What do you feed wild baby lizards

What Do Lizards Eat? Diet In The Wild And As Pets

If you have ever walked around a garden in the summer, the chances are you have seen small, green or brown lizards. Garden lizards are very common and are also sold as pets.

Green anoles, fence lizards, and agamas are all popular species found in gardens and households.

Feeding a lizard is very simple once you learn what they eat and their dietary needs. Despite over 6,000 different species, lizards all fit into one of four feeding groups.

Continue reading to find out when and what to feed baby, wild and pet garden lizards.

Table of Contents

What Do Lizards Eat?
Feeding Lizards
- What Do Baby Lizards Eat?
- What Do Wild Lizards Eat?
Common Feeding Mistakes
Can Lizards Eat:
- What Fruit Can Lizards Eat?
- What Vegetables Can Lizards Eat?
- What Can’t They Eat?
Summary

What Do Lizards Eat?

Lizards will eat anything from leafy greens to insects. They are an extremely diverse group of reptiles and have different ranges, lifestyles and ways of hunting. Even a single species, that shares a small range, can have different hunting styles. Yet one thing all lizards share is that they fit into one of four feeding groups.

Most pet lizards, like leopard geckos, anoles, and house geckos, are insectivores. This means they only eat small insects and invertebrates. In the wild these lizards hunt flies, crickets, grasshoppers, moths, ants, and other small insects. As pets they usually eat crickets, roaches, or mealworms.

Some species, like bearded dragons, blue-tongued skinks and crested geckos, are omnivores. This means they have a diet of both plants and meat. The ratio of plants to meat can range from 10 to 80% depending on the species. Omnivorous lizards eat eggs, small animals, leaves, berries, grasses, and fruits. They need a lot of variation in their diet to stay healthy.

Finally, there are herbivorous and carnivorous lizards.

Herbivores only eat plants. They are very rare and less than 3% of all lizards are herbivores. The green iguana is one of the only pet lizards that is an herbivore.

Carnivorous lizards are not as rare as herbivores, but are rare compared to insectivores and omnivores. Carnivores only eat meat such as mice, rats, large insects, rabbits, or fish. The largest lizard in the world, the Komodo dragon, is a carnivore that eats deer and pigs.

Regardless of their feeding group, wild lizards typically eat less frequently than pets and spend most of their time in search of food. Pets have all their dietary needs provided for them and eat higher quality food than wild species.

Feeding Lizards

Collared lizard eating a grasshopper

A balanced diet is important to keep wild and pet lizards healthy. Prey and food variation provide different sources of nutrition and enrichment.

Their diet also change as they need different amounts of nutrients depending on their life stage. A good example is Baby lizards. They eat more food (proportional to their body weight) than adults as they are rapidly growing.

What Do Baby Lizards Eat?

A proper diet is very important for young lizards. Over their first few months they are developing their muscular and skeletal systems. Baby garden lizards usually eat insects and only a few fruits and vegetables. Flightless fruit flies, pinhead crickets, and bottle fly spikes are the best insects for baby lizards.

Baby lizards are growing faster than adults and need to eat more often. Their smaller size also means they cannot eat the same prey as adults and cannot go as long without eating.

Hatchling garden species of all sizes should be fed every day.

Their feeding frequency can only be decreased once they reach three months of age.

Feeding baby lizards is the same as feeding any reptile. But, because they aren’t as good at catching live prey, they should be fed from a small bowl or dish. This makes it easier for your lizard to hunt, prevents prey from escaping, and lets you keep track of how much they eat. You should also make sure all prey is smaller than the space between their eyes as this will prevent choking.

The exact amount of food will vary based on species, sex, and growth rate. But, using a feeding schedule is a helpful aid.

Below is an example of a healthy diet for any baby lizard:

Day	Food
Monday	5-6 pinhead crickets
Tuesday	3 bottle fly spikes, 6 flightless fruit flies
Wednesday	5-6 pinhead crickets
Thursday	–
Friday	3 bottle fly spikes, 3 small mealworms
Saturday	5-6 pinhead crickets
Sunday	3 bottle fly spikes, 6 flightless fruit flies

What Do Wild Lizards Eat?

The term ‘garden lizard’ is an umbrella category for many small species of lizard that can be found living in gardens and homes. These lizards are mostly insectivorous and eat flies, ants, crickets, spiders, and larvae. Waxworms, butterworms, and hornworms can be fed as treats.

Many wild lizards are easy to feed and are actually helpful to your garden as they hunt common pest invertebrates. This is very similar to Toads, they also eat pests and balance a garden’s ecosystem.

