Acting like she's starving...

[kmc4392]

Ok so I've been trying to keep Dalia on a routine these past couple of weeks. I've been providing greens with different fruits every day, and every other day giving her crickets in the morning or in the evening when I get home. Well she is totally ignoring the greens, I tried radish greens this week...big mistake...but she will gobble up blue berries and strawberries when I provide them.

Whenever I get the crickets ready she stands at the glass ready to strike. She chases all of the crickets and gobbles them all up as fast as she can, as if she's starving. Now I know for a fact she is not starving because she has quite the little belly on her. (She hasn't shown any signs of egg laying behaviors in a while, but I'm going to start the lay box again just in case)

Am I not feeding her enough? I try to stick to around 10-12 crickets at a time when I give her crickets. Between the days I give her crickets I've been giving her a couple of wax worms. Poops have been normal and she's done with her full body shed. Also I am not sure if she is carrying eggs, I tried the lay box a while back and nothing happened and she never showed any signs of being egg bound. Lately though, she will be in her cave when I get home instead of on her log or on the cave. So I'm thinking she might want to dig or wants to lay. Any thoughts on this?

Also if someone could give me some tips of leaving a lay box in her new tank I would appreciate it. I don't have the dimensions of the tank, but I've posted pictures of the new setup in the beardie tales section under Dalia's name.

Thanks!

 

[Zaxtor99]

I don't know how old she is, but if she is under 6-8 months old and still growing, she probably IS starving! I used to feed Rocky live protein insects (usually Dubia roaches) TWICE A DAY.. as many as he could eat in a 15 minute period.

They won't overeat, especially while they are still growing. When they are full, they will stop taking interest in the bugs and do something else. And yes, that can eat a LOT when they are still babies!

I have made some videos that you might be interested in here...

Here was Rocky eating dubia roaches as a young baby, this is just one feeding that I used to do twice a day, every day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHCq9CCfBLI&index=16&list=PLYL0JJsOk9mv_-7YduYTwDmqm3YTvtZMS

Here is my playlist of Bearded Dragons featuring Rocky in 26 videos now:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYL0JJsOk9mv_-7YduYTwDmqm3YTvtZMS

Hope that helps! - But please post back and let us know how old your beardie is and if feeding her a few more live crickets seems to be the answer. I'd be interested to know these things!

- Zaxx

 

[kmc4392]

Well she is probably by now well over 9 months. When I rescued Dalia the people who had her said they had her for 9 months, and that was back in February. I've been slowly trying to get her to eat more veggies since I doubt the people who had her before gave her a varied diet like she is supposed to have. She's been ok at eating her veggies, but only certain kinds. This morning i put some wax worms in with her radish green and yellow pepper salad and she started picking those out. Hopefully when I get home later she will have eaten some more of the greens, I'm going to pick up some mustard greens because she seems to like those better anyways.

I'll try to up the amount of protein she's getting, but I think she's fine with the weight she's at right now. She kinda has a belly on her and I don't want her to be overweight. (I put her in the lay box the other day to see if she maybe had to lay or whatever and she ended up jumping out)