My lovely silkback bearded dragon 😀 love her monstrous attittude 😏
I’m gonna hurl.
Please don’t watch if live feeding disturbs you. I wish I hadn’t.
I no longer extend a single, submicroscopic shit to the original poster and their half-assed excuses for why they find anything in this video to be acceptable on any level. I tried to reblog this on my phone and add my thoughts, but it wouldn’t work. So sorry if this shows up twice, y’all.
Bearded dragons are what we call OPPORTUNISTIC FEEDERS. That means that if they have the OPPORTUNITY to FEED they will EAT. They are still very much wired to get what they can and while they can get it for survival purposes.
BUT.
Now stay with me here.
BUUUUUTTT.
That doesn’t mean those things are good for them!
"But my animal LOVES x!"
Yeah, I had a dog that always found her way into grapes. And that’s not good for her or any other dog. Did we allow her to eat them just cause she liked them?
… NO. Just, no.
Thing is, we are responsible for our animals. Bearded dragons, included. And them being reptiles means they are very primitive in evolutionary design. They have primitive little dinosaur lungs and brains and behaviors dominated by that reptile brain. They don’t look at cage mates and see a buddy they wanna snuggle, they don’t wake up giving you their opinions on their meal the other day and whether or not it met their nutritional needs, and they don’t look at their substrate and know they are nesting on a bed of some sort of shredded bark or aquarium gravel or what-have-you. They literally cannot. So they taste and examine and eat and fight because their goal is to SURVIVE.
They depend on us. WE are the ones responsible for their survival. It’s not about what you want, it’s about what they NEED. Owning an animal does not award you a trophy, you’re not a special star because look at that animal you bought/received because of how unique it is and it’s now in your home. It requires CARE, and it might as well be proper.
The fact that your beardie has been “fine” on loose substrate for only a little over a year and “loves” eating mice and reptiles is no fact at all. It’s blatant ignorance to the truth easily accessible, and now even being tossed, to your silly face. Misinformation is everywhere, and vets and pet store workers spread the stuff like butter. It’s not usually the case, and I must say that I love my vet like no other, but there are some scummy ones out there that lump a group of animals together and try to pass them off as deserving the same care. Point is: take everything with a grain of salt and do your own research when presented with new/contradicting information. Go here if you’re not sure if your research is credible. [x]
Animal ownership is not easy. It’s not meant to be. You have a life in your hands that can’t always tell you that what you’re doing is wrong or hurtful. It’s honestly up to you alone to make sure that animal is healthy and content. It’s not about pushing you out of your high chair, it never will be, and I mean that in the most sincerest way possible. It’s never meant to be personal (until it’s made that way, which OP has made it quite clear that it is).
Shit.
P.S. I really like bearded-dragon-advice for all my beardie questions.
Excellent commentary.
Hahaha one of my first posts. Got so much shit on this
