Can Bearded Dragons Eat Snap Peas
Learn how to feed snap peas to your bearded dragon and whether they’re good nutrition for them
Last Updated: January 10th, 2022
By: Steve
Table of Contents
Can bearded dragons eat Snap Peas? Are Snap Peas good for bearded dragons? Yes, bearded dragons can eat snap peas regularly as part of a balanced diet.
What Are Snap Peas For Bearded Dragons?
Snap peas, or sugar snap peas as they’re sometimes known, are a green legume pea with an edible pod. The pods themselves have fairly thick walls and are slightly rounded which makes them slightly different to snow peas since there pods are flatter.
Standard peas have an tougher, inedible pod and these require shelling before eating. The inedible pod from these peas is usually thrown away. Not so with the snap pea though, the whole thing is eaten.
If the snap pea is left to grow too long the pod can become more fibrous and tough, making it less palatable so it’s best to get them young.
Can Bearded Dragons Eat Snap Peas?
Snap peas are similar in appearance and make up to green beans and are also a good vegetable to give your bearded dragon regularly as part of a balanced vegetable diet.
Snap peas have a nice taste which isn’t too tangy but equally not too bland either. Our bearded dragons do like a couple of snap peas in their salad most days.
Since the pod is nice and soft and the snap peas have a good moisture content they’re helpful at keeping your bearded dragon hydrated too.
Advantages Of Snap Peas For Bearded Dragons
Disadvantages Of Snap Peas For Bearded Dragons
How Should I Feed Snap Peas To A Bearded Dragon?
Snap peas can be served raw to bearded dragons who’ll enjoy the slightly crunchy nature of the pod and the peas inside. They can be sliced if the bearded dragon is small, although most will bite off pieces at a time.
Generally, the edge of the snap pea pod can be a little bit stringy and tougher to bite through, so some people, ourselves included, tend to pull this away when preparing the snap peas for bearded dragons. But it’s not essential.
2 or 3 snap peas can be added either whole or cut into smaller pieces to a bearded dragon’s salad bowl in the morning and placed into the vivarium with them. They can stay pretty much all day, although if the humidity is low (and it should be) they’ll dry out and may need replacing by the afternoon.
Although in vegetable terms they do have a reasonable calcium content, there’s still not enough calcium to meet your bearded dragon’s metabolic needs, so all salads will need a light dusting of calcium powder twice to three times a week.
Mix the snap peas in with a mixture of leafy greens, colorful squashes or bell peppers or even dandelion flowers to provide some variety in taste and color.
How Much Snap Pea Should I Feed A Bearded Dragon?
Your bearded dragon can eat snap peas every day as part of a balanced salad diet.
You can feed as many snap peas as your bearded dragon will eat. It’s extremely unlikely that they’ll eat too much – indeed most bearded dragon keepers have more problem getting their bearded dragons to eat enough greenery. We find a bit of organic bee pollen can help ‘sweeten the deal’ and coax the stubborn ones to eat a bit of salad.
You should mix in other vegetables to give your dragon some variety, but there’s no upper limit on how much they can have.
Nutritional Data For Snap Peas For Bearded Dragons
| Nutritional Item | Content |
|---|---|
| Water Content (%) | 88.89 |
| Fat (%) | 0.39 |
| Protein (%) | 2.8% |
| Dietary Fibre (%) | 2.6% |
| Calcium (mg/100g) | 43 (0.043%) |
| Potassium (mg/100g) | 200 (0.2%) |
| Phosphorous (mg/100g) | 53 (0.053%) |
| Vitamin A (ug/100g) | 54 |
| Vitamin C (ug/100g) | 60 |
| Oxalates (mg/100g) | Low[2] |
Can I Grow My Own Snap Peas?
Definitely, particularly in temperate environments such as the UK. Snap peas (and peas in general) are a commonly grown vegetable in allotments and back gardens and according to the Royal Horticultural Society are “easy to grow from seed”[3].
Like their cousin the green bean, they do require plenty of water though, which isn’t surprising since 88% of their make up is water. They’ll also need something to climb up, such as bamboo poles or some form of frame.
You can buy Snap Pea seeds at Amazon here.
Summary
So, can bearded dragons eat snap peas and are snap peas OK for bearded dragons? The answer is yes, snap peas are perfectly good for bearded dragons as part of a balanced vegetable diet. They provide good hydration and aren’t bad in the level of calcium provided – though their green bean cousin does have a better calcium to potassium and phosphorous ratio. But then snap peas appear to have less Oxalate. So the moral of this story is, balanced diet once again.
They will need dusting with a good calcium powder twice a week just to boost that calcium level up even further.
Frequency: STAPLE.
For more information on other vegetables that Bearded Dragons can eat, please see our larger overview post at ‘What Vegetables Can Bearded Dragons Eat?’
References
1: Wikipedia – Snap Pea – fetched May 2021. Unfortunately USDA doesn’t appear to list Snap Peas any longer.
2: Lake Shore Pet Hospital Oxalates In Foods Fetched on 8 May 2021 from https://lakeshorepethospital.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Oxalates_In_Food.pdf
3: Royal Horticultural Society. How To Grow Peas. Fetched on 9th May 2021 from https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/grow-your-own/vegetables/peas