Bearded dragons are omnivorous animals. Both vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods are okay with them. Beardies tend to love mice. If you want a proper diet for your pet bearded dragon, you should include mice in to the diet list.
Bearded dragons can eat mice. And it is recommended that you give the freshest forms of these creatures that you can find in the local sources.
The ratio of having a beardie as a pet in the US is 78% in comparison with the whole world. Bearded Dragons are not just a lizard that you would keep as exotic animals. They have strong emotions and attachments with their owners. Just like a cat or a dog that you see regularly.
These lizards are well known for their friendly behavior and also their acknowledgment towards the owner.
People nowadays are getting really interested into beardies.
In most of the cases, bearded Dragons are quite well known for their omnivorous nature. Which means that they tend to eat all sorts of food that you are willing to offer. Foods such as vegetables or meat are both suitable for them.
People are more likely to feed small insects such as crickets, earthworms, and so on, and also leafy greens and other sorts of vegetables to bearded Dragons.
So, do bearded dragons eat mice? Yes they do. You need to be specific about what sort of mice that they are eating. Because not all sorts of mice are friendly for the digestive system of a bearded dragon. And you need to be careful about it. This means that you need to have proper pest control around your house at all times.
Is it friendly for a Do bearded Dragons eat mice?
It is totally friendly for bearded dragons to eat mice. These tiny animals are one of the most common sorts of rodents that you can find in any human-made structure. To be honest, the biological property of a mouse is quite nutritious for many animals. The main question here is that can a bearded dragon eat them with no negative circumstances?
The food range of a Beardie has a large variety. Due to the fact that they are quite an omnivorous sort of animal, their food list is quite immense. It is a very valid question if you are wondering whether or not mice are suitable for bearded Dragons.
It is quite essential to figure out the proper list of nutrients that is available in a mouse and for you to have a proper check if you want your lizard to have the proper nutrition and diet chart at all times.
As beardies are mainly animals of tropical and desert-like countries, any sort of wrong step for choosing proper nutrition might cause harm to the animal’s health.
What source of a nutrient does a mouse has in its body for a bearded Dragon to feed off. These rodents have all sorts of proteins and fibers and carbohydrates that you would probably expect from any sort of non-vegetarian food.
Elements such as proteins, fat, carbohydrate, calcium, phosphorus, and several other items are quite available in a body of a mouse.
So, if you want a valid answer, it is quite friendly for a bearded dragon to eat mice.
Feeding bearded dragons mice
Feeding your beardie with mice is totally okay. As the owner, you need to be properly cautious about what sort of mice that it is eating.
As mice tend to have a higher level of fat in their bodies, you need to be careful because bearded Dragons are not quite compatible with higher levels of fatty foods.
What kind of mice do bearded Dragons eat?
Here comes the most important part of. Because rodents contain one of the highest levels of fatty foods for a beardie, you need to be properly cautious about what sort of mice that you are feeding to the lizard. You might be wondering what human food can bearded dragons eat? There will be more on that later.
Honestly speaking, for the highest level of safety, there is basically only one mouse that is considered 100% safe to feed your reptile. And you can purchase this sort of mice in two different forms in all available sort of markets around you. The first type is basically the pinky mice. If you ever get a chance to see your bearded dragon eating mice, you will understand how much they enjoy it. Pinkies are so good for the dragons, that if you ever ask people for popular food for a beardie, you will get this one recommended a lot!
It is also known as newborn mice. This type of mouse is called pinky because newborns don’t have any sort of fur or hair on their body. And they are pink.
Pinky mice are not more than a few days old. And having this sort of creatures is really important to maintain the nutrition level of a Bearded dragon. Only about a week old pinkies can be considered as newborn ones. More than this, the body of the creature will start to make too much of some of the nutrients. And that can harm the beardie.
But the question here is can you feed bearded dragons mice? Bearded dragons are one of the top lizards that eat mice.
Because after only a week, the animals of the rodent class start to develop fur on their body and they are not considered newborn any more. The nature and the way that fuzzy mice size appears, it gets difficult for the dragon to take in.
Mouse that are older than seven days are considered fuzzy mice. They tend to have less amount of nutrition and a more developed body for a beardie to digest properly. And of course, not to mention an adult mouse is literally too big for it to digest.
Bearded Dragons are lizards. They have a tendency to swallow their food as a whole. If you’re feeding adult mice to your bearded dragon, there is a really high possibility that the animal will be suffering from digestion issues.
Some others type of mice that a bearded dragon can eat
Bearded dragons can only eat pinky mice.
But in the market, you are going to find a couple of different types of these small creatures to feed your lizard. Here is a list of the types of mice that you’d probably see on a common basis:
- Pinky
- White/Fuzzy
- Adult
But right after reading this list, don’t start feeding all of these mice to your Lizards at once. There are much more to know about it.
Pinky mice – Can bearded dragon eat pinky mice?
Most definitely! Pinky types are also referred commonly to as feeder mouse. It is basically a newborn with absolutely no fur and no sort of a developed body. Pinky mice for bearded dragons is one of the most nutritious things that you can include in the food chart.
The ideal age of a feeder mouse is around 3-5 days. This is the perfect time period for a rodent to be fed to your beardie. For feeding bearded dragons with mice, pinky is the best thing that you should consider.
Once the mouse is starting to gain age and after seven days, when they start to grow fur, they are considered fuzzy .
As bearded Dragons are quite an exotic sort of reptile, they are more likely to have a severe impact on any type of abnormality on their nutrition list.
But for a healthy beardie, unlimited mouse feeding is not okay at all.
Because mice have a higher level of fat in their body, it can be proven to be harmful to a bearded dragon.
It is already clear that these small rodents have a higher amount of fat. Bearded Dragons that are quite young, only need around 70% of protein. It means that a young beardie should never be fed mice. The protein amount in mice can be too much for a baby dragon. Therefore, it can be too much for the lizard to digest. It can show symptoms of severe stomach depression and so on.
Fuzzy mice – Can bearded dragons eat Fuzzy mice?
A mouse that has aged more than seven days is considered as a fuzzy mouse. At approximately one week of age, a mouse starts to develop for over its body and it starts to become white in nature.
And that is why it is also called a white mouse in some cases. Honestly speaking, the fuzzy mouse should never have a place in a proper nutrition chart.
Some people might refer that you need a higher amount of fat and protein for a bearded dragon when it is pregnant or it is under any sort of malnutrition situation.
But pinky mouse already has enough amount of fat and protein that a healthy or even an unhealthy lizard can digest.
If you are feeding your dragon with an adult mouse or fuzzy mouse, it can cause severe stomach depression and also issues regarding its digestion system. The fuzzy mice size can also be a problem for bearded dragons.
Can bearded dragons eat Adult mice?
The very first thing that you need to know about adult mouse is that it is too large for bearded dragons to be fed.
Due to the genetic fact, beardies tend to swallow their food as a whole.
This means if you’re feeding it an adult mouse, it will be too much for it to digest and to swallow as well.
But due to their wild nature, they will not restrain themselves from it.Iif you are giving your bearded dragon an adult mouse, it is quite possible that it would hunt for it, and also it would try to eat it as well.
And that is exactly why it is 100% recommended that you never give your bearded dragon any sort of adult mice.
A fully grown mouse is quite a challenging thing for a bearded dragon to swallow and digest as well. adult mice have larger teeth and are quite sharp as well. This means that if you are giving your bearded dragon an adult mouse, then the objects or the body parts inside the mouse can cause great harm to the digestive system of the bearded dragon.
Even if you are giving the adult mouse a shape and form of a frozen mouse, it can still be quite difficult for a bearded dragon to digest and to swallow as well. The reason is still the same. The negative outcomes that you can get from providing this type of animal to your bearded dragon are beyond imagination. This can cause the bearded dragon to have severe digestive issues and also it can have its intestines damaged in the process as well. Which can be catastrophic.
Frozen mice – Can bearded dragons eat Frozen mice?
Your beardies can easily eat a frozen mouse. Some minor processing are needed, but it’s completely safe for bearded dragons to eat frozen mice.
Sometimes, local grocery shops and animal care stores sell frozen rodents for beardie owners specifically.
And as it is already quite imaginable by common sense, frozen items can be either a pinky mouse or an adult one. It is highly recommended, still, that you feed your bearded dragon with newborn or pinky.
