risks to beardies, like:
1. Excessive Protein
Slugs contain high amounts of protein that could harm beardies. While the reptile needs this nutrient for muscle development, excessive amounts could increase the uric acid in the kidneys. Excess uric acid would crystalize in the kidneys or different body joints, causing the dragon to suffer from gout.
Aside from kidney problems, gout may also involve arthritis and cause inflammation in the affected joints. This condition may cause your pet to experience severe pain and discomfort.
2. Excessive Water Content
Remember that these slimy creatures also contain too much water in their body. It could harm your pet, as beardies could have an upset stomach and diarrhea if they consume excessive water.
3. Insufficient Nutrients
These squishy critters also contain small amounts of nutrients, not enough to fulfill your reptile’s dietary requirement.
The problem is that they contain too much water and protein, so they can quickly make a reptile feel full. It’s thus better to only feed small amounts of these creatures to your pet while serving more insects and veggies.
4. Harmful Parasites and Chemicals
Squishy pests from yards or farms may carry elements that could harm beardies, like parasites and chemicals. Thus, it’s crucial to only select store-purchased critters for your pet.
Parasites like bacteria, fungi, mites, and ticks may cause acute disease and irritation. On the other hand, slimy meals that carry chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers may cause poisoning.
5. Choking Risks
This slimy food could be too large for bearded dragons and may lodge in their digestive tract. This incident could irritate your pet’s digestive organs and cause infection. In some cases, it may also affect the reptile’s spine when the stuck food gets pushed into its backbone.
Can Baby Bearded Dragons Eat Slugs?
While baby bearded dragons can consume these squishy creatures, it’s better to avoid serving them this meal. As mentioned above, slugs have excessive water and protein content but low nutritional value. So, the baby reptiles won’t get enough nutrients from this food option to support their growth.
How to Feed Slugs to Bearded Dragons?
While these slimy creatures pose critical risks to beardies, they may also bring excellent benefits. So, always remember the tips below to avoid causing harm to your reptile while feeding them this meal option:
- Not feeding your pet with yard pests keeps them safe from harmful chemicals and parasites. Only serve slugs that you purchase from reliable pet stores.
- Only feed food your reptile can swallow to avoid any impact on the digestive tract. The food should only be as big as the space between your pet’s eyes, so cut the slimy critter if it is too large.
- Be sure to clean the food before serving it to your dragon. You can also cook it by steaming, but don’t add spices and seasonings. Remember that spices and artificial preservatives could cause diarrhea, dehydration, and toxicity to the reptile.
- Don’t feed slugs to your pet regularly in their every meal. Instead, only offer it every few days to ensure your reptile’s health.
- Give more plants and insects to your beardy to meet their nutrient requirement. They should eat vegetables like kale, green beans, squash, and cabbage, but only small amounts of fruits like apples and bananas. On the other hand, the usual bug feeders for dragons are crickets, Dubia roaches, and earthworms.
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Conclusion
So, if you wonder, “Can bearded dragons eat slugs?”
Yes, they can, but don’t offer them too much of these squishy critters. This food option can pose certain risks to your scaly friend, so remember to serve it appropriately in their meals. They, however, provide your dragon with additional protein and add flavor to their meals.
Moreover, only purchase these slimy critters from reliable pet stores to ensure they are safe for your beardie. Call the vet to know more about feeding slugs to bearded dragons.
