Pulled hornworm from vent

[jsnsan]

I have to say.. looks like I made a mistake. I thought my 15 inch 309 gram girly could handle a full size hornworm. I bought too many, they got big...of course. But I thought since they were soft bodied, and she's certainly not a tiny dragon..she could handle them. Well she has eaten and digested several of the big ones. But today her poop in the bath was normal...until I noticed her beginning another bm..and she was straining. Well I ended up pulling an entire hornworm exo skeleton from her vent. Minus all the guts of the worm But still. I feel so bad! I'm glad I was home.

 

[jsnsan]

And this girl even handles supers quite well. Never had a problem. Maybe its because the supers aren't so fat. She chews each super quite thoroughly..But she has a hard time chewing the hornworms because they are fat.

 

[mudskipper]

 

[snazzyglasses]

Yikes! I'm sure she appreciated you removing it for her though The things we do for our dragons, lol :roll:
And yep it sounds to me like it could've been because of lack of chewing. Would cutting the hornworms in half help? Or would they still be too big to chew (Sorry, I know that's also super gross haha)

 

[mini031]

agreed! but happy you were there for her!

 

[jsnsan]

Pretty sure she wouldn't touch them if I cut them up. Plus I think that would be even more gross than pulling them out her bum. I'm envisioning hornworm juice squirting everywhere as I cut them up. No thanks! Lol.

 

[JenFid]

Wow, that is many kinds of disgusting! Probably worse than me pulling sperm plugs out of my boy's butt, lol! And yea I couldn't imagine cutting a hornworm - they squirt enough when the lizards chomp down on them, they would probably explode if you took a knife or scissors to them, rofl

 

[snazzyglasses]

I'm envisioning hornworm juice squirting everywhere as I cut them up. No thanks! Lol.

Ewww that's true. I didn't think of that part lol

 

[mudskipper]

That reminds of me this exploding hornworm video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9j_iTakdcE :lol:

 

[Spencer]

The first time i bought hornworms i ended up with about five that were too big. I let them go cause i really didnt want to cut them up and i ended up buying tiny baby hornworms the next time and being very careful to feed the ones that grew faster first so they wouldnt get too big.

 

[LadyMeridius]

I have cut the too big ones and they get eaten up just as quick. Sometimes she eats one half and I leave the other one for her. She will usually eat it within 10 minutes if she is hungry and will only leave it if she is full.

 

[mini031]

i got horned worms i know they grow quick but omg did they grow quicker then i thought thankfully we have a bigger lizard that will eat them

 

[tf2185]

Them growing to fat has never been a problem for us thankfully. We usually get the small ones and our little leather back eats them but there are always bigger ones when they come that we feed to our three bigger dragons. Of course doing this makes our 615 gram year old mad because he prefers the huge ones.

I'm glad I haven't had to pull anything from any of their butts yet, knock on wood, so far the most disgusting thing other than cleaning up poop has been "brushing" our one dragons teeth because he randomly gets stuff stuck in his teeth. His jaw doesn't work as well as the others but the is nothing e can do about that.

 

[NEROtheMONSTER]

Wow,I've never heard of anyone brushing their dragons teeth :shock: .How does this process work?

 

[tf2185]

Pretty much just like brushing our own teeth I suppose. I have to use a really fine pipe cleaner looking thing, I'm not sure what it's supposed to be for but it does the job, Get it a little wet and use the softness to get him to open his mouth a little and kind of menuver the superworms pieces out. I think he might be starting to enjoy it because he finally started opening his mouth on his own for it. I think if anything it kind of massages his gums a little when I doing it.