Diet: Crickets, mealworms and veggies

[rolandrau]

Hi All,

Hope everyone is keeping well...?

Just have a quick question regarding my beardies diet.

My female eats pretty normally when it comes to crickets, but not a big veg fan at all.
My male doesnt like crickets in the least and pretty much only eats mealworms, no matter how hard i try to get him to eat crickets he refuses everytime, veggies he pretty much ignores other than possibly once off maybe every 2nd week where he will chomp on something and then not eat them for a while again.

So to my questions:

1. What veggies are you guys feeding your beardies that they just absolutely love and cant get enough of?
2. Is there anything i can do to get my male to start eating crickets short of starving the dude to the point where he has no choice, from what i understand the fat intake from mealworms is not all that healthy for them on a daily basis and its concerning me that i am doing him harm long term...

And just for context:

Female: Squirmy - we guess her to be about 2 years old
Male: Skilly - is literally 1 year and 1 month today

Any help and tips would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Roland

[Jaco Smit]

Hey Roland its been a while.
I sometimes get the same thing but most times mine goes for both.
What I do is, I wash the veggies and leave it semi wet this way they stay good a bit longer, they shine in the light and I switch off the heat sources and let them eat with only the uvb 26w on. That way the heat does not make the food go bad that quickly. Mine loves baby marrow and peppers. I do not give tham fruits since they don't have a like for it. Strange...
Superworms are better than mealworms is what I believe. And I still crush their heads in before throughing them in the vivs.

I believe your solution is getting roaches. I had a great experiance with Paul Claven from SARoachman. Great guy. He ships throughout the country. Get some laubsters from him. Great quality and not to messy. They last months and make great feeders if you feed and keep them in the right conditions.

ShoutOut to
http://www.saroachman.co.za

Let me know if you will decide on that and share your experiance with us.

Keep well.

[rolandrau]

Hi Jaco,

Yeah it has been a while, work been keeping me very busy at the moment :-(

I will give the SA Roachman a try, it's just concerning me so much cause i have quite a few friends with beardies and their eating habits seems to differ vastly from mine...

I normally give my guys, all types of leaves, mint, corriander, parsley, rocket, and basil. Occasionally i throw in a few berries, like strawberries and the like but still they turn their nose up most times. Before i put the veg in the tank i normally spray it with water so that it is wet and always put it in a shady spot in the tank, also found that it lasts a bit longer.

Dont know why but they both seem to be very lazy hunters, unless the cricket walks in front of their faces they wont go running after them. I suppose thats mainly my fault from too much hand feeding, i created my own problem here hahahaha

I will go and get some today from a pet shop for testing before i get them shipped out from the site though...

Will reply back on progress tomorrow

Thanks for the advise Jaco

[rolandrau]

Oh and one other thing, which peppers? Like green,yellow and red peppers?

Do you grate or chop them up finely?

[Jaco Smit]

For adults like yours you can through in green and yellow peppers cut into 8ml half curve slices that way they can chow them bit after bite until they had enough and bite off and leave the rest. You can chop it up if you like try and make it noticable.

Just like you if you dont get enough vits and iron you will also be lazy. Veggies puts lots of goodies in their tummy. Very importent. Try butternut and baby marrow.
Hear from you soon.

[Shaun P]

Hi Rolandrau

I think the main problem is the hand feeding, I have had somebody tell me in the past month that they have the same problem that you are talking about. Try to stop feeding them anything for about 2-3 days, they will be fine. If you say that are to lazy to chase crickets, they are probably over their optimum weight anyway. After 2-3 days try some veggies, I feed all my beadies Baby Marrow, Patty Pans, butternut, green beans and baby peas, I also throw in some mulberry leaves when available. drop maybe 2 or 3 very small mealworms on the veggies, almost cover them with the veggies. The movement from the mealworms below will attract them. This is how I get my baby dragons to start eating veggies before I sell them.
At the age your dragons are they should be eating at least 60% veggies, to much protein is bad for adult dragons and will cause liver problems, shortening their lives.

Regards
Shaun

[rolandrau]

Hi Shaun,

Thanks for the reply...

Just to pre-empt things that i know will happen, lets say after 2-3 days of no food i throw in the veg with a couple worms in and they still refuse to eat it?

Do i then rinse and repeat the process? And how long do i or can i continue this process for? (SAFELY)

Thanks

Roland

[Jaco Smit]

Hi Roland.

I agree with Shaun it could work. Your beardies can go without any food for about a week or two without having any troubles.
So thre days or so wont hurt them.
You will see them moving towards you whenever you walk by. They get hungry...

What are they doing with the roaches? If you couldn't get, then try the marrows and peas after a few days of no foods.

Let us know. And remember to check the behaviour of the dragons.

[Shaun P]

Hi Roland

Yes I know that it might not work first time around. But as Jaco has said they can go for extended periods of time without any detrimental effects. I actually don't feed mine for around 2 weeks, while brumating them. And they wake up and breed well for me. I guarantee that yours maybe well stocked with fat supplies in his tail. If he does not go for it first time around. Keep him away from food for a week, and try again.

Let me know what happens!

Regards
Shaun

[rolandrau]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies! What i have decided to do is not feed until saturday where i will attempt to feed them some veg. Should they not eat the veg again i will attempt to feed again on tuesday next week.

Is this enough time?

They do have real plants in their outside enclosure which is watercress so if they eat that in the interim i guess then they eat that.

No luck on the roaches by the way, hoping there will be someone at the expo that will have...

Ciao for now

Roland

P.S i will report back on their eating on saturday

[Shaun P]

Think on the bright side if they resort to eating the watercress, then problem solved.

[Jaco Smit]

Hi Roland. Yes Paul is always there he has tubs with green lids and loads of spiderlings.

SARoachman.
Get some laubster roaches good meat to price ratio.
I am actually gonna miss this expo... Cant believe it...

[rolandrau]

Update on the 2 little shits that are not eating veg....

So this morning i decided after 3 days of absolutely no crickets, meal worms or veg to put give them something to eat. I cut up green pepper, pumpkin, baby marrows and mixed them with corriander leaves!
If i was a beardie i'd say that would look pretty awesome and i would eat it BUT my 2 fussy buggers have not touched it, they simply looked at it and wondered off into the relevant spots in their tanks.

So i will leave the veg in for today and hopefully at some point they will actually eat something, if not, back to another 3 day session of nothing!

Off to the expo now to see if i can get me some roaches at the same time.

Ciao

Me

[Shaun P]

Yeah, don't worry to much. If they are hungry they will eat, no chance of them dying!

[rolandrau]

Hi guys,

Ok so heres the latest on my 2 NON VEG EATERS... Just over a week now, STILL NO VEG INTAKE!!!

I really am at a loss here, they just seem to refuse veg. They literally have not had a bite to eat the entire time but still won't.

Food i have tried:

pumpkin
marrows
rocket
parsely
carrots
prickly pears
mixed salad (green salad, watercress/rocket/and some other red leaf thing)
strawberries
apple
grapes
berries of all varients

Seriously what am i missing here. Conditions in their tanks are perfect with the right amount of UV, day time lighting and heat as well as fans that cycle air throughout the day.

Please guys any more pointers would be appreciated. It's far too early for any brumation so it cant be that at all.

Ciao

Concerned Me