Most of the stores found in the United States have the collection of both live and frozen feeder mice.
If you have one nearby your location, then you can go on and look for them, it is more likely that you are going to find just the perfect thing that you are looking for.
There is another thing that you need to keep in your mind at all times.
You cannot give your reptile directly the frozen product. It might be harmful for them to swallow. Their intestines and internals might get damaged in the process.
About the duration, how long can I leave a frozen mouse thawed? You can keep that for around 8 to 10 hours. Not more.
Also, the cold temperature of a frozen mouse can cause severe damage to the intestines of a bearded dragon. Frozen mice can be stored in your regular freezer for a long amount of time. But before giving the mouse, you need to put it in a bag of warm water for at least 10 or 15 minutes. We mean exactly warm. Not boiling hot. Because that can cause the flesh of the mouse to degrade in terms of quality and also its nutritious values.
Why pinky mice are better than any other foreman type of mice?
Beardies have a sensitive set of teeth and digestive systems. Despite of being a lizard, it is one of those features of them that sets it apart from any other sort of regular lizard. And because of the harmless teeth, it is considered as one of the best results to have as a pet.
A flash and the body of a pinky mouse or a newborn mouse are quite delicate and easy to digest and also to swallow and process by the teeth of a bearded dragon. And that is one of the major reasons that always pinky mice are recommended as the ideal mice for bearded Dragons to be fed with.
How do bearded dragons eat pinky mice?
Beardies swallo feeder mouse as a whole object. Just like you would eat a small candy. In terms of a frozen mouse, the lizard cannot be presented with the hard and frozen form. As you take the frozen mouse out from the freezer, you need to warm it with some warm water for 10 minutes, and only give it to the bearded dragon after that.
How can you freeze a mouse?
You need to get proper sized pinkies for bearded dragons, after that, you need to place them in a zip lock bag. And then, directly into the freezer.
The problem is that you cannot get live feeder mice right away. If you want to freeze feeder mice for yourself, then you need to breed the mice by yourself. And the reason is quite obvious. As newborn mice are quite hard to find, you need to do it by yourself.
What you can do is buy a pair of mice and then breed them. And after their breeding season, you can take the newborn at right their perfect age and then carry on with the rest of the process.
The next process needs a specific item for you to purchase. That is one of the humane gases that can be used to kill infants. And if you are being worried about where to find such gas, then you don’t need to worry at all.
Because your local pet store probably has that covered. Such type of gases usually doesn’t cost that much and you can easily find them at any pet store.
And after the extermination, you can easily pack your mice in a ziplock polythene bag and then store it in your freezer.
What size of mice can a bearded dragon eat?
Bearded dragons cat eat only new born mice. In short, the smallest that you can get is the right one for the job.
This part of this article is just for giving you a second clarification of the already stated term in this article. As you have probably read a couple of times in this very article that you can only feed pinkie mice to your bearded Dragons. And the reason has already been explained. The ideal age of a mouse that can be fed to a bearded dragon is around three days and not more than seven days. It is highly recommended that you do not cross the age of seven days of a mouse to be fed to a bearded dragon.
Down below is a list of nutrients that a pinky mouse has to offer for a bearded dragon.
| Protein | 64g |
| Fat | 17g |
| Calcium | 160mg |
| Phosphorus | 90mg |
FAQ
At what age can bearded Dragons eat mice?
Can mice hurt bearded Dragons?
How often can bearded Dragons eat mice?
Why won’t my bearded dragon eat a mouse?
Conclusion
Bearded dragons do eat mice. Mice are good, but not as a regular item for feeding. You can only consider feeding bearded dragon with mouse when the lizard needs some extra protien boost. nothing more than that.
In cases of pregnancy, bearded dragons consume more amount of fat and protein.
If you have any questions regarding any sort of information about bearded Dragons, please let us know in the comments section below. You can also reach us directly via the contact information given on our website.
In the end, we would like to say that you need to be cautious about feeding these small rodents to your dragon. As it is comparatively rich food for the lizard to digest, you need to be properly cautious and also attentive to exactly what type of mice that you are feeding to your bearded dragon.