Beardie Suddenly Picky

[MoonsAreBlue]

So, my beardie Parthy is almost 5 months old. She weighs 111g and is 13 inches long. She suddenly won't eat the foods I'm offering her, and it's concerning me. I recently switched to feeding her reptiworms after feeding her superworms for a while. She quickly took to the reptiworms I ordered from reptiworm.com and would eat 20+ each meal. I still fed her a couple supers each day until I ran out. So after I ran out of my original order of reptiworms, I ordered more reptiworms from backwaterreptiles because I could get more for cheap.

Now, she won't eat these reptiworms. They came packaged in the same tub and material. These worms were even a little bit bigger than the ones I got from reptiworms.com. For the past few days, Parthy has only been eating one or two a day. In addition to this, she has stopped eating the salad that I have always offered her. It's a rotation of parsnip, green beans, collard greens, turnip greens, and mustard greens. I even bought some spaghetti squash and yellow pepper but she won't touch anything except the green beans. Even then, I have to hand feed them to her.

As far as her environment, I changed it a little bit about two weeks ago, and all the temperatures are fine. 81-84 cool side, ~108 basking, and ~92 warm side. She seems active and doesn't hide away a lot, and she still spends most of her time basking. She was scratching at the glass a lot but now only does it a few times per week. Oh, and her poops look normal.

I'm just concerned about her. I'm probably going to pick up a few supers and see if it's just these specific reptiworms that she doesn't like. Has anyone ever ordered reptiworms from backwaterreptiles? And does anyone know what I can do to get my beardie to eat?

 

[zandi202]

You can try bok choy for greens, it's what got Jace to eat after a long hunger strike. Sometimes hornworms and silkworms can entice a beardie into eating.

 

[MoonsAreBlue]

You can try bok choy for greens, it's what got Jace to eat after a long hunger strike. Sometimes hornworms and silkworms can entice a beardie into eating.

Thanks for the info. She turned down the green beans this morning when I dusted them with multivitamin, but then she suddenly ate 29 reptiworms. She still won't eat any other salad though, so I'll try to bok choy. When I get paid in a few days, I'm going to get a big variety pack of worms. Hopefully she'll continue eating normally when I feed her again later today.

 

[zandi202]

Glad she decided to eat. Most beardies won't eat their greens if dusted. Repti worms have a lot of calcium so you only need to dust them 2x a week with vitamins if I'm correct.

 

[MoonsAreBlue]

Glad she decided to eat. Most beardies won't eat their greens if dusted. Repti worms have a lot of calcium so you only need to dust them 2x a week with vitamins if I'm correct.

I didn't figure she would, but she hadn't had any multivitamin in 5 days, so I just tried to get some in her. I was so excited that she started eating the reptiworms that I just kept throwing them in there instead of dusting them. I tried to get them to her as fast as I could in case she changed her mind on eating them, haha. Do you have any other suggestions for veggies? Maybe some fruit? I know she likes apples, but I don't want to give her a whole lot since she's not eating any other veggies.

 

[zandi202]

Fruit should be a treat.
If you haven't checked out this site yet, take a look. It is amazing:
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html

 

[MoonsAreBlue]

I've looked there. I was just wondering if there were other foods people had used on hunger striking beardies. Thanks for your help, though!

 

[zandi202]

You're welcome. Hope it helps.
Wish I new more. For Jace it was having superworms in a dish and bok choy in a flat plate that got him over it. Superworms are great because they move around and that attracts beardie's attention. Shouldn't be fed to a beardie under 16".

 

[MoonsAreBlue]

You're welcome. Hope it helps.
Wish I new more. For Jace it was having superworms in a dish and bok choy in a flat plate that got him over it. Superworms are great because they move around and that attracts beardie's attention. Shouldn't be fed to a beardie under 16".

Yeah, that's why I stopped feeding her supers because she's only 13 inches. I plan on getting her all the other good worms she can eat though. Butterworms, silkworms, hornworms, and waxworms. I'm hoping she likes them all, but I'm only ordering a small amount to try them out. She's just too lazy to eat crickets anymore, haha.

 

[zandi202]

Wax worms are treats only because they can be very addictive and have no real nutritional value. Same with butter worms, but they aren't as bad as wax.

 

[MoonsAreBlue]

Wax worms are treats only because they can be very addictive and have no real nutritional value. Same with butter worms, but they aren't as bad as wax.

I know waxworms should only be treats. But see, I've heard a lot of different things about butterworms, including that they are an excellent staple. What makes them bad?

 

[zandi202]

It might be bad compared to other worms, just not as nutricional.

 

[MoonsAreBlue]

It might be bad compared to other worms, just not as nutricional.

Hmm, I didn't plan to feed her a lot of them, maybe substitute 3-4 meals each week for them. Her main worm will remain the reptiworms if she keeps eating them and then additionally supers when she gets bigger. I may just have to do more research on them.

 

[zandi202]

Good luck. What I did a while back was a worm salad of 3 horns 3 silks 2 butters 2 wax and ten phoenix.

 

[MoonsAreBlue]

It'll be easier for me to have weekly meals set, but I had honestly not thought of a worm salad. I might try that. Is that a lot of food for a beardie? I hear the hornworms are really filling for some of them. Parthy (when she eats well) typically has ~25 reptiworms in a meal. Do you have any idea how much that would translate into other worms?

Sorry for the twenty questions but you keep offering these great ideas.