3 year old Beardie wont eat his salad when he did before.

[tendo102]

Hi,

we've had our beardie Trevor for nearly a year now, and up until a few weeks ago he ate rocket (he is quite stubborn with his food). Me and my husband went on holiday so we took Trevor to stay with my parents in his old vivarium we rehomed him in (have since got him a new, bigger viv). My parents have a beardie themselves though they were kept in separate rooms so they couldn't see each other. since we've been back a few weeks he has not touched he salad.

He still loves his Super worms, but not a touch of salad. The floor in his viv is white so tried putting it on that, no ball, tried moving it around, dropping it in front of him, wait until his mouth is open, he ate one piece, slowly, but the second time I managed it he spat it out! Tried different greens, have even tried mixing the super worms with his salad and he wait until its crawled out for him to eat it! Hes so annoying! He will even attempt to eat the plastic tongs if I make a noise with them (I think thats what his old owners must have done) but wont if holding salad.

His last poo was runny and I am keeping an eye on him, and feel both worried and irritated! I am now trying the tough love, I last fed him worms 2 days ago, but I'm finding it difficult purposely starving him, am I doing the right thing?

He is our first beardie so hoping those with more experience could point out something that maybe I'm not doing? Would gut loading the Superworms be enough as a substitute? I'm going to start doing that next but I don't know if thats enough, at least he would be getting something I guess.

Thank you in advance

 

[CooperDragon]

My guess is it could be stress from moving around, or it could be stubbornness. If it's stress he should start eating again normally soon as he settles back in at home. If it's stubbornness, it's a matter of waiting him out. You could continue offering a variety of veges and see if he takes to something new. Squash is usually a good options as are chopped up green beans. At 3 he can go for quite a while without food so don't worry too much about that. The superworms are known to become addictive so I'd offer the salads for now and see how that goes for a week or two.

 

[Gormagon]

They won't starve themselves, so just keep offering salads until he eats it (he will in time). As state above he could be trying to adjust to his new surroundings, give him time.

 

[tendo102]

Thank you both for your replies. I do feel bad moving him around whilst we go away but it was the only reasonable way to do it at the time as I had no one local to pop over every day. Next time I will see if a local pet sitter would do that so we don't have to go through potentially stress of moving him about.

Its been a few more days now and still no veggies, but no worms either. I didn't know about the addictiveness of super worms but now it does make sense! We've started trying other veggies so will just continue that way and hopefully, one day, he'll eat his veg! Reminds me of me as a kid!

 

[vmanilova]

would you suggest not feeding anything else until he eats his salad? i tried for a bout a week and he still wouldnt eat salad so i caved in and gave worms/dubia...