You will want to feed your garden lizard three or four times a week.

Smaller species like anoles and fence lizards should eat 2 to 5 small crickets or 2 mealworms each time. Larger species like agamas can eat 20 large crickets or 5 to 10 medium-sized dubia roaches.

Agamas are the only garden lizard that is an omnivore. In addition to the insects above, adult agamas should be fed kale and dandelion greens. Pieces of grapes, raspberries, or bananas can be fed as treats too.

Every adult should be fed appropriately sized crickets, mealworms, and dubia cockroaches. Larger food will need to be cut into pieces. It should be no bigger than the width between your lizard’s eyes.

Adult lizards should grow very slowly. Sudden, noticeable weight gain may mean you are overfeeding!

Keep an eye on your lizard’s weight and adjust feeding amounts accordingly.

See below for a feeding schedule for a small, insectivorous garden lizard:

Day	Food
Monday	3 small crickets, 2 small mealworms
Wednesday	4 small dubia roaches, 1 waxworm
Friday	3 small crickets, 2 small mealworms
Sunday	4 small dubia roaches

See below for a feeding a larger, omnivorous garden lizard (e.g. agama):

Day	Food
Monday	10 large crickets, 4 large mealworms
Wednesday	7 medium dubia roaches, 1 large hornworm
Friday	10 large crickets, dandelion greens
Sunday	7 medium dubia roaches, 2 grapes (halved)

Common Feeding Mistakes

Desert lizard eating a wasp

Not providing diet variation is a common mistake. It is easy to feed a lizard one or two prey items, but variation is the key to proper nutrition and enrichment. A restricted diet is very damaging to their health and can lead to metabolic bone disease and vitamin deficiencies, especially in omnivores.

It is always best to feed different foods to a lizard and rotate them throughout the month.

For example, feed your insectivore a mix of crickets and mealworms one week and roaches and crickets the next week. This will not only provide a wider range of nutrients, but will also mentally enrich them during feeding time.

Even with a varied diet, most captive lizards also require vitamin supplements to remain healthy.

Too few vitamins, especially vitamin D, can cause stunted growth and digestive and skeletal problems.

Dust food with a high-quality multivitamin and calcium powder twice a week. You can also gut-load feeder insects by feeding them fresh fruits and vegetables no more than 48 hours before they are fed to your lizard.

Finally, feeding lizards the wrong diet can result in vitamin deficiencies or even starvation.

Before feeding a lizard determine the species first. Try to understand is it an omnivore, herbivore, insectivore, or carnivore. This basic information is the best starting point for a healthy diet. Most garden lizards are pure insectivores, but some also eat fruits and vegetables.Oriental garden lizard hunting

Can Lizards Eat:

Roaches: Yes. Cockroaches make up a large percentage of many wild lizard diets. Many owners like to feed dubia cockroaches, which are high in moisture, calcium, fiber, and protein. Roaches are a good, reliable food source.

Ants: Yes, but it is not part of their staple diet. Ants are small, so they must be eaten in very large numbers to have any nutritional benefit. Some species, like the horned lizard, are adapted for eating ants.

Snakes: No. Larger species like monitors and tegus may eat baby snakes, but most lizards are preyed on by snakes.

Scorpions: No. Pet lizards should not be fed scorpions. Some desert-dwelling lizards like the Western banded gecko eat scorpions. However, this is rare, and most of the time it is the other way around!

Spiders: Yes. Small spiders are prey for house geckos, skinks and anoles. In many ecosystems, lizards are important predators that regulate the number of spiders in an area.

Fruit: Yes. Fruit is an essential part of the diet of omnivorous and herbivorous lizards. In moderation, fruit is a healthy, vitamin-rich snack that many species enjoy. Insectivores will not eat fruit, even if it is offered.

Chocolate: No. Chocolate is toxic and contains theobromine, a compound that is toxic to most animals, including reptiles. Theobromine is a stimulant that overloads the nervous and cardiac systems. It can lead to death.

Vegetables: Yes. Dark leafy greens, squash, now peas, parsley, and bell peppers are all great vegetables for lizards.

Bread: No. Lizards’ digestive tracts are not meant to handle grains and large amounts of complex sugars. Bread is not nutritious and should not be offered.

Worms: Yes. Some house lizards will eat earthworms. However, because of their slimy exterior, worms are not usually eaten unless they have no other option. Other worm-like invertebrates such as hornworms, waxworms, and mealworms are loved by lizards and make excellent treats.

