Hello,
It has been awhile. I would like to post an update and maybe share some extra concerns.
So since the last time I posted, my baby has grown to be almost 20 inches now. I am estimating he is around 9 to 10 months old now. He loves hanging out with us and watching TV or hanging out with us while we work. He loves to cuddle with us.
We fed him a diet of BSFL for awhile, but it looked like got bored of them. He got more excited over crickets. Much of our worms turned into flies though (and partly invaded our house for some time). We caught them and he actually enjoyed being fed from our hands for them. He would stand up to snatch them from our fingers. We eventually stopped ordering the worms as they are expensive and also on the small size. So he had a diet only of crickets. I would alternate a bit and occasionally give him some apple chunks, some kale, and bok choy. He also really likes collard greens, and butternut squash. Sphaggetti squash seemed to be okay.
Our first concern was his poop suddenly had more water content which my wife said was because of the vegetables. She did not think that was good but I had to be insistent that he needs to get the greens. So we just decreased it a bit because maybe I was overloading him with the veggies too soon. But once we were more moderate with it, his poop went from daily to every other day and sometimes every third day. It still had the water content in it. Google seems to show that was fine though. Guess its just the water of vegetables and cant be helped. His poop was still solid though.
As of a couple of weeks ago, he started not gobbling up crickets. He would maybe eat 3-4 a day. Would go nuts for squash but I did not want to only feed him that and get him addicted/picky with me. I deduced that its because we went to a straight cricket diet with the occasional kale/bok choy/squash treat. We then switched to a meal of vegetables so he would do two feedings of crickets and veggies but the crickets were not going so well. I invested in mealworms, superworms, butterworms, hornworms and silkworms (with the latter three being VERY EXPENSIVE) and he liked them. And on the days we had the worms he would do a solid 2 feedings of worms + kale/squash/bok choy salad. His poops was good. But I am aware that mealworms are very fattening. But his appetite for crickets is constantly decreasing. We luckily got 3. And he wont even touch the greens now. If we put in a cricket he will rush down for it and eat it, but then get tired of it. He is just bored with them so easily.
The next concern is he suddenly has begun attacking his reflection. We got black construction paper on 3 sides of the tank and on the lower half of the front glass. That has helped but the upper half he will go for when he stands up. We opted for leaving the glass doors open, (the drop is not so bad because we have a pullout drawer and chairs at the table so he can easily and safely hop down) but he still sees the reflection in the open doors. His beard gets very dark so he is clearly stressed and angry. And I guess this is mating season or something and males are a no go for him?
I am worried about his dusting schedule with multivitamin and calcium since we cant dust crickets if he is not eating them, worms are hard to dust, and I am only trying to dust the veggies now.
Is mealworms safe for him to eat as a staple at this time? 1 serving of 20-30 mealworms for brunch and a cup of veggies for dinner? I also have the packaged food to use in a pinch (stocked up in case we get snowed in for winter)
Our T8 reptisun 10.0 UVB is 5 months old right now and I got a T5 hood and replacement ready for next month for the switch out. He has an exo terra intense basking bulb.
Hot side is 95-110F, cold side is around 80-85F. With his age, I opted for a 1 day multivitamin dusting, 3 days of calc with D3, 2 days calc without D3 and 1 day no dust.
Sorry for long read, hopefully people will read.