4,660 answers about reptiles & amphibians
Keeping reptiles and amphibians well comes down to environment — heat, light, humidity and the right enclosure — plus feeding and health basics that differ by species. This page gathers the reptile and amphibian library of KinsLe Answers in one place, organized by topic. Every answer is original, written by KinsLe, and tied to a real KinsLe feature.
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387 answers in Feeding & Nutrition — page 13 of 17
Most healthy adult box turtles do well fed every other day, with growing juveniles fed daily. Offer the meal in the morning, after a shallow warm soak that often wakes up a reluctant appetite, and build the plate in two halves: animal protein such as earthworms, crickets, or a little plain cooked egg, and plant matter…
Most adult blue tongue skinks thrive on a meal every two to three days — roughly two or three feedings a week — while juveniles still growing should eat daily. Build each plate from both halves of this omnivore's diet: lean protein such as snails, insects, egg, or plain cooked meat alongside chopped greens and…
It depends mostly on age: a baby bearded dragon needs live insects two to three times a day, a juvenile once or twice daily, and an adult does best with a fresh salad every day and insect meals three or four times a week. Offer as many appropriately sized feeders as your dragon will eat in about ten minutes, dusted…
It depends on age: a juvenile axolotl should eat daily while it is growing fast, and a healthy adult does well on a meal every two to three days. Earthworms make the best staple, with axolotl pellets in rotation and bloodworms kept as a treat rather than the main diet. Judge the rhythm against body condition — a…
An adult African dwarf frog does well on a small meal every other day, while a young, still-growing frog benefits from a small meal daily. Offer a few items at a time — bloodworms, daphnia, brine shrimp or frog pellets — and only as much as the frog finishes within a few minutes. These frogs find food by smell rather…
Move slowly: a rehomed iguana used to the wrong food will usually reject a bowl of pure greens given all at once. Start with the old food making up most of the mix, chopped fine with a share of staple greens, then shift the balance every few days until greens take over and the old food disappears. Chop everything…
For a fast-growing youngster, dusting rides on the insect meals: calcium powder at essentially every insect feeding, because a juvenile eats insects daily and is building bone at full speed. Add a reptile multivitamin on two fixed days a week instead of guessing, and keep the dusting light — insects shaken in a bag…
For most snakes, offering prey inside the enclosure is the calmer and safer default. Moving a snake that already smells food invites defensive bites, and handling it back after a meal is a classic route to regurgitation, while the idea that enclosure feeding creates cage aggression has not held up — snakes learn…
Treat the hide doorway as your gecko's chosen hunting spot rather than a problem to fight. Many geckos are dusk ambush hunters that strike from cover, so drop or tong-offer the insect right at the hide entrance in dim evening light, and let the gecko eat on its own terms. Over the following weeks, set the prey a…
Build the week as a rotation rather than serving everything every day. Keep leafy greens available daily, especially for an adult slider, portion pellets to roughly the volume of the turtle's head on pellet days, and schedule protein such as earthworms or shrimp on set days, more often for a juvenile than for an…
Swap the guesswork for a cheap gram scale and a two-line log. Weigh your ball python about once a month, in a tub on the scale, before a scheduled feed and a couple of days clear of its last meal, then weigh each thawed prey item before you offer it. A growing python's meal works out at roughly a tenth of its own body…
Yes, zucchini is safe for a bearded dragon and makes a useful regular in the salad rotation. It is mild, hydrating and easy to eat, but it cannot carry the bowl on its own, because its calcium content is modest next to proper staple greens. Wash it, grate it or slice it thin in small pieces, and serve it over a base…
Yes — turnip greens are one of the best things you can put in a bearded dragon's bowl, with a calcium balance few other greens match. They can anchor the daily salad for an adult, and offering them daily to a young dragon builds the greens habit early even while insects still carry most of its growth. Wash the leaves…
Yes, a bearded dragon can eat sweet potato, and its deep orange flesh brings useful beta-carotene to the bowl. Serve it cooked plain and cooled, cut into small soft cubes, because raw sweet potato is dense and hard work for a dragon to digest. It is a starchy food, so treat it as a rotation extra a few times a month…
Yes, strawberries are safe for a bearded dragon, but they belong firmly in the treat column rather than the daily bowl. They are sugary and carry more phosphorus than calcium, so frequent servings quietly undercut the bone health your dragon's leafy staples are there to protect. Wash one well, cut away the green top,…
Yes — bearded dragons can eat papaya, one of the more useful fruits on the treat list: ripe papaya flesh carries vitamin A, a digestive enzyme, and a calcium balance respectable for a fruit. It is still a fruit, with a fruit's sugar, so it belongs in small cubes on occasional treat days rather than in the daily salad.…
Yes — mustard greens are one of the best staple leaves you can feed a bearded dragon, with a calcium balance that rivals collard greens and a peppery bite many dragons genuinely enjoy. Wash the leaves, cut away the thickest stems, chop the rest, and rotate them with collards and dandelion greens rather than running…
Yes — bearded dragons can eat mango, but it belongs firmly in the treat category: a few small cubes of ripe flesh now and then, never a salad regular. Mango brings vitamin A and C, yet it is one of the sweeter fruits you can offer and its mineral balance leans toward phosphorus, so it cannot do the staple greens'…
Yes — bearded dragons can eat green beans, chopped small and served raw or very lightly steamed, as a regular supporting vegetable rather than a salad base. Green beans bring fibre, vitamin A and a satisfying crunch, but their calcium balance is weaker than the staple greens, so they earn their place mixed through a…
Yes — bearded dragons can eat figs, but only as a rare treat in small pieces, and a fresh fig has one unusual virtue among fruits: it carries a generous amount of calcium for something so sweet. Against that stands its sugar — a small wedge of ripe fig now and then is a pleasure, but figs on regular rotation would…
Yes — escarole is a genuinely good staple green for bearded dragons, not the lettuce it is often mistaken for. It is a broad-leafed member of the endive family, with a favourable calcium balance, generous vitamin A and sturdy leaves that hold their texture in a warm enclosure far better than true lettuce. Wash the…
Yes — bearded dragons can eat endive, and it earns a place among the staple greens rather than the treat pile. Endive, both the curly frisée kind and the pale Belgian heads, offers a good calcium balance with a milder flavour than many staple leaves, which makes it the green most likely to win over a dragon that turns…
Yes — dandelion greens are an excellent staple for bearded dragons, rich in calcium and welcomed by most dragons despite their slight bitterness. The catch is sourcing: only feed plants you are certain have never been sprayed with weedkiller or fertiliser, which usually means your own untreated garden or bought…
Yes — collard greens are one of the best foods you can offer a bearded dragon, and they make a fine base for the daily salad. Among salad greens they carry one of the strongest calcium balances — vital for an animal prone to bone problems on poor diets — and their leaves hold up well chopped through a mixed bowl. Wash…
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