Always hungry

[Zoey]

I realize that so many beardie owners are worried because their little one's will not eat, but my concern is quite the opposite.

Loki has never been one to eat her greens. She always gets a salad every morning, but usually she just picks at it.

Now, however, for the past couple months, she is ravenous! She is waiting for me every morning standing in the corner where her food bowl goes. Her enclosure is in a hallway between the living room and the kitchen, and every time I walk past, she looks at my hands to see if I have food. I feed her two large supers a day along with about a cup of shredded greens.... usually either collard or mustard greens.

Almost every day I let her out on the patio and even after eating all this food she still goes through the grass and eats all the clover then attacks my begonia and Nasturiums. She would probably eat until she pops! :shock:

I'm only concerned because she's never behaved like this before. Am I under-feeding her at her age? She will be 6 in November. Could she be preparing for brumation?

 

[diamc]

Actually, an adult can have 35 large feeders (like supers) or 50 small feeders (like crickets) a week. It sounds like she is really needing more protein right now so I would definitely feed her some more.

 

[Zoey]

Thanks diamc.

I guess I didn't realize she was being underfed. Poor girl She's never really had much of an appetite until now oddly enough.

One thing I need to mention is that her poops have been very smelly and runny since she's been on her food binge. I had thought it was because of her diet which has been high in greens that I feed her as well as the greens that she scavenges from my garden. Her poop smells particularly aromatic if she's been eating Nasturiums for example. I know parasites or bacteria or can cause this, but can this be just from the plants shes been eating?

 

[diamc]

I doubt her smelly and runny poops are just from the plants and flowers. It would be a good idea to get a fecal checked though.

 

[Zoey]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I'd been thinking about getting a fecal done. She's certainly not looking or acting sick, so I've been putting it off. I should just go ahead and do it.

This morning I gave her extra supers with her salad. She ate the supers, took two bites of her salad and then went back to her basking rock. Little brat! :lol: :evil: :lol: :evil:

 

[Kalyn876]

When my baby started eating his salad his poops got really runny and smelly for about a week, I took in a fecal just in case and it came back clear it was just the change in diet. This may not be the case with your girl but thought I would throw it out there.

Kalyn