Weight Loss Questions

Hi all! My older girl, Merlin, is around 9. She's very, very lazy and was a bit overweight for her last vet check up. I am cutting her feeders back quite a bit, but she is still super picky about veggies. I have seen slurry recipes around, but should I just blend a bunch of veggies into a liquid for her? Should I use baby food? How can I get it into liquid form? And what are the best veggies to feed for weight loss?

I have also read that swimming really helps beardies lose weight. Merlin is a strong swimmer, but she gets so stressed out whenever we go in the water. Are there any other activities besides swimming that would be helpful? Getting her to walk is difficult, lol - she is a lazy girl.

Any advice welcome! Thank you.

Hi there,

What is Merlins weight right now?
And what did her daily diet look like before the change?
And now?

Is Merlin acting generally healthy and this is just concern about her weight or does she have other symptoms of being sickly? Hopefully it's just a concern over weight

Does she explore if you allow her to roam the house? If baths stress her out I'd avoid them to be honest.

-Brandon

Hey Brandon! Thanks for your reply. We are just now starting her weight loss process - I unfortunately don't have her weight at this very moment (my scale broke last night!) But we got doctors orders to lose weight this past week.

She actually does not explore - she likes to sit, and then wander to a corner or underneath something and plop down for a nap, lol. Her health is otherwise fine, we even had blood work done and she is clear except for the weight.

I was giving her crickets two or three times a week, around 3 dozen each time. I rescued another skinny guy this past winter, and Merlin put on the weight as I was helping the newer guy gain weight.

I have cut her down to one dozen feeder crickets twice a week. I offer her collard greens, kale, mustar greens, turnip greens, arugala, bell pepper, yellow squash .. but she is SO bad about vegetables, she only goes for a berry every now and then.

Ok great!

Do you have a picture for us we can see?

A lot of times when adults are fed more insects than they need, they stop eating their salad and get out of the habit of eating it completely. Hopefully with the lower insect count she will get hungry enough to start eating it again. It is very important that she eats her salad (from a nutrition and health standpoint, not necessarily a weight loss standpoint) but I'd give her a week or two with this diet change and see.

If not you may want to cut back the feeders even more. It's not uncommon for us to have to cut feeders completely for 2 to 3 weeks in some cases. It might sound extreme but as long as they are healthy, they wont let themselves starve to death. Plus, a salad will always be available they just need to get over their stubbornness!

Anyways, I'm not saying that's the road you need to go down but more so just preparing you for what might need to be done to get her to eat her salads.

But hopefully shes a good girl and will start eating them for you now that her crickets are cut down.

-Brandon

Thanks so much, this is so useful.

Since I cut her feeders, she goes on a HUNGER STRIKE until it's time for feeders. I think I am going to hold her feeders for a week (maybe 2)and see if she starts eatings more veg. I might cut her berries too. I was concerned with "starving" her of bugs, but now that I know they can do a week or two without bugs.. she is about to have a change, haha!

Here is hoping that this gets her to eat more veg. If not, can you recommend slurry ingredients for a weight loss? Just water and veggies? I'm afraid to add a boost, as it seems like most slurries are for underweight beardies.

Picture coming in just a moment.. warning: she is heavy!

Yeah she is chunky LOL!
Did the vet give you a weight or did he recommend it just by looking at her lol.

I'm not really a fan of slurries unless they are needed. For example a sick dragon who wont eat on his own. Or to get nutrients into a severely malnourished dragon.

Weve seen the hand feeding slurries work the same way that too much feeders do. They get darn stubborn and lazy and all of a sudden they will only eat if their slave is spoon feeding them lol! This stubbornness definitely seems to increase with age LOL

I'd say just do what your original plan was. Give her a week or two. If she still isnt eating her salads then I'd consider cutting out the insects completely.
It will be so much easier though if she just eats her salad, and her limited crickets.

-Brandon

Hey thanks soooo much! I was a little self-conscious to post her pic LOL! She is definitely chubby. Ok, she's overweight!

I was going through pictures recently and I narrowed *when* her massive gain happened;like I said, when I adopted little underweight guy while I was beefing him up. I did the whole, "Oh, Scooter got a superworm.. Merlin can have one too.." and boom!

Yeah I will hold off on the slurry for now. She takes a few bites every few days when feeders havent been given in a while ... so eliminating the feeders will hopefully get her eating more veg.

One more question: she is quite lazy and doesn't roam much, and as I've mentioned she hates the water for swimming. Do you recommend any physical activity? Maybe I will see how the feeder cut works first before worrying about that just yet.

The vet did give me her weight, and it was certainly well over the average. I somehow think I didn't need to write it down in the moment, and my scale at my house is broken -- but I can call the vet first thing and get her exact weight (which I will need anyway, and a new scale to monitor as we work).

Thank you so much again!!

The weight isnt too important i was just curious. But it would be good to monitor her weekly or so to make sure things are going in the right direction!

Sorry I didnt mean to poke fun haha (just dont tell her I said anything lol!)

Idk if there is much you can do to get her more active. She might start becoming more active as she loses more weight.
I will he honest I thought I read awhile ago that reptiles dont burn calories through "excercise" the way that humans do. I cant really find what I thought I read and I honestly dont know if increased activity really does have that big of an impact. It obviously has some, as energy gets used up to move around, but as far as I'm aware, they are very efficient at NOT wasting energy in that sense.

Your main weapon will be reduced insect consumption. You should see some good results just from that.

-Brandon

No problem at all!! I appreciate all the help.

I didn't take it as a jab! I have just seen so many people get roasted in certain Beardie groups for doing something wrong. And don't worry, Merlin is a diva so I won't tell her about this discussion...

I will log her weight and update as we go on! Thanks again!

Great looking forward to the updates and progress!

-Brandon