Is my baby too... fat?

[artemisia]

Hello,

This is my baby! I've had her for about four months now. She's very active and affectionate.

I'm curious... is she too chubby? I notice that she has a belly, and I'm not sure if it's an "acceptable" size.

She eats crickets, but only if they're very dead. She's terrified of live ones. I get them in cans and chop them up (so they no longer resemble crickets, the cowardly girl!), and sprinkle them with calcium. I also feed her mealworms and waxworms (all dusted). She also eats a huge amount of salad (mostly baby spinach, mesclun, and kale). They say juveniles hate eating salad, but she LOVES it. She eats two palm-sized portions (or more) a day. I spray these with calcium, and also add veggies and fruits.

I'm getting a small scale, but until then, I'm posting this picture. Let me know if you think her belly is too ample omg =/

 

[destiny1998]

Hi. She looks good to me. I just wanted to say try different feeders. The ones you are offering are not very nutritional. Try dubia roaches ( depending on where you are), Phoenix worms are very good and don't need to be dusted, silk worms are also good. As for the salad kale and spinach bind calcium. Here is a site that most of us use beautifuldragons.com. it'll help you establish a good base for a salad.

 

[artemisia]

Hi. She looks good to me. I just wanted to say try different feeders. The ones you are offering are not very nutritional. Try dubia roaches ( depending on where you are), Phoenix worms are very good and don't need to be dusted, silk worms are also good. As for the salad kale and spinach bind calcium. Here is a site that most of us use beautifuldragons.com. it'll help you establish a good base for a salad.

Thank you so much! Sadly my baby is incredibly picky about food. Until a few weeks ago, she would absolutely refuse to eat anything but the mutilated crickets and mealworms. It took me a long time to get her to try the waxworms at all. I think I will go with the silk and phoenix worms, then the dubias. I worry that if she's terrified of live crickets, she'll also run away from dubias.

Fun fact: the last time I tried to give her live crickets, she ran up her tree (!) and I had to take her out... then I spent 3 hours killing all of the crickets. One by one. Because they're fast.

Interesting about kale, I've read the opposite. Good thing I live near a farmer's market, haha <3

 

[kingofnobbys]

No, she's fine.

Try putting the crickets a in plastic takeaway tub and popping them into the freezer for about 5 - 10 mins, they will fall asleep and become very groggy and slow moving for a while when they warmup and start waking up again.

My two bubs are also 4 months old, they are now on 1/3 - 2/3 sized crickets and love stalking and chasing their crickets down. currently taking 16 - 20 EACH in their am feed, and 10 - 12 EACH + their greens and grated veg and some softened mixed repcal juvi beardie pellets and vetafarm lizard pellets in the pm.

When I had silkworms , they were taking up to 6 x 1-1.5" silkworms each , or 3-4 x 2" silkworms each in leu of the pm crickets.
I raise my own silkworms from eggs layed by the moths that I got from the first batch of silkworms I bought back in January (200x) , wound up with near 80 cocoons and thousands of eggs (most of which I harvested and placed in small glass sample bottles and went into the fridge to make dormant so I can hatch more as I need them.
4 weeks after hatching baby worms , I had worms big enough to use as feeders for Peppa and Toothless.

Best GREENS round are buk and puk choy , dandelion greens and flowers , nasturtium greens and flowers. (All rich in Calcium).