Trouble with veggies

So my husband and I recently rescued a bearded that is about 1yr old he was fed mainly worms and they tried to feed him wild caught insects. I've gotten him to eat proper crickets and dubia's but he won't touch veggies or fruit. I've tried cutting them to look more like worms we have dropped them in and withheld crickets, worms and dubia's. I'm running out of ideas and I need help to get him to eat veggies.

They can be such stubborn little eaters. And at a year old it's going to be challenging to get him to try out his veggies but not impossible.

Have you tried putting his bowl of salad in his enclosure first thing in the am and not feeding him insects until later in the day? This works the best for me. Usually (not always) my dragon will get hungry enough before her insect meal to eat at least some salad.

I know you said he is a rescue so before I recommend tough love I want to make sure he's overall healthy? If his health is good and he isn't under weight or suffering from any chronic illnesses you can also try holding out on insects for a couple of days and see if he will get hungry enough to eat his salad.
You can also gut load his insects using the veggies you would like for him to eat and try out things like repashys veggie burger. It doesn't replace the need for veggies but it does help add more beneficial nutrition to their diets. Some dragons love it others turn their nose up to it but it can make a great salad topper for those who like it.

He had a slight upper respiratory but we already got that taken care of. He is actually a fat guy so I've monitored his feeding time and his color came back. He eats his crickets covered in his multivitamin twice a week and I've already tried withholding the insects. I was thinking about maybe getting one of those vibrating dishes and seeing if the movement helps any.

I've tried cutting the veggies and fruit to look like worms but he's not into that. I was told he likes papaya but he isn't even going for that.

it certainly wouldn't hurt to try out the vibrating dish it may spark his interest.

How long have you withheld insects? I know it sounds cruel and I absolutely hate doing it, but since he is a healthy boy it will not harm him to go longer than a couple of days. I'm currently battling a super worm addiction in my beardie who is overweight. today was day 5 with no food and she finally cracked and ate her salad and roaches. Because she went that long I did make sure to offer extra water since she was not getting any mouisture from insects.

Keep working with him he will eventually cave. He may never be the type to eat an entire bowl every day but you should at least be able to get him to a point where he is eating a small proportion every day or two. That along with gutloading his insects will go a long ways

You can also put some phoenix worms or calci worms in the salad and put him next to it to see them. He'll start going for the worms and either miss and get veggies or get veggies along with the worms. Then he'll get used to salads and could start eating them on it's own.

Though I have only been a reptile owner since December so I may be wrong

I've tried the worms in his salad he spits the greens out lol. He's a stubborn one.
Right now he is on day two of no bugs and he is in his first shed with us so he is very cranky. He decided he doesn't like people with beards while he is shedding.

The previous owner seems to have done a number on him.

Vibrating dish sounds perfect for Mystic. He's picky too. I tried grub pie mixture, he does not eat it plain. I chop it up in a chopper with unsweetened apple sauce and have to feed him like a baby. He's 2 years old. Normally he stomps though his dish of veggies when I'm gone. He's got me trained, lol.

Pluto would rather lay on top of his greens instead of eating them. He picks worms out and leaves the salad a piece gets in his mouth and he will push it back out with his tongue. We have tried hand feeding him. He has decides he won't eat if he is on me he has to be on my husband and has to be my husbands fingers because he tries to get his fingers every now and then but refuses to eat anything while on me.

I hope he caves soon. Someone else mentioned that their dragon will eat their salad while they are gone. If your home throughout the day it may be good to leave the room for awhile and see if he will eat then. A lot of dragons are shy eaters when it comes to salad, it's as if they don't want their humans to know they actually ate it lol.

They do tend to get a little moody when they are shedding which is understandable. I imagine it's probably a miserable feeling.

Wishing you and him the best of luck. Keep us updated and let us know if he eventually cracks and eats some of his salad. Remember to keep him well hyderated since he's not getting mouisture via insects and all should be just fine.

Me too. We have a heck of a time trying to get our beardie to eat his veggies. Sometimes my husband can slip a leaf in his mouth while he's busy chewing on a cricket, and once in a while he'll actually eat it. Otherwise, he seems to think he's supposed to be a strict insectivore.

I once brought him home from the vet early in the morning, and I hadn't had time to put his daily salad in his terrarium. He went over and stood in the corner where the salad dish was supposed to be and gave me "The Look". So I hurried up and got him a salad, and he took a look at it (didn't touch it), and then turned around and climbed up his ramp to his basking area, as if to say, "Oh I wasn't going to eat it. I just needed to let you know you hadn't done your job." :roll:

I haven't tried one of those jiggle bowls. I've heard that some bearded dragons are afraid of them. But I've noted that ours does tend to go after anything that's moving, so I suppose it might be worth a try.

It's going to be interesting to see what the rest of you come up with -- maybe some other tricks that I haven't thought off.

I've also wondered if the conventional wisdom may be a little off about adult bearded dragons needing to get 80% of their nutrition from vegetable sources, and if it could be that since they're omnivores, maybe they can manage to be reasonably healthy on a wide range of different diets, just like humans. Some people do fine on vegetarian diets, but on the other hand, the traditional Alaska Native subsistence diet, which is about 95% meat and/or fish, seems to also be very healthy for them. Maybe the same thing is true for bearded dragons -- maybe they're adapted to live on whatever is available (or in the case of our "spoiled" pets, whatever they like and whatever they can get their human slaves to provide for them) :wink:

I think that's a good theory SHBailey, I too have often thought maybe the importance of salad is exaggerated just a tad in the bearded dragon community. That's not too say I do not completely understand the importance of veggies, just maybe it's not a one size fits all. I like to give my dragon enough credit by assuming she knows what it is she needs much more than I do. But I also know, in the same way a child may need some reassurance to eat healthy, our pets do too. That is why we do include multivitamins in our dragons diets. That helps to cover all of the major vitamins we are unable to provide them with.

I think using multivitamins weekly mixed with gutloading our insects really does help to balance things out more. That's not to say it's not important to offer a salad daily (just incase) but as long as your doing both of those things I really think your baby is getting plenty of good nutrients

Yes, we know that between what's available and what he'll eat, our beardie has a very limited amount of variety in his diet, so we always dust his bugs with calcium and vitamins, as well as feeding them what we hope is a good diet (ready made cricket food) in the meantime. "Daddy" managed to get him to eat at least 4 little bites of collard greens today with his usual trick of slipping them in his mouth while he was chewing on a cricket, an example of strong encouragement to eat healthy as you say

I have to confess that it probably doesn't help that his human "mom" (that would be me) sometimes behaves as if the 4 basic food groups are sugar, salt, grease, and chocolate . So when I give my beardie the lecture on nutrition ("Can you say 'omnivore'? it means you eat bugs AND veggies...") he has every right to look at me like "Oh yeah? Who are you to tell me I should eat those yucky greens when you don't practice what you preach? "

Meanwhile, we continue to put fresh greens in our beardie's terrarium every day, just in case he takes a notion...

Currently caved and started his bugs back up but gutloading his dubia's with fresh veggies. He's being extra stubborn between shedding and having a harness on for a little while today so he didn't want to touch them until I put up his "privacy" wall (a cardboard display trifold). I use it for him to eat when he doesn't want to see us watching him.

We got pluto to eat a little bit of greens today on his own. I tore pieces off of the leaf and rolled them in my hands to look like worms but to where they would slowly start to unwrap so the movement would entice him.

Ooooh... what a good idea! We're going to have to try that with Puff :mrgreen: