2.5 yr old beardie hates veggies

[Ipppoi]

Hey all,

I brought my 2.5 year-old beardie to the vet and she said he's slightly on the chubby side and should be eating more vegetables. I adopted Fafnir from my friend a year ago, when he lived there he ate mostly arugala, fruit and mealworms. When I started feeding him, I gave him dubia roaches. He loves them so much that he doesn't want to eat anything else. He always looks vaguely interested in veggies when I offer them and hold them up to his eye, but he doesn't eat them. He used to eat butternut squash if he was starving, but now he won't touch it even if I withhold bugs for two days. I tried to use my hands to open my beardie's mouth to put squash in, but he's very feisty and will wiggle away. I don't want to traumatize him into hating vegetables more, but he's not eating them and I don't want him to die. Any tips on how to get him to eat? Particularly any sticky vegetables that will get stuck on his tongue?

 

[Skipper7]

I can usually tempt skipper with a salad of turnip/collard greens, raspberries, carrot, apple, and PERSIMMONS!!!

Try taking him out of the cage and cuddling before attempting to hand feed some of the above. If you start with something sweet you may be able to mix it with greens and get a better reaction.

 

[SHBailey]

If dubia roaches are the only thing he'll eat, you could do worse. They're about the most nutritious thing you can feed them if they're determined to be carnivores. Much better than mealworms.

Our beardie has managed to stay reasonably healthy for about the last two years eating mostly crickets and roaches and hardly any veggies, except for the few greens that my husband manages to slip in his mouth while he's chewing on a bug. So don't panic; yours is not likely to die of malnutrition any time soon. I agree with you that force feeding is not a good idea, and probably does more harm than good.

You could continue to try different varieties of veggies to see if you can find anything he likes, and put fresh ones in his enclosure daily so they're always available for him, just in case he decides to try some. You could probably also withhold the roaches for up to a week and he wouldn't starve, especially if he's got some fat reserves, even if he continues to refuse to eat anything else. Our reptile vet recommended that we only feed our beardie bugs once a week, in the hope that he would get hungry enough to eat his veggies in the meantime, but that usually doesn't happen; he holds out for his favorite bugs. For some beardies, there is life after being told that they need to eat more veggies but refusing to do so.