How to get my beardies to eat their greens?

[beardielove10]

Hello,

I have 2 beardies one that is 1 year old and one that is 6 months old. The 6 month old will not eat ANY of his greens or vegetables ever. The 1 year old will touch them sometimes but rarely. I usually offer greens every day and mix meal worms in or fruits/veggies to see if they would grab some greens with it. Didn't work. I decided to stop mixing things in and just gave them greens for a day. They did not eat at all that day because they refused to touch the greens. I put some squash and carrot on top yesterday and they still wouldn't.

I need them to learn to eat these things and enjoy it because right now they are getting mostly protein because they won't eat anything else. I switch between crickets, beardie bites, and meal worms.
I know how important it is for them to eat their veggies! I have tried them on collards (they don't like) dandelion greens, and mustard greens.

Help me get these guys to enjoy their greens/veggies!!!

 

[kaitymw]

I'm having the exact same problem with my beardie! He's just been nursed back to health after a nasty parasite, and now he'll eat like 15 crickets in a sitting, but no greens whatsoever! I hope someone can help us figure out this problem!

 

[wjrosin]

We are having the same problem here right now....she eats Phoenix Worms every other day and once in awhile will devour some pumpkin, but the greens that she ate like crazy about a month ago she wants nothing to do with. When starting on greens, we tried EVERY kind imaginable and found she would only eat dandelions. Now she doesn't even want those. We are concerned that she isn't getting proper nutrition and just don't want her to get sick! Any ideas?

 

[TJinPgh]

Hope you have better luck with it than I did.

I bought Gertrude as an adult. The petshop I bought her from said the previous owner only fed her crickets. Apparently NEVER fed her any thing else.

Near as I can tell, she doesn't recognize anything that doesn't walk, jump or wiggle as anything she CAN eat, let alone something she should.

I tried the tough love approach. Gave her fresh greens and such... virtually every acceptable type I could find in my local grocery stores. Tried mixing it with fruits, other vegies, and baby food.

Tried cutting the greens up in different sizes, thinking maybe that would help.

Nothing.

I even tried the bearded dragon bites and the various other packaged foods they make for them.

Nada.

Tried, as a last resort, putting a superworm in with the greens, thinking that the movement would help. Or, at the very least, she'd get some greens when she grabbed the super.

The first time she grabbed a couple of shreds of greens with the super... she spit everything out and grabbed the superworm.

The second time she just sat and paintently waited for the super to crawl someplace where she could grab it without grabbing the greens with it.

She went nearly a month and would do little more than take maybe 1 or 2 shreds of it. Some days not even that. She started losing weight so I finally gave up.

I know that not feeding her greens is likely going to affect her health at some point. But, I just don't have the heart to let her starve.

 

[beardielove10]

Jeez, this is all so frustrating! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with problems. Now we need someone to write in that has some sort of solution! ANYONE?

 

[TJinPgh]

There are a lot of threads on the subject. People seem to have any number of thoughts on how to do it.

I've probably tried most of them at one point or another.

If your beardie is younger, though, it might be easier than trying to get an adult to convert.