Bearded Dragon Food List and Chart

A bearded dragon food list needs to sort every item into one of three groups. Staple, occasional, or never. This chart covers greens, vegetables, fruits, and feeder insects for Pogona vitticeps, the central bearded dragon.

It gives the calcium to phosphorus ratio for each food. It also flags oxalate or goitrogen content where a source could confirm it. For the full weekly menu and portion sizes, see the complete diet guide.

Staple bearded dragon foods (fed most days)

Staples make up the bulk of every salad. They carry a favorable calcium to phosphorus ratio and low oxalate content. NC State College of Veterinary Medicine names the core staple list: collard greens, kale, romaine, dandelion greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, beet greens, bok choy, Swiss chard, squash, zucchini, sweet potato, and carrot.

Kale shows why the ratio matters more than any single nutrient. USDA data published by the University of Rochester Medical Center puts it at roughly 135 mg of calcium against 56 mg of phosphorus per 100 g, a Ca:P ratio near 2.4:1. Its oxalate load is low too, about 20 mg per 100 g per LafeberVet’s oxalic acid table.

That combination earns kale a staple slot; spinach is a leafy green too, but it does not earn one. Carrot is the other staple with numbers behind it, at about 33 mg calcium and 35 mg phosphorus per 100 g on USDA figures. Merck Veterinary Manual’s own plant table rates it higher, at 2.29.

Merck’s table is the other backbone of this chart. It rates collard greens at 2.76, dandelion at 2.4, turnip at 2.89 and kale at 2.9, the range a staple green should sit in.

Bearded dragon food chart by category

The table below groups every food this fact set covers. Each row shows the Ca:P ratio and any oxalate or goitrogen flag.

USDA FoodData Central’s own pages and API would not load for this chart. The USDA column therefore uses USDA nutrient data as published by the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Health Encyclopedia, converted to 100 g. The Merck column is the Merck Veterinary Manual’s plant table, and oxalate is from LafeberVet’s table.

Where the two datasets disagree, as they do for carrot, cabbage and broccoli, both figures are shown rather than averaged. Every row above uses figures from a source opened for this chart, and no row was invented to fill a gap.

The hub pages break each group down in full:

• The greens guide covers every staple and occasional leafy green.
• The vegetables guide covers squash, root vegetables and the cruciferous group.
• The fruits guide covers the 5 percent fruit slice.

Why the calcium to phosphorus ratio drives this chart

Merck Veterinary Manual states that herbivorous foods with a high calcium to phosphorus ratio should be chosen as staples. It names apple, banana, and tomato as foods with poor ratios. That single rule explains most of the staple versus occasional split above.

Spinach is the exception a simple ratio reading misses. Its raw numbers put calcium at about 99 mg and phosphorus at about 49 mg per 100 g. That nominal ratio, near 2:1, looks favorable on paper.

But its oxalate content runs close to 970 mg per 100 g, the highest of any food checked for this chart. Oxalates bind calcium into a form the body cannot use. Spinach should never be relied on as a primary calcium source for that reason.

Bell pepper and banana sit at the other extreme. Their ratios run about 0.27:1 and 0.25:1. Foods this far below 1:1 belong in the occasional column, no matter what vitamins they carry.

The stakes are not abstract. Merck names three causes of metabolic bone disease in rapidly growing herbivorous and insectivorous lizards. They are a low calcium to phosphorus diet, vitamin D3 deficiency and a lack of UVB light.

Oxalates and goitrogens: what the flags mean

Oxalic acid binds calcium in the gut. Noonan and Savage’s review of food oxalate describes calcium oxalate forming in the intestinal lumen, where it cannot be absorbed. The same review links high oxalate intake to kidney stones in people.

LafeberVet’s oxalic acid table, a veterinary education source, puts spinach at roughly 970 mg per 100 g and carrot at roughly 500 mg. Both are comparatively high in that table.

Kale and cucumber sit at the low end, near 20 mg per 100 g each. That low number is part of why kale keeps its staple status. Spinach, another leafy green, does not get the same pass.

Goitrogens are compounds in cruciferous vegetables, including kale, broccoli, and cabbage. They can interfere with thyroid function in large amounts. That is a general reptile nutrition principle, not a bearded dragon specific dose confirmed in the sources opened here.

Rotating greens rather than feeding one type daily is the safer practical rule. A food without either flag in the table above was not tested in the oxalate source used for this chart. That gap is marked rather than filled with a guess.

Feeder insects on the food list

Insects are the animal protein side of a bearded dragon food list. How much a dragon eats changes sharply with age. Hatchlings under one month old eat only insects, such as fruit flies and pinhead crickets.

They are fed two to three times daily, with no plant matter offered yet. See the feeder insects list for a full breakdown of feeder species, gut loading, and dusting schedules.

Dragons between one and four months old move to twice daily feedings. That menu is crickets plus vegetables, with occasional super worms or mealworms added. From four months to adulthood, feeding drops to once daily, with crickets, worms, and occasional pinky mice.

Diet ratio by age: how the plant to insect split changes

The biggest shift in a bearded dragon’s food list happens between hatchling and adult. NC State College of Veterinary Medicine describes an adult diet with roughly 50% dark leafy greens, 20% grated or chopped vegetables, 25% animal matter, and up to 5% fruit. That works out to close to a 1:3 animal to plant ratio by volume, close to a full reversal of the insect heavy juvenile stage.

Fruit stays capped low at every life stage under this ratio. NCSU sets the adult cap at a stated maximum of 5% of the diet. That cap is one reason grapes and watermelon stay in the occasional column even without an oxalate flag of their own.

Foods to leave off the list

No source opened for this chart gave a confirmed, species specific never feed list. Items like avocado, rhubarb, and citrus come up often in casual bearded dragon discussion. None of those specific claims appear here as sourced fact, because of that gap.

What is confirmed is the general principle behind every never entry. A food with a markedly poor calcium to phosphorus ratio should never become a dietary staple. A high oxalate green should never be relied on as a primary calcium source either.

See foods to avoid for a fuller rundown built around that same principle. Fruit pits, seeds, and cores are typically removed before feeding apple and similar fruits. Only ripe tomato fruit should be offered, never the plant’s foliage or stems.

How long a bearded dragon can go without food

An otherwise healthy adult can typically skip a meal or two. NC State College of Veterinary Medicine puts that threshold at more than one to two days before it becomes a concern on its own. Continued refusal beyond that window is the point to call a reptile veterinarian.

That tolerance does not carry over to juveniles. Hatchlings and young dragons have far higher metabolic and growth demands. That shows up in their two to three times daily insect only feeding schedule.

A fasting window that is normal for an adult should not be assumed safe for a growing juvenile. No source opened for this chart gave a specific juvenile fasting limit or a brumation fasting duration. Both remain open questions rather than stated numbers here.

Building a printable bearded dragon food chart

A workable printable chart needs four columns. Food name, category, staple or occasional status, and a note on any oxalate or goitrogen flag. The table under Bearded Dragon Food Chart By Category above already uses that format and can be copied straight into a spreadsheet.

Rotate at least three or four staple greens through the week rather than repeating one. That spreads out any single food’s oxalate or goitrogen load instead of concentrating it.

Pair that rotation with the age based ratio table above. Portions then shift automatically as a hatchling grows into an adult. The care sheet covers enclosure and heating, the parts of husbandry that sit outside this food list.

The main bearded dragon page collects every guide on the species in one place.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the healthiest bearded dragon food list for an adult?

An adult list built around roughly 50% dark leafy greens, 20% chopped vegetables, 25% insects, and up to 5% fruit follows NC State College of Veterinary Medicine’s stated adult diet composition. Staple greens like collard, kale and dandelion should anchor that daily mix, since all carry calcium to phosphorus ratios above 2:1 in Merck’s table.

Can bearded dragons eat spinach every day?

No. Spinach carries the highest oxalate content of any food checked for this chart, close to 970 mg per 100 g. Oxalates bind calcium into a form the body cannot use, even though spinach’s raw calcium number looks high.

How is the calcium to phosphorus ratio calculated for each food?

It is the milligrams of calcium divided by the milligrams of phosphorus in the same 100 g portion. Merck Veterinary Manual’s staple selection rule favors foods with a high ratio, and its staple greens all sit above 2:1. It specifically flags apple, banana, lettuce and tomato as poor ratio foods.

What fruits are safest in limited amounts?

NC State College of Veterinary Medicine’s safe fruits limited list names papaya, melon, banana, figs, watermelon, apples, mango, dates, peaches, and apricots. That whole group is capped at a stated maximum of 5% of the total adult diet.

Do goitrogenic vegetables like kale need to be limited?

Cruciferous vegetables including kale, broccoli, and cabbage contain goitrogenic compounds that can affect thyroid function in large amounts. That is a general reptile nutrition principle rather than a confirmed bearded dragon dose. Rotating greens rather than one type is the practical fix.

How often should feeder insects be offered by age?

Hatchlings under one month eat insects only, two to three times daily. Dragons four months and older move to once daily feeding of crickets and worms. Vegetables get added every other day at that stage, per NC State College of Veterinary Medicine.