ᐅ Can Bearded Dragons Eat Spinach?

image of bearded dragon, spinach, and a text saying: can bearded dragons eat spinach?

Factors To Consider Before Feeding Your Beardie Spinach

As we all know, spinach is a superfood for humans. It is rich in fiber, antioxidants, and lots of minerals and vitamins to boost our health. But, can bearded dragons eat spinach?

Yes, bearded dragons can eat spinach occasionally, on very rare occasions, and in tiny amounts.

This article will share some of the benefits and risks of feeding spinach to your bearded dragon.

Nutritional Information About Spinach

Let’s look at the nutrient value of 100 grams of spinach in a Bearded dragon’s diet.

Nutrient Name	Amount
Water	91.4 g
Energy	23 Kcal
Protein	2.86 g
Total lipid (fat)	0.39 g
Carbohydrate, by difference	3.63 g
Fiber	2.2 g
Sugars	0.42 g
Calcium	99 mg
Phosphorus	49 mg
Sodium	1 mg
Vitamin C	28.1 mg
Iron	2.71 mg
Magnesium	79 mg
Potassium	558 mg

If you want to find out more about the nutritional perks of feeding your bearded dragon spinach every once in a while; read on.

Benefits Of Bearded Dragon Eat Spinach

Low sugar content

Bearded dragons don’t flourish on a high-sugar diet.

When you often feed your bearded dragon sugary foods, your beardie can develop tooth decay, fatty liver disease, diabetes, obesity, and even life-threatening heart failure.

Spinach contains almost no sugar, making it a heart-healthy option for the occasional salad.

Vitamin A, Beta Carotene, and Vitamin C

These key nutrients are essential to a healthy immune system, vision, reproduction, and growth.

Vitamin K1

This Vitamin regulates blood clotting and supports bone health.

Fiber

Promotes regular digestion

Folate

Assists in tissue growth and cell maintenance.

Iron

Baby bearded dragons mostly need iron to aid oxygen flow to the body’s organs.

Healthy Calcium to Phosphorus Ratio

Bearded dragons should rarely eat phosphorus-rich foods, especially foods with more phosphorus than calcium. It’s safer for bearded dragons to regularly consume foods with a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 1.1 or 2.1 in favor of calcium.

Phosphorus binds with calcium and prevents it from absorbing into your dragon’s bloodstream. Since calcium is such a vital mineral for bearded dragon survival, long-term consumption of phosphorus-rich foods can be extremely harmful, resulting in metabolic bone disease (MBD) and even death.

Spinach is one of those foods containing calcium and phosphorus, but more calcium than phosphorus. So it’s safe for beardies—beneficial, even—as far as that ratio is concerned.

If that was the only factor we had to consider, bearded dragons could eat spinach every day without any issues.

Risks Of Feeding A Bearded Dragon Spinach

Despite all the incredible benefits, spinach has one fatal flaw: it’s packed with oxalates.

Too many oxalates can be extremely harmful and even fatal to bearded dragons. The oxalates bind with the calcium and prevent calcium absorption into the bloodstream. It can lead to metabolic bone disease.

Metabolic Bone Disease

Unfortunately, MBD is one of the most common diseases among domestic bearded dragons. It can easily be preventable with proper diet and care.

Metabolic bone disease (also known as nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism or fibrous osteodystrophy) refers to several painful skeletal disorders caused by a lack of calcium in the body. The disease causes severe bone, muscle, and tissue damage, resulting in paralysis or death.

Alert your vet immediately if you notice any signs of metabolic bone disease in your bearded dragon. These include:

Lack of appetite
Lethargy and weakness
Stress

Constipation
Receded lower jaw
Swollen limbs and jaw

Bumps along the spine or bones
Soft jaw, and facial bones
Bowed limbs and arched spine

Fractures and broken bones
Greenstick fractures (folded or bent bones)
Trembling and twitching limbs

Tremors and seizures
Paralysis or difficulty moving

You can prevent this with the necessary diet and care. We recommend adding calcium supplements and vitamin supplements to your beardies food to keep it healthy and happy.

Can Baby Bearded Dragons Eat Spinach?

You should not feed spinach to baby beardies or juvenile dragons. Spinach contains a high amount of oxalates which will bind with calcium and cause calcium deficiency which is very important towards the development of baby bearded dragons.

How Often Can Bearded Dragons Eat Spinach?

Although some bearded dragon owners don’t want to risk the health of their adult bearded dragons by feeding them spinach, It should be perfectly fine on rare occasions (a few leaves every couple of months).

How To Prepare Spinach For Your Bearded Dragon?

Buy Spinach

When buying any kind of greens for your bearded dragon, it’s always best to source organic if possible.

Wash

You should always give the spinach a thorough wash under clean running water to ensure it’s dirt free.

Cooking

Spinach is soft, so it doesn’t need cooking as this will only decrease its nutritional value.

Chop Up

Unless you prefer to chop the spinach into bite-sized pieces, there’s no need to chop the spinach up as beardies can easily eat the leaves as they are.

Serve

Place the spinach with other leafy greens and fruit and sweet potato as part of a healthy salad in a bowl and serve to your beardie.

To Conclude

At first glance, it looks like spinach has all the nutrients for a very healthy snack, and yes, bearded dragons can eat spinach occasionally, in very small amounts.

However, after looking at the oxalates in spinach, it became clear that spinach can have severe or even fatal consequences when given too much.

After reading this article, we hope that you have a clearer understanding of the benefits and risks involved in feeding spinach to your bearded dragon.

Continue to read our main article “What do Bearded Dragons Eat?” for all the ins and outs on general diet questions, and get a further detailed breakdown of other popular foods in the articles below: