Yes, baby beardies can eat grapes either with or without skin on them but only under a few conditions related to health concern.
In fact, bearded dragons usually prefer and enjoy eating fruits to vegetables and greens.
However, fruits like grapes should only be given in moderation because they contain a fairly high amount of oxalates, water and sugar.
And for that reason you should give a baby beardy grapes as a treat to encourage it to eat vegetables and greens.
Well, let’s see some of the reasons why you should give grapes to baby beardies in moderation with consideration to certain conditions.
How Often To Feed Grapes To Baby Beardies?
Baby beardies are carnivorous and partially omnivorous. Unlike the adult beardies, they largely depend on protein and calcium diet for growth and development.
We recommend you give baby beardies 80% protein and 20% vitamins to enhance their rapid growth and strong bone formation.
As mentioned above, grapes contains fairly high amount of oxalates, sugar and water. This makes it unfit as a staple food for baby beardie.
Indeed, when oxalate combines with calcium it forms insoluble compound called calcium oxalate. This compound inhibits calcium absorption.
Lack of calcium in the body causes metabolic bone disease. You baby beardie will look weak, deformed and have a poor growth.
Furthermore, sugar can cause obesity and too much water will result to diarrhea and eventually dehydration.
Hence, you should give grapes to baby beardies in moderation to minimize the health risks.
Feeding Schedule
A grape or two once a week will not be harmful.
If you have any health concern for you pet then seek help with your vet first before feeding it with grapes. This is to avoid your baby dragon from developing any health complications.
However, if it is battling with any health issues or calcium deficiency, serving a grape once a month is safer and will not have any harm to its health.
It is advisable to take advantage of supplementing grapes with veggies and greens from a young age.
The significance of supplementing fruits with veggies and greens is to make them receptive to most foods.
Also, be mindful of the size and skin toughness of the grape when feeding this fruit to baby beardies. They are big which is a choking hazard.
Therefore to eliminate choking hazard, you should cut the grape into four pieces or smaller as the size between their eyes.
What Are The Nutrients In Grapes?
Vitamins
Grapes are rich in Vitamin C, A, K and E. These Vitamins are vital for baby beardies health because they contain antioxidants especially the skin of the red grapes.
Antioxidants helps to reduce inflammation, boosts the immunity system, and lowers the risks of cardiovascular diseases and your dragon from developing allergies.
However, excess vitamins is dangerous because it can lead to adverse effects especially vitamin A leads to Vitamin A toxicity and excess of it will be stored in the liver causing organ failure.
Fiber
Fiber in grapes is in small amount, but is also vital and beneficial to baby beardies digestive system.
Given that baby, bearded dragons are more carnivorous and become herbivorous when they grow they need fiber because it aids in digestion and smooth gut movement thereby preventing impaction.
Carbohydrate
In a 100grams of grapes it contains about 18g of carbohydrate which is the third highest nutrient after water and phosphorus.
Carbohydrate is a good source of energy and readily available and your baby dragon needs it for their growth and exercise especially when you are training them how to swim.
Water
Grapes contains about 45-65% of water; however, water is not dense in nutrition it is vital in regulating blood pressure, and improves kidney function and helps to prevent dehydration in Bearded dragon.
In fact, they need the most when it is in its shedding season.
Why Can’t Baby Beardies Have Grapes All The Time?
Despite being packed with nutrients we advise you not to give grapes to baby beardies all the time because of the following reasons, they include:
Grape Seeds pose a lethal threat to your little beardie.
The grapes seeds are tiny but they pose a lethal threat to your little beardie because they can choke them while eating and if not managed it can cause death.
Nevertheless, the seeds can also cause gut impaction leading to constipation if swallowed in large amount because they block the digestive tract.
It can actually cause Diarrhea and Dehydration
The origin of the bearded dragon is from the Australian deserts, meaning they do not need a lot of water. Since grapes is largely made up of 45-65% water it should not be given in high doses or excessively.
When given in high doses the beardy’s body will absorb a lot of water causing over hydration and the content in its stomach get diluted leading to diarrhea.
Nevertheless, diarrhea will also dehydrate your little beardie which is very lethal because dehydration can cause death.
Too much can result into obesity
The high sugar content in grapes is not healthy for your beardie when fed frequently and in high doses.
Too much sugar causes dependability which eventually leads to obesity and teeth problems to your beardie.
Obesity is a result of too much sugar being converted into fats and then reserved in the body organs.
It contains oxalates and Phosphorus
Besides obesity and diarrhea, what makes feeding your baby beardie frequently with grapes unfit is relatively high in oxalate and phosphorus.
These minerals binds with calcium to form insoluble compound that blocks calcium absorption in the beardies’ body.
Hence, it leads to calcium deficiency which predisposes your little beardie to Metabolic Bone Disease and if not treated it can cause death.
Related Questions
Can bearded dragons eat grape leaves?
Yes, grapes leaves are much more nutritious and beneficial to bearded dragon as opposed to grapes itself because it is loaded with essential minerals like Calcium compared to phosphorus, Vitamin K and C and proteins.
Can Bearded Dragons Eat Grape Seeds?
Grapes seeds are nutritious. We don’t recommend giving them to your beardie because it can result into impaction making them unable to poop.
Summary
Grapes have high level of water, sugar, oxalate and phosphorus.
Therefore, we recommend feeding baby beardies occasionally with grapes.
Once a week on baby and juvenile beardies to is Ok. Wondering if your pet can eat broccoli?
My name is Brad and I am the main editor of BeardieZilla.com.
The only goal of this site is quite simply to be able to help you. To help you by the means of my experiment, of the relation which I maintain with my bearded dragon as well as some of my knowledge about beardies.
I hope that you will find answers to some of your most pressing questions here.
Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the blog!
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