Picky eater help

[chrism1]

Hi all,

So my dragon isn't too excited when I drop crickets into his tank. He loves dubia, but doesn't eat his greens, even when I mix the collard greens with cactus. However, he does like eating the dry food (juvenile reptile pellets from Zoo Med).

I'm just wondering what I could do to get him to eat his greens and crickets? Those dubia are expenseive haha

Thanks for the help!

 

[Nyxcgf]

Can you give me a run through of your dragon's setup?
And some information about your dragon? (How old, how big, ect)

 

[chrism1]

Can you give me a run through of your dragon's setup?
And some information about your dragon? (How old, how big, ect)

He's about 12 inches long and is 6-8 months old.

His is in a 36x18x24 tank with a ceramic heat emitter over his basking spot, a 60 watt heat bulb on the other side of the tank and there's a reptisun 10.0 on top of his tank. Basking spot is 100 and cool side is 78. He is on sani-chip substrate.

 

[Nyxcgf]

Crickets aren't really the best feeders, but they are adequate. I'll give you a few better options.
Option 1: Dubia Colony. Yes, dubia are expensive, but setting up a colony isn't really that hard. There's youtube videos all over the place explaining how to do it. Option 2: Reptiworms. Very high in calcium, so much that you don't even have to dust them (although you will still need to dust with multivitamins 2x a week) and also pretty cheap. They are very small so your dragon would eat a lot in one day, maybe 25-40 depending on how big of an eater he is. I get mine from Reptiworms.com, they have a pretty cheap price and they get to my house usually on fridays (they ship out on mondays tuesdays wednesdays). My order of 500 is supposed to come in today and it was around $25. Option 3: Snack Packs! mulberryfarms.com sells a variety of snack packs, I like the one that has 300 reptiworms, 500 small superworms, and a cup of hornworms for $40, but they have more packs then that. Hope this helps! :mrgreen:

 

[Nyxcgf]

For the greens, (sorry I totally left that out) go to the grocery store and get a stalk of mustard greens for like $.99. Tear them up into reasonable pieces and leave a little on his basking spot and the rest in a bowl, he should investigate eventually even if you have to do this for a couple of days! Once he gets a taste for them he should eat them just fine, and mustard greens are one of the best veggies for them.

 

[chrism1]

Thanks so much, very helpful as a matter of fact haha.

The snackpacks looks good. I'l probably get it. How long does the snack pack usually last you?

 

[Nyxcgf]

Sorry for the late reply! I havn't gotten a snack pack yet but I plan to sometime soon. All i've heard is good feedback on them though!

 

[chrism1]

Thanks for replying, though! Looks I"m a get the snack pack, as well, will post later to see how he likes it. Thanks again!