Shacklynn bit me!

[TerryG]

My beardie loves crickets and live food, but is barely interested in eating veggies. She is probably around five months old (12.5" long) so I know it's normal for her to eat more protein than veggies, but I've been trying out veggies to see what she likes.

She'll try a bite of almost anything I have in my hand, but anything that's not moving that I put into her food dish just goes to waste. She will eat the zoo med juvenile bearded dragon pellets but I keep seeing people comment that the "complete diets" are no substitute for feeding real live feeders and vegetables.

So today I took some mashed butternut squash and dipped that into vitamin & calcium powder mixture and then put on top of a small piece of collard greens. I offered the little hors d'oeuvres to her and she gobbled them up happily, the only problem was that she gobbles pacman style until the chunk is gone. After I had fed her a few of the chunks, my thumb got in her way. She didn't break the skin and seemed entirely confused about why I pulled the chunk away while she was still eating. I switched to larger pieces of greens, but she didn't seem as interested in those.

Before today, I had been feeding her the mashed squash on the tip of a fork but she bites down quite hard and after I read that beardies can't regrow all their teeth, I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to break them. I've seen feeding tweezers, but it seems like she could break her teeth on those too. Does anyone have any suggestions for presenting vegetables to her?

 

[CooperDragon]

She just confused your finger with the rest of the food, I'm sure the bite was accidental. The front teeth are pretty sharp and can hurt as they get older. I suggest just putting veges chopped into small pieces into a pile in a bowl. Try picking up and dropping some of the leaves into the bowl to create movement and try to get her attention. I'd let her go to the food rather than hand feed or use bigger pieces and let her bite off what she wants from the larger piece in your hand so your fingers don't get in the way.

 

[SIZEMICT]

I use wooden chop stix.

 

[Taterbug]

They sell plastic feeding tongs too.