I need help with an addiction!

[sweetpea1981]

Ok so my bigger guy Stubs is being a pain in my rear. Stubs is 6 months old, is 13 inches (he has a big chunk of his tail gone 2-3 inches) on 1-17-2013 he weighed 149 grams. Has the reptisun 10.0 tube, his basking spot is 105-107 degrees, cool side is 85 degrees, tile substrate, 40gb. So anyways he has been kinda lazy for the last couple of weeks, so lazy that most of the time he wont come down to eat or it will take him hours to come down to eat. Now if I take a super worm in the tongs and hold it up where he is on his basking spot he will gladly eat, if I drop it on the ground he will look at it but wont come down, if I take him down and put it in front of him he will eat. If I try and give him another feeder he may eat but it will take him hours to decide to come down and eat, but I usually give in first and give him what he wants which is tong fed super worms. What do you guys think I should do? Also he won't eat veggies, he has on occassion taken a bite or 2 but it is rare.

 

[sweetpea1981]

Is it just his way of slowing down for the winter maybe? Anyone?

 

[unkempt1]

If you tong-feed him regularly, you may have spoiled him. Spoiled dragons that will only eat by hand or tong are actually kinda common. I used to hand-feed on occasion because I thought it was cute and felt like we were bonding. I noticed he started to slow down going to the dinner bowl, so I stopped doing it daily. Now it's like a once-a-month thing. 8)

As long as he has been pooping as normal, you're giving him baths, and practicing all other good husbandry he may just be spoiled. :?

 

[sweetpea1981]

I was kinda thinking that might have something to do with it, cause hey why move if sooner or later mom will break down and bring my food right to my mouth....lol, so yeah I stopped super worms for now and am doing my dubia which means if he wants to eat he has to come down to his bowl. He did yesterday. And yes my husbandry is good, no worries there.

 

[Garys007]

I'm have some of the same issues. We hand feed him roaches and if the roach runs off away from him, he just looks at it. I actually have to catch it and have to face the stupid bug in his direction so it runs towards him. Otherwise it's gone. I don't mind hand feeding him, but unfortunately, sometimes I just don't have the time, or he's just not in the mood so I'd like to leave it for him to eat later.

I put his Phoenix Worms in a worm bowl, can I put the roaches in the same bowl? What do you use?

 

[sweetpea1981]

I use a glass bowl that is about 3 inches high, it is a little too high but my guys do ok, I have a nice flat rock with some height in each of their cages next to the bowl that they can stand on to help them reach in the bowl. Dubias can't climb smooth glass so it works great.