He won't eat from his food dish!

[Shortie]

Ok so Ozzy's got this weird thing where he won't eat out his food dish. I usually feed him crickets and locusts and I know he see's the tweezers as a sign of food. He doesn't eat the bugs from the tweezers though cause I let him chase the bugs around. He's never had salad in his life and wouldn't touch it. I only just got him to eat squash from the tweezers but when I put the squash in his food dish, he just looks at it as if he's waiting for it to move! Is he just weird or is it cause he's not been trained to do so? Should this be in the feeding or behavour? I can't decide...

 

[w0554096]

I would say in feeding, they may be able to give you more tips on how to get him to eat his greens.
They have vivrating food dishes you can try, though I can vouch for them as I've never needed it. He's definately not getting enough greens. My dragon is very picky but he really loves certain things. You should get him some dandilion greens (they really seem to like these), and there's lots in a pack for relatively cheap, so if you do end up throwing most of it out, it's not a big deal. I would start putting a fresh salad in his tank in the mornings, and don't feed him worms until later on. He'll probably ignore the salad for a little while. If he doesn't eat any of it, try hand feeding... Mine won't eat anything out of my hand, not sure why, but sounds like yours will so I'd give it a try.
How old is he?
If he's old enough, it won't hurt him to withhold the bugs for a few days to get him eating his salads.
Also, if he hasn't really had any salads before, as you say, he probably is waiting for it to move! Once you show him that the greens are good (ie, handfeeding maybe) and have fresh salad for him daily, he should catch on pretty quickly. You'll figure out pretty quickly too what he likes and doesn't like..
Good luck to you!

 

[Celeste]

I had the same problem with my new baby. He wouldnt eat anything unless it was handfed...I started off by packing veggies all over his cage...Eventualy it got his attention and he only started to eat the butternut and carrots, but ignored the greens (I guess because they are bright and caught his attention :lol: ) after 2 weeks i started to serve these in his food dish, which also got his attention, and over time I added variety to his salad. After 3 months of trying, he is eating 2 bowls of salad a day. I think the 'method' used depends on your dragon and what they like to eat, because my baby still eats all his crickets handfed....if he sees them running around, he just ignores them :roll:

 

[Shortie]

Well he's eating the squash from the tweezers so that kinda counts as hand feeding right? But if I sit them in the bowl with the squash he's just lookin at it and waiting for it to move! He chases the crickets and the locusts around cause I just throw them in there. He's 3 years old and hasn't been fed anything but bugs and dry food since he was a baby. I'll try and find places that do dandilion greens in Scotland, hopefully they'll not be too hard to find.

He scatters the salad through his viv anyways cause he likes to walk right through it! I think if he's not eaten any for a few days then I'll get a vibrating dish...

 

[staciek]

Although I am new at this too, I have heard of people adding worms to the salad to get them interested. If he watches you drop the worms in with the tweezers and then notices the salad move because of the worms that might help too. For ours it seems to help that he has his salad the first couple hours in the morning with no chance of crickets yet. I also drop the little pieces of butternut squash on top -- he always stops and watches me, it never fails to get his attention. Good luck!! Let us know how it goes!

 

[Shortie]

I've tried the worms but the little b*****d pushes the greens out the way to get to them lol! It's day 3 of just leaving him with salad and I've arranged the greens in the dish, squash to one bit, collards in another and blueberrues in another part and I went out for a few hours and noticed a bit of a 'dent' in the mushed up squash. Either he's walked through his bowl again or he's actually eaten some. I think he may have just stuck his face in the squash cause half the collards are covered with squash... Who knows...?

 

[spikerocks]

One of my males was pretty bad about eating his greens when he was 6 months old. Under the advise of Barb (Zac-n-Wheezie's mom), I gave him salad each morning and no buggies until late afternoon. I eventually figured out that he didn't like his salad dish, go figure :roll: . I started just putting his salad on the tile and he gobbled it right up. Now we use a plastic lid for salads and he will eat off of it. I have 5 dragons and they all eat off plastic lids (like the top of a margarine cobtainer) and have 5 unused salad dishes!

 

[Shortie]

So Ozzy might have a slight disagreement with his salad bowl? Hmmmm... Now there's a thought! :idea: Since he takes no notice of it anyways and walks straight though it, I might as well change it to something that he can't walk through! He's got a water dish as well that's deeper than his salad bowl but he doesn't know how to drink water so he's never used it. I just drop water on his nose everyday to hydrate him. But can he reach the salad if it's in a water dish? It's only less than an inch deep.