biting rock and eating paper??

[samjones]

hi all

my lil man has started trying to eat the rock and the log that we have in his viv.
he has also been caught eating newspaper.
he eyes up the rock and log like they are food and has his hunting look on his face.
he has slightly grazed his mouth now as he goes at them with quite a force. - nothing serious though.
he gets fed enough, he has 20 or more locusts a day depending on his mood and he has a full dish of salad everyday(sometimes two)
his live food is dusted with calcium 5x a week. he is 9-10 months old and is 20 inches full length.
he is a very happy healthy dragon so i dont know why he has suddenly started this.
can any one help please?

 

[beardieaddict]

thats weird lol

 

[MissT]

I can def relate to this!!!
Kazi went through a phase of this... he suddenly had this major obsession with trying to eat one of his little rock plants - its a textured rock hide with plants on top... at the time, he didnt really eat much by way of live food but would literally attack this rock at least once a day - there were even teeth marks. He also ate a piece of plaster from the wall and tried to eat my t-shirt on several occasions. When he, eventually, grazed his mouth, we removed the rock and since then he hasnt bothered with any odd objects.....

it is very strange tho - I never did figure out why he did that!!!

 

[Gail]

Personally I think its a mineral deficiency that causes this behavior. We give vitamins and calcium but over look other minerals like zinc, magnesium, copper, iron, etc.
When my guy starts biting at rocks or white objects, I offer him a small pile of miner-all to eat as he pleases and it stops the behavior.