Beardie only eats hand fed crickets...

[keith167]

So Freddy has fully recovered from Coccidia, however, he hasnt eaten on his own in around 4 or 5 weeks. He eats 15-20 crickets a day now but they are tucked into his cheek by our "in-house 10yr old vet".
WHen we place crickets in front of him or in his tank he will not hunt. He actually seems to be upset by them. Even tried putting phoenix worms in front of him. No dice.
How do we get him to hunt for his own food again?

 

[keith167]

No one has experienced this?

 

[AHBD]

I know it must be frustrating....there have been posters here in the past. If you Google " bearded dragon only eats if hand fed" , there are links to old threads here as well as other reptile forums as well as Yahoo. I didn't look at them, but I would assume the best answers would be the old posts from this site.

By the way, how long do you allow before you feed him ? Do you ever let a day or 2 go by and then try the live [ slow moving ] free range bugs ?

 

[keith167]

We are entertaining that now. All day yesterday we tried without really feeding him. Dont want him to lose weight tho.
I will look for old posts. Thx

 

[keith167]

Update: today for the first time in 6weeks Freddy has eaten (somewhat) on his own. Today he ate about 15 tiny phoenix worms on his own. Crickets are still being tucked in his cheek as well...

 

[AHBD]

That's good ! It usually just takes some time. Next time, or some time in the near future try dropping 1-2 small crippled cricks in with the worms.

 

[Pazuzu]

I know it sounds gross but you could try dubia roaches my guy did not really like crickets either and I think I hated them more than he did but he didn't really like to hunt the crickets. I switch to dubias and he just can't seem to get enough. they move a lot slower than crickets so they're a lot easier to hunt sometimes I let him roam around on my couch and will let one little Roach go at a time. as soon as he sees the dubia Roach he runs across the couch and eats it up. if you are thinking about making the switch I highly suggest it they are really easy to take care of they don't smell like crickets do they can't jump fly by or climb smooth plastic if you can get over that you have a box of roaches in your house they're really not all that bad. You can also order them online. I spend about the same amount on roaches as I did crickets and they get delivered to my door I also don't lose any money on crickets that died