Should I just stop feeding my BD greens he never eats them

[wickednick]

I admit I've only had Dagon for about a month, I was told he is 1 or 2 years old and about a good 14 or 15 in long. Hes very active, has his head up poops regularly. I've been trying to feed him greens, mustard, collards, kale, strawberrys, apples, carrots, but i've only ever seen him eat all of his veggies once when I first gave him fresh greens. Every day I put them in his tank and he won't touch them.He goes apes for crickets I give him a dozen or 2 every other day,but I worry I might be starving him because he never eats his veggies. Even when I bait the veggies with meal worms he just picks the worms out.
So what should I do here, I know this is a common problem with dragons there are tons of posts about it, i've tried many solutions none work. So I do worry that I might be starving him because he never eats greens, and I don't want to have more problems by feeding him all insects. Have a uvb light and a heat lamp it gets over a 100 at his basking spot.

 

[rockstar1992]

welcome to the forums
never leave your beardies without greens. my beardies have never eaten a full bowl of greens but will often have bits of them which may even be un noticed. you seem to be feeding the right things but maybe your beardie is just slightly picky. as long as they get there crickets i dont think they will starve. have you ever tryed hand feeding greens? you never know! it may just work always make sure you have fresh greens in the tank everyday and if the BD wants to have somethin to eat, its there for him. try and keep the veggies moist. maybe mist them so that the beardie will get hydrated by them and that may also give him a reason to eat them.

im no beardie expert by any means but i have a couple of methods that may work.

1) do you feed him any kind of worms preferably silk worms that your beardie will comfortably eat? if so try mixing them in the salad bowl as it may give the illusion of moving greens and movement will atract the beardies attention. or maybe even put them veg in with the worms and hope that the beardie picks some up by mistake and likes it.

2) while observing my beardies over the last year i have noticed that they both take alot of interest in my artificial plants when they move and will attempt to eat them so maybe real edible hanging plant? that may encourage him a little more. heres a brilliant link for a website if you want to give that a go... http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutritionframeset.html

hope this helps
good luck

 

[jortiz9758]

Well here is something I tried a while back and it worked for me the very first time. I one day offered my late "Max" chicken babyfood, and he absolutely loved it!
After that he would not eat his veggies at all and would only eat his protein (bugs) and babyfood for weeks at a time.
What I did was took some chicken babyfood..watered it down alot and then took a brush and brushed the liