I'm fed up.

[zye1984]

I'm tired of my bearded dragon Izzy being the pickiest eater. She will NOT eat anything other than bugs, some fruit IF HAND FED TO HER and Fluker's Buffet Blend now.

She needs to lose weight. She needs to eat veggies. I can give her only greens for a week or more, and she won't touch it, even the fabled dandelion greens. I finally found them and she won't touch them. She won't eat anything like yellow/green/red bell peppers either to "add color", she spits it out.

Finally found a way for her to exercise; leave the crickets in the bag and have her try to get them. Or well i did, till she decided not to anymore.

She won't eat fruit unless hand fed to her because it doesn't stick to her tongue. After 3 tries, she's done and goes off to lie in the middle of the enclosure. (She rarely basks since she's not eating to warrant doing so)

I'm sick of it. If i wanted a picky b**ch i would have got a stuck up girlfriend.

 

[Sylphie]

Umm, how old is she? I'm not sure if you know but most of young beardies won't eat fruits and veggies at all, their diet consists mostly on worms. If she's an adult you can try two things:

a) give her the greens/fruits/veggies for as long as she'll finally be hungry enough to eat them. Reptiles aren't humans, they can go a long time without food and be totally healthy, so if she won't eat for a week because she won't like what you're giving then don't worry, just give her time to be hungry enough to eat what's avaiable

b) just give her what she's liking... they know what they need, mayeb she just don't have a need for some of the things you're giving her. I personally give my dragons what they eat, if they don't like something then it's okay, there is plenty of other food that they will eat. Beardies are like humans, some o us love pizza, while other prefer cookies or salads.

There is relaly no reason to be so frustrated and angry about the whole thing. Beardies can eat a looot of different things so if they don't like some of them it's nothing bad, you can still give them the things that they like and they will be fine. It's not like with snakes that eats only mices, or lizards that eats only worms.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Best form of exercise for a pet lizard (beardie, skink, monitor, etc) is time out to explore inside your home (in lizard safe/escape proof areas/rooms)....they love it and it's very enriching for them.

Picky eating.... chances are if you raised her from a very young hatchling, you created the problem.
Pet lizards are very manipulative , and seem to know how to train their human to give foods they like and do things they want.

Calm down and enjoy your spikey child and learn to live with her. She relies on you for everything and simply doesn't understand why you want her to change.

If you have to hand feed the greens and veg to her, just do it.

 

[zye1984]

Umm, how old is she?

Like 4 years. She also hasn't had her infertile eggs yet. She acted like she was going to, then never did then stopped digging. They didn't get stuck in her either, just never happened, or she laid them somewhere I am unaware.

a) give her the greens/fruits/veggies for as long as she'll finally be hungry enough to eat them. Reptiles aren't humans, they can go a long time without food and be totally healthy, so if she won't eat for a week because she won't like what you're giving then don't worry, just give her time to be hungry enough to eat what's avaiable

It's been like 2 weeks. I waved kiwi in front of her face the other day and she seemed to like that, IF she could take it off the butter knife. Otherwise she'd just give up if it didn't stick to her tongue.

b) just give her what she's liking....

She is toooo faaaat. And the buffet blend makes her super thirsty so she drinks too much and then gets super watery poop and can't hold it till I get home to give her a bath, so she makes a mess in the enclosure.

I've tried everything that are supposed to be staples for food and she just doesn't want it. She used to eat collard greens and she won't anymore.

 

[zye1984]

Best form of exercise for a pet lizard (beardie, skink, monitor, etc) is time out to explore inside your home (in lizard safe/escape proof areas/rooms)....they love it and it's very enriching for them.

Picky eating.... chances are if you raised her from a very young hatchling, you created the problem.
Pet lizards are very manipulative , and seem to know how to train their human to give foods they like and do things they want.

Calm down and enjoy your spikey child and learn to live with her. She relies on you for everything and simply doesn't understand why you want her to change.

If you have to hand feed the greens and veg to her, just do it.

She runs around my apartment for a moment, then either goes back to her enclosure trying to get back in, or finds somewhere to lie down.

I've tried to feed her veggies since she was little and the only thing she liked was Watercress. But that made her sick by absorbing all the calcium. (The info I saw didn't say it had a lot of oxalates in it)

She still won't eat greens hand fed. Fruit maybe, but the tongue sticking problem is not helping.

 

[Sylphie]

Two weeks won't hurt her. She can not eat as long as she's not losing weight, so I would just stick with giving her the basics greens in a bowl. After she'll be hungry she'll eat. Unless she'll start to lose weight don't worry about her being off food. And since she's too fat already it certainly won't do any damage if she'll lose some of it. Reptiles aren't mammals, so you really don't need to worry about some feeding strike. Like one person metioned lizards are smart and she knows that you were giving up when she went off food, so she'll pull it for as long as it'll take for her to be finally hungry enough to eat whatever is avaiable. It's like with a child that knows that when she'll cry long enough you'll give up... but since reptiles are different and won't die/be sick from not eating for even a few months you really should just watch her weight and let her strike for as long as it'll take.

 

[zye1984]

Two weeks won't hurt her. She can not eat as long as she's not losing weight, so I would just stick with giving her the basics greens in a bowl. After she'll be hungry she'll eat. Unless she'll start to lose weight don't worry about her being off food. And since she's too fat already it certainly won't do any damage if she'll lose some of it. Reptiles aren't mammals, so you really don't need to worry about some feeding strike. Like one person metioned lizards are smart and she knows that you were giving up when she went off food, so she'll pull it for as long as it'll take for her to be finally hungry enough to eat whatever is avaiable. It's like with a child that knows that when she'll cry long enough you'll give up... but since reptiles are different and won't die/be sick from not eating for even a few months you really should just watch her weight and let her strike for as long as it'll take.

okay..what i was worried about was her not feeling well if i didn't feed her. and she tends to stay away from basking UNTIL i feed her something she wants, so she wasn't losing weight due to purposely not having energy..

 

[Sylphie]

Just make sure that she's having greens avaiable in a bowl. I'm sure that if she'll be really hungry she'll find the bowls without problem I guess that since she's already little overweight it'll take longer than with dragons that are more on the skinny side. But, I would also put a second bowl with worms every 2-3 days too (just for one day, if she won't eat them until evening take them away... and I would keep with roaches/crickets as they are not as fat as superworms or mealworms).

And I would just check her weight once in a week to be sure that she's not losing a lot of it due to her feeding strike

If you are really afraid you can give her the things she likes once in a week, that way she won't have them all the time like now, but she also won't develop any problems from a longer hunger strike But if you decide to give her a bowl with worms like I mentioned then you can skip this part as she'll probably eat them after a few days of pouting

 

[usmcfamily]

I have no advice for you at all. But I seriously lol at your op closing line, HAHA!!!

 

[Taterbug]

It's in a dragons (natural) best interests be lazy - it reduces risk of predation and concerned energy. If she is already overweight/well condition and is getting high value food (insects) delivered to her mouth she has no motivation to exercise forage for lower value food (plants).

What has worked for me is to reduce the frequency of hand feeding - I'll offer a few insects by hand per week but otherwise he has to forage (climb around and eat insects from a dish) or eat his veggie mix. We are now moving towards food motivated exercise - he has to come get the insect rather than just getting it delivered to his mouth. Dicing up a variety of food items into a salad seems to be more appetizing to him than a traditional salad.

Reptiles can go a surprising amount of time without eating but do consider going up/down slowly. Crash diets can still be hard on their systems.

How is the layout of your enclosure? You may be able to move things around to encourage her to exercise more as she moves around (climbing etc).