Hi
I hope someone with more experience might be able to give us some advice…
We have had our Rankin for 5 months now and she is about 6-7months old we think. She(/he) has been a picky eater since we got her but for the last week has refused to eat anything. She has never eaten any veg (apart form once or twice by accident!) she used to eat crickets and locusts but stopped eating them so we moved onto waxworms and silkworms but now won’t even eat them. We are also trying cali worms at moment but she isn’t interested in anything.
Initially we were advised by the pet shop that this was all due to stress but a recent sample showed that she had a small amount of parasites so last week the vet prescribed some medicine. Ever since we gave her the medicine she has refused to eat anything. We spoke to the vet again and he suggested we take her back in so he can force feed her.
It would be great to know your thoughts on this, is force feeding a Rankin a good idea?
I’m concerned that if she is really stressed due to being force fed the medicine last then I’m not sure that force feeding her food will really help in the longterm but on the other hand I don’t have any real sense of how long Rankins can go without eating? How fragile are they? would they really starve themselves to death?
She is currently 35.5 grams and was 22.4 grams when we first got her.
Details of our set up:
Viv - 60cm x 40cm x 50cm
Basking spotlight with a thermostat, 37˚C hot end 26˚C at the cool end, temps drop to about 19˚C at night.
On a textured tile for a substrate (was on sand for the first couple of months as supplied by the pet shop)
UVB Arcadia 10% light 30cm from floor
We give her a bath twice a week
Many thanks
Simon
I hope someone with more experience might be able to give us some advice…
We have had our Rankin for 5 months now and she is about 6-7months old we think. She(/he) has been a picky eater since we got her but for the last week has refused to eat anything. She has never eaten any veg (apart form once or twice by accident!) she used to eat crickets and locusts but stopped eating them so we moved onto waxworms and silkworms but now won’t even eat them. We are also trying cali worms at moment but she isn’t interested in anything.
Initially we were advised by the pet shop that this was all due to stress but a recent sample showed that she had a small amount of parasites so last week the vet prescribed some medicine. Ever since we gave her the medicine she has refused to eat anything. We spoke to the vet again and he suggested we take her back in so he can force feed her.
It would be great to know your thoughts on this, is force feeding a Rankin a good idea?
I’m concerned that if she is really stressed due to being force fed the medicine last then I’m not sure that force feeding her food will really help in the longterm but on the other hand I don’t have any real sense of how long Rankins can go without eating? How fragile are they? would they really starve themselves to death?
She is currently 35.5 grams and was 22.4 grams when we first got her.
Details of our set up:
Viv - 60cm x 40cm x 50cm
Basking spotlight with a thermostat, 37˚C hot end 26˚C at the cool end, temps drop to about 19˚C at night.
On a textured tile for a substrate (was on sand for the first couple of months as supplied by the pet shop)
UVB Arcadia 10% light 30cm from floor
We give her a bath twice a week
Many thanks
Simon