Are Bearded Dragon Pellets Good?
Are bearded dragon pellets good for the health and development of bearded dragons? Well, we looked at a few of the popular bearded dragon pelleted diets on the market. We judged these diets on a series of metrics, these are:
A calcium to phosphorus ratio of 2:1 or higher.
A lack of fruit or at least minimal amount of fruit in the diet.
A lack of carcinogenic or otherwise harmful additives.
Good ingredients that we would otherwise feed to our bearded dragons, and low filler ingredient content.
What Is a Calcium to Phosphorus Ratio and Why Is It Important?
Many bearded dragon keepers are aware that calcium (Ca) is very important to keeping pet bearded dragons healthy, but many do not know why adding calcium powder to the diet is important. Bearded dragons, like most vertebrates, require a minimum of as much calcium as phosporus (P) in the blood to maintain healthy homeostasis. Calcium is important for good bone health, neuron health and even for muscle fibres to contract. When more phosphorus enters through the diet than calcium and it reduces the Ca:P ratio below 1:1, resulting in calcium in bone storage being drawn out into the blood to be circulated for use in the body to maintain homeostasis.
This is a fantastic survival mechanism that gets many animals through times of hardship, when the hard times end, and the body receives more calcium, it will then replenish the bone storage once more. The problem occurs when calcium does not increase and the body draws more and more calcium from the bones until fractures occur or bones soften, resulting in conditions such as metabolic bone disease (MBD).
Feeder insects do not have bones and therefore do not store calcium but are very high in phosphorus, so we must dust them with calcium carbonate powder to bring the Ca:P ratio above 1:1. In the wild bearded dragons are eating plants that are high in calcium, these plants have even been reported to have Ca:P ratios of 20:1, the calcium powder is our way of replicating this under human care.
Why 2:1 and not 1:1?
Yes, it is true that 1:1 is enough to maintain homeostasis. However, many pet bearded dragons are often overfed and grow at very rapid unnatural rates compared to their wild counterparts, with their skeletons racing to keep up with their growing stature. A growing baby bearded dragon fed to such extreme amounts may have Ca:P requirements as high as 5:1 or even higher when fed according to folklore husbandry myths such as “as many bugs as they can eat within fifteen, three times a day”.
Therefore, we do not feel comfortable with Ca:P 1:1 when the requirement can easily be driven higher, Ca:P 2:1 is the minimum threshold of acceptance for this review. It should serve adult bearded dragons suitably when not power fed.
Why a Lack of Fruit?
Bearded dragons have acrodont teeth, meaning that teeth do not get replaced with another set like other animals. The wild diet of bearded dragons is composed of herbaceous vegetation and fibrous grasses and flowers. Fruit is reportedly non non-existent in the wild diet. If a pet bearded dragon is fed lots of fruit the sugar content can cause cavities and the loss of the teeth altogether. There is no need to include fruit apart from the fact they may find it palatable, and that will come up later in this review.
Carcinogenic additives?
There are many preservatives used to prolong the storage of pelleted diets, some of which have been proven to have cancer causing or DNA mutating properties. We wish to see an absence of these in our diet for obvious reasons.
Good Ingredients?
Good ingredients are being classed as ingredients that would be included or recommended by Reptiles and Research in the diet of a bearded dragon. An example of which would be dandelion leaves. We wish to see many good ingredients without many filler ingredients such as wheat, soy or rice bran.
We are also looking for the diets to provide a crunch, when bearded dragons eat insects with hard shelled exo-skeletons, they naturally scrape the teeth and remove plague as they eat, playing a role in good teeth health.
The Diets
Exo Terra Adult Bearded Dragon Moist Pellets Food
First we have Exo Terra’s adult bearded dragon diet. It comes in either 540g or 250g and is described as a daily diet.
Ca:P
The Ca:P ratio for this diet is anywhere between 1.6:1 to 2.4:1. This is okay, its above 1:1 but for the previously mentioned reasons, we’d like to see this over 2:1 as a minimum not a maximum.
Fruit
It contains fruit such as papaya and instructions recommend soaking the diet in fruit juice. A whole load of sugar to go right on those acrodont teeth. Yikes!
Non Carcinogenic Additives
This diet contains a preservative called Ethoxyquin, this has been shown in studies to have carcinogenic effects in the bladders in rats. It has also caused DNA damage in humans working with it, damaging human lymphocytes. It is also banned in the EU.
We would much rather see an alternative preservative being used here.
Ingredients
This product contains a lot of filler ingredients such as rice hulls, soy, rice bran and wheat flour. It does contain alfalfa which we consider positive, however its outweighed by a lot of the bulk ingredients of little value.
Rating
Overall, we recommend to avoid this product. Apart from the previously mentioned, this diet instructions recommend to soak the pellets in fruit juice. More sugar…
0/5
Zoo Med Adult Bearded Dragon Food
Zoo Med’s adult bearded dragon food comes in 10oz, 20oz and 50lb.
Ca:P
The Ca:P ratio is at a minimum 2:1 to 3:1. Which meets our acceptance threshold of 2:1.
Fruit
There is no fruit listed in the ingredients, which is the only diet in this review to lack it.
Non Carcinogenic Additives
This diet uses citric acid which is a non-harmful preservative that is approved for use in organic foods. There is also Mixed Tocopherols, which is different types of vitamin E that also act as a natural preservative. They’re usually sourced from nuts, seeds, healthy oils, and even spinach.
So a big plus here for using natural and non-harmful preservatives.
Ingredients
This diet does still use fillers such as rice bran and wheat meal. But it does use good ingredients such as endive, alfalfa, and dandelions.
Rating
This diet surprised us with its good calcium content, lack of fruit and non harmful natural preservatives. It does let itself down on filler ingredients, and recommends mixing the pellets with water to make a mash. This will lack the crunch we are looking for.
3.5/5
Zoo Med High-Fibre Adult Bearded Dragon Food
This product comes in 1oz, 4.5oz and 10oz.
Ca:P
The Ca:P ratio is 2.6:1 to 3.2:1. Not only does this meet our acceptance threshold, this is the highest we have reviewed!
Fruit
The diet does contain mango at 5% of the diet and green banana flour.
Zoo Med also commented on our YouTube video version of this article and stated:
“We use green banana flour as a pesticide-free and gluten-free alternative to wheat; the bananas are harvested early (while still green) to ensure they are still high in resistant starches with a naturally low sugar content and low glycemic index. The mango fruit is limited to 5% of the diet and was included as an appetite stimulant.”
Non Carcinogenic Additives
Just like the previously reviewed diet by Zoo Med, there are no carcinogenic additives. They still use the citric acid and mixed tocopherols but now have added ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C.
Ingredients
This is a very good selection of ingredients such as grasses, dandelion, clover, flaxseed, black soldier fly larvae. With a lack of fillers such as wheat, bran and soy.
Rating
Overall, this is a very impressive diet that boasts a very impressive composition, it even offers a crunch to the dragon. If not for the inclusion of fruit in the diet it would receive 5/5. The reader may make their own informed decision based upon zoo meds above comment and whether they deem that acceptable.
4.5/5
Repashy Beardie Buffet
This product comes in 3oz, 12oz, 2kg, 3kg.
Ca:P
We could not calculate the ratio as they have not listed the phosphorus amount. Hower, if we take the average 0.5% from the others, then that would give 2.4:1. Which would be acceptable and meet our threshold. However we cannot say for certain.
Fruit
This diet contains dried watermelon.
Non Carcinogenic Additives
Contains potassium sorbate, some in-vitro studies have shown that potassium sorbate (PS) can cause DNA damage at high concentrations, and may have genotoxic effects. These effects can include: DNA breakage, Chromosome aberrations, Sister chromatid exchange, and Production of mutagenic compounds.
Ingredients
This diet includes good ingredients such as hibiscus, dried kelp, alfalfa, black soldier fly larvae and dandelion. However, it also contains potato flour and other fillers.
Rating
Overall, the inclusion of carcinogenic additives is enough to dissuade its use.
0/5
Are They Good?
We would not include these diets as a part of our care guides going forward. However, they could be useful as a backup food in an emergency. If you were on vacation, this may be an easy diet to give to a pet sitter for a week or so.
If you are going to use this bearded dragon pellets no matter what, we would recommend that you use one of Zoo Med’s Diets.