What Fruit Can Lizards Eat?

Fruit makes a great treat for lizards every once and a while. Use fruit as a reward, or as a way to make other foods more appetizing, such as adding chopped mango to your bearded dragon’s salad.

These fruits are both safe and tasty:

Apples
Bananas
Grapes
Papayas
Honeydew melon
Cantaloupe
Kiwi
Blueberries
Strawberries
Pears
Pineapple
Figs
Peaches

Make sure to wash all fruits thoroughly and chop them up into bite-sized pieces before feeding them to a lizard. Discard any hard seeds, pits, or peels, and don’t feed any fruit that is moldy or not 100% safe for lizards.

Remember, only about 5% of your lizard’s diet should be fruit. Though healthy in small amounts, fruit is very high in sugar and eating too much of it can lead to health problems.

What Vegetables Can Lizards Eat?

Vegetables are the main food source for many lizards. Feeding a variety of veggies is healthy and decreases the likelihood of your reptile developing a vitamin deficiency. It also makes feeding time a more exciting and enriching experience.

Below are some common vegetables that lizards love and are known to be safe and healthy:

Kale
Dandelion greens
Carrots
Squash
Tomatoes
Sweet potatoes
Endive
Bell peppers
Parsley
Swiss chard
Collard greens
Yams
Spinach
Romaine lettuce

As with fruits, vegetables should be fed in moderation, along with insects.

Wash and cut vegetables into small chunks, discarding any inedible seeds or peels. Kale, romaine lettuce, and spinach should be given in small portions because they contain an enzyme that binds calcium.

What Can’t They Eat?

There are plenty of foods that are edible and safe for lizards, but there are also many that are not safe. For insectivores, only use feeder insects that are free from parasites and disease. For herbivores and omnivores, use fresh or frozen-thawed fruits and vegetables that are washed.

The foods listed below are either toxic or not nutritious for lizards:

Iceberg lettuce
Fireflies
Avocado
Juniper
Acorns
Eggplant
Garlic
Onion
Ticks
Celery
Butterflies
Caterpillars

Never feed wild-caught insects or fruits and vegetables taken directly from your garden (without washing them). Wild-caught insects may carry parasites. Fruits and vegetables can be covered in pesticides and other harmful chemicals that can lead to sickness.

Tree lizard eating a grasshopper

Summary

Most lizards fall into two categories: insectivores and omnivores.

Insectivores only eat insects and other invertebrates. They can eat anything from spiders, flies, and aphids to crickets, mealworms, and dubia roaches.

Some species have a diet similar to turtles and are omnivores. Omnivores eat insects too, but they also need fruits and vegetables in their diet. Safe fruits and veggies for lizards include bananas, papaya, grapes, yams, bell peppers, carrots, strawberries and dandelion greens.

Make sure you also provide your lizard with vitamin and calcium supplements twice a week and vary its diet to ensure it gets all the nutrients it requires.

What do you feed your lizard? Let us know in the comments below.

What do Baby Lizards Eat in the Wild and as Pets?

From the moment they hatch, baby lizards are independent. They do not require any care from their mother and will eat the same foods as adults. The diet of a baby lizard depends on whether the species is an herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore.

Though baby lizards do have the same nutritional needs as the adult, they will not be as effective at hunting and foraging as an adult lizard. These skills will be developed as the lizard matures and grows.

A pet baby lizard’s diet will depend on the species and you should consult with your veterinarian on the best diet to ensure your lizard’s overall health and well-being.

What Do Wild Baby Lizards Eat?

Image Credit: Piqsels

Whether the baby lizard is an herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore, they have the digestive capacity of an adult. A wild baby lizard will learn to hunt and forage as soon as it is hatched. Dependent on the region, they will get their proper nutrition by eating various plant life and/or prey.

Their diet is greatly dependent on their size. They may require smaller prey like insects and worms or larger prey such as mice, frogs, and other lizards if they are carnivorous or omnivorous. The omnivores will include local plant life in their diet.

They will practice hunting skills on smaller prey such as insects while they grow and mature. As they age and become more skilled hunters, they will move to larger prey. Wild baby lizards will likely never stop eating insects entirely.

Common prey items include crickets, ants, flies, grasshoppers, worms, spiders, small rodents. The overall diet of a wild baby lizard is highly dependent on available prey and hunting conditions.

A wild baby herbivorous lizard’s diet is limited to the local plants, fruits, and vegetables in their native region. As with any lizard, what they eat depends on where the lizard lives and its size.

