Baby dragon not eating much - help!

undercoverbossk · Oct 9, 2018

Hello,
We are the proud owner of a new baby/juvenile BD. We purchased him at a reptile show on Sunday. He is about 6 inches long. Since being home, he has only eaten 5 crickets (fed to him) and some greens on the first day and only 2 crickets on the second (1 fed, 1 dead eaten from the floor). Is he eating enough? Doesn't seem like it. Should he be hunting for his own food? Seems to just lay around where ever he is put down without moving much.
Is he just still stressed (I know I am)? I just upgraded the UVB lighting to a Reptisun tube so I hope that will help him to be more active and maybe increase his appetite.
He seems most active when my 12 yo son holds him, climbing around his arms and shoulders.
Thanks for any advice to get this little guy up and running.

Xanelic · Oct 9, 2018

undercoverbossk":wylng4lj said:
Hello,
We are the proud owner of a new baby/juvenile BD. We purchased him at a reptile show on Sunday. He is about 6 inches long. Since being home, he has only eaten 5 crickets (fed to him) and some greens on the first day and only 2 crickets on the second (1 fed, 1 dead eaten from the floor). Is he eating enough? Doesn't seem like it. Should he be hunting for his own food? Seems to just lay around where ever he is put down without moving much.
Is he just still stressed (I know I am)? I just upgraded the UVB lighting to a Reptisun tube so I hope that will help him to be more active and maybe increase his appetite.
He seems most active when my 12 yo son holds him, climbing around his arms and shoulders.
Thanks for any advice to get this little guy up and running.

It's just some relocation stress, he should be fine IMO. When I first got my guy he was 2 months with relocation stress but let me handle him for some reason. He only ate 8 worms a day until another week where he pooped and began eating 24 worms.

And yes, you should let your little guy hunt every so often because if you tong feed him, he might get lazy and only wants to be tong fed. (Though make sure to get rid of any crickets that he has not eaten in 10 minutes)

undercoverbossk · Oct 10, 2018

Thanks for the reassurance. We have not tried worms although the first day he pooped what looked like a worm, so perhaps he is more used to eating worms than crickets. I will pick up some superworms today and try.
What is the best way to tongue feed? Perhaps we are not doing that correctly.
Also is there a best time of day to feed? First thing in the morning or after they've warmed up a little.

Thanks again.

kingofnobbys · Oct 10, 2018

undercoverbossk":1tq4v275 said:
Thanks for the reassurance. We have not tried worms although the first day he pooped what looked like a worm, so perhaps he is more used to eating worms than crickets. I will pick up some superworms today and try.
What is the best way to tongue feed? Perhaps we are not doing that correctly.
Also is there a best time of day to feed? First thing in the morning or after they've warmed up a little.

Thanks again.

If you want to try worms , don't get mealworms or superworms or waxworms , get BSF lavae or small to medium (up to 1.5" long) silkworms.

BSF lavae (aka calciworms, calcigents, phoenix worms) are excellent nutritionally but can take some coaxing to get a lizard who is not used to their exterior taste) to eat them, snip off the heads and squeeze out some of the worm guts so the hatchling can taste/smell the good stuff and it'll be more inclined to eat them.
Very rare for a hatchling to pass up a nice juicy silkworm , they are slow moving and 6 - 8 medium silks is big meal.

undercoverbossk · Oct 10, 2018

Update - our BD (named Brad) ate 7 crickets today. My son hobbled a few and Brad was all over them. He preferred the moving crickets over being hand fed.
He seems more active today. Better UVB light, less stress. We also put in a branch which he climbed up almost immediately; he never climbed onto the flat rock we initially put in. We may try some silk worms soon assuming we can find any.

Tomorrow, his first bath.

Thanks for all of the help.

kingofnobbys · Oct 10, 2018

undercoverbossk":2opa8mwq said:
Update - our BD (named Brad) ate 7 crickets today. My son hobbled a few and Brad was all over them. He preferred the moving crickets over being hand fed.
He seems more active today. Better UVB light, less stress. We also put in a branch which he climbed up almost immediately; he never climbed onto the flat rock we initially put in. We may try some silk worms soon assuming we can find any.

Tomorrow, his first bath.

Thanks for all of the help.

If you are moving into winter ( north America, EU, UK ) silkworm grubs wont be available much longer , but you should still be able find silkworm eggs that are ready to hatch, I'd recommend buying 200 - 300 eggs + 250g of Silkworm Chow (in powder form) , hatching the eggs and then making up chow (mixing in boiling water (32g/88g water), nuking on hi for 90s, then chilling in the fridge and shaving off slivers as needed to feed the small worms.
In about 4 weeks after they have hatched they will be big enough to use as feeders for you little hatchling bearded dragon (ie 1" long).

Baby dragon not eating much - help!

undercoverbossk

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Xanelic

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kingofnobbys

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