Related Read: What Do Chameleons Eat in the Wild & as Pets?

What Do Pet Baby Lizards Eat?

Image Credit: agus fitriyanto suratno, Shutterstock

If you are caring for a pet baby lizard, you can offer the same food that is recommended for adults. As with any pet, you will want to consult your veterinarian for proper diet and nutrition recommendations.

Baby lizards can handle live prey, it will provide mental stimulation and great nutritional value. Pet stores will typically carry a variety of foods such as live crickets, flies, roaches, worms, and rodents. You do have the option to purchase dried mealworms and crickets. If you have a larger species, they do have frozen rodents available as well.

It’s highly recommended to monitor the live feeding sessions and remove any uneaten prey after about 20 minutes. Live prey that remains in the enclosure can cause harm to your baby lizard.

Herbivores will eat various fruits and greens. It is important to offer a wide variety of foods to your herbivorous baby lizard to avoid nutritional deficiencies.

Related Read: How to Take Care of a Lizard (Care Sheet & Guide)

Conclusion

You will want to research your particular species of lizard so that you can offer their native fruits and vegetables. You can purchase these fresh food items from the local grocery store. Pet stores will have dry food and food toppers available as well.

Keep in mind that omnivorous baby lizards will eat a variety of fruits, greens, and meat. You will need to adjust their diet accordingly.

Featured Image Credit: Laurent Duval, Pixabay

What and how to feed a lizard at home

Library / Reptiles / Nutrition / What to feed a lizard

Lizards are conditionally divided into 3 groups: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. The diet of the lizard is made up depending on the type and individual needs of the reptile.

Animal food for lizards

Since most lizards are still predators in their natural environment, the lion's share of their diet is live food. Often, reptiles are fed crickets, flies, bloodworms, grasshoppers, locusts, earthworms. Larger lizards are given mice, small rats and other rodents. You can also occasionally feed your pets with small or chopped fish, lean raw boneless meat, bird eggs. Cottage cheese is given as feed additives: it is left in feeders or laid out on stones and branches (for individuals who do not like to go down to the ground).

It is best to feed live food with tweezers, otherwise the insects will scatter around the terrarium. It is not recommended to feed cockroaches, except perhaps American ones, but they are mobile and fast, so their paws are often torn off before feeding. Meal worms are also useful, they do not feed lizards with beetles, because they have a hard shell. It is recommended to crush the head of the mealworm with tweezers, as it has strong jaws and can damage the mucous membranes. Some species of reptiles also eat adult May beetles. Large lizards also eat newly hatched chicks.

Vegetable food for lizards

About a third of a lizard's diet is vegetable food. You can offer your pet greens - lettuce, parsley, plantain, spinach, clover, dandelion and more. They eat well reptiles and pieces of vegetables - cabbage, broccoli, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, sometimes you can give raw potatoes. From fruits, you can give apples, pears, melons, grapes, citrus fruits - experimentally, you can find out which ones your pet likes best.

Vitamin and mineral supplements can be mixed into food: for example, added to fruits or porridge with insects. It is also useful for the lizard to give crushed eggshells, calcium glycerophosphate tablets, chalk, reptile preparations.

How to feed a lizard?

The most convenient way to feed herbal food is from Petri dish type feeders. Young lizards are fed 2 times a day, adults have enough one-time feeding. You need to give food at a time when the pet is most active (there are day and night lizards). After the reptile has eaten, the remnants of food are removed. The terrarium must have a drinking bowl. However, many species of reptiles prefer to lick drops of water from plants, so you need to spray the terrarium regularly.

Juveniles are fed with tweezers for the first time, adult food is placed in the feeder. It happens that lizards refuse to eat for some time, but at the same time they are active and drink water - this is a kind of fasting day. If the lizard refuses a new food, it may not be to her taste, it is better to gradually add it to her usual diet. In general, lizards are unpretentious and willingly eat most foods.

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What do lizards eat - What do they eat on planet Earth

Most lizards eat live food or are omnivores. There are some species that are vegetarians, however, they also eat animal food.

For example, an adult green iguana is 80 percent herbivorous. She enjoys eating fresh clover, spinach, dandelion leaves and flowers, as well as various fruits, berries and vegetables, but 20% of their diet should be animal food, such as grasshoppers, cockroaches or worms. Chameleons eat mainly insects, but do not mind eating bird eggs, worms, and plants.

Monitor lizards are almost all predators and eat only animal food.

Lizard eats lettuce

Adult dragons eat plant food and sometimes prefer animal food. At the same time, young agamas, on the contrary, prefer animal food to vegetable food.
Lizards are not fussy and feed on various insects.

There are some species that feed and destroy ant nests, eat their eggs, but these species are not kept in the terrarium due to the difficulty of keeping them and providing them with suitable conditions.

Most lizards, like snakes, use the Jacobson's organ to search for food and receive information through their forked tongue. Predatory species additionally use vision to find food, especially when it starts to move.

Geckos often do not see stationary insects and attack them only when they are in motion.
However, not all lizards have such hunting behavior, for example, lizards from the girdle-tail family easily perceive motionless arthropods and insects as food and capture them.

Chameleons shoot motionless prey with their tongue at a great distance and swallow it.

What to feed predatory lizards

The following live foods are suitable for predatory lizards:

various kinds of crickets;
fruit flies;
flies and their larvae;
various types of worms, beetles and their larvae;
various types of grasshoppers and cockroaches;
zofobas and flour worms.

The main food for lizards is insects

Do not catch food on the street, all this can be bought in specialized pet stores, some types of this food breed well at home.

For example, mealworm, zophobas, cockroaches, provided that they are provided with suitable conditions for reproduction, special containers with ventilation are sufficient, food and moisture. This food can be bought once and then maintain the required amount.

Most predatory and omnivorous lizards, such as skinks, eat snails, and for some species they are the only natural food.

Please note that if you do not have a specialized snail eater, then you should not let the lizard bite through the hard shell of the snail, in order to avoid injury to their jaws. Give small snails with weak shells, or split them yourself. Grape snails are suitable, you need to split them, remove the mollusk and give it to the lizard on tweezers, or put the chopped one in the feeder.

Large lizards such as monitor lizards eat live or dead food and may be given live or dead rats, mice, hamsters and guinea pigs.

Store-bought meats such as beef, pork or chicken etc. are not suitable as feed due to their industrial processing. It contains few useful and nutritious substances. It is better not to feed them with this meat, or feed them rarely.

What to feed vegetarian and omnivorous lizards

There are few purely vegetarian lizards in nature, most of them are omnivores. These species are easiest to feed with vegetable feed and periodically feed live.

It is enough to put food on a plate or saucer located in the terrarium. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the time the pet is active, and give food at these moments so that it does not deteriorate.

Agama eats vegetables

Some species easily consume dried fruits and vegetables, but remember that most of their moisture comes from fresh food.

It is not necessary to constantly feed the lizard with lettuce leaves, as they have little nutritional value, variety is needed.

Wild herbs are useful:

dandelion leaves and flowers;
clover, nettle;
wheat germ;
plantain.

Offer your pet vegetables such as zucchini or cucumbers. If the foods are hard, such as carrots, then let's grate it.

When feeding fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as herbs, they must be thoroughly rinsed in water.

If you feed wild herbs, then you need to collect them in places where they do not use industrial treatment with fertilizers and other poisons.

Some lizards like geckos like to eat sweet fruits. In nature, they lick overripe fruits or eat flower nectar. Offer them fruit pulp in a small bowl.

Feeding features and problems

In nature, some species of lizards can change their behavior under the threat of being attacked by a predator, because of this they can stop moving and refuse to feed for a while, or change their behavior in the process of foraging. They can also change their diet dramatically.

A similar situation can occur in a terrarium, if suddenly you or someone scares the lizard, it may stop eating its usual food.

In this situation, stay away from her for a few days, or try to shift the food to another place in the terrarium, it may be worth changing the food.

Due to fear, often the lizard will not touch the food in your presence, leave it food and move away from it.

Keep in mind that some species of lizards feed on the ground, and while some are hiding in the upper part of the terrarium, you may need to move the bowl up the terrarium, otherwise the lizard will not take food from the ground.

Feeding the lizard in the upper part of the terrarium

Animals can be fed with large tweezers, sometimes it is more convenient so that the food does not scatter around the terrarium and hide from the lizard.
For the health of pets, food should always be varied, as in wildlife.

The size of the lizard's food depends on its size. If you have a small reptile, for example, about 13 cm, then its food insects should not exceed 1.5 cm. As the lizard matures and grows, the size of the food and taste preferences change.

It should be remembered that food insects must be alive, otherwise the pet will not take them.

If you keep several animals in a terrarium, make sure that they get food evenly, and do not steal from each other.

Some lizards are naughty and refuse to eat food if it is contaminated, for example in dust, this is due to its smell.

Various multivitamin and calcium supplements, sold in pet stores, must be added to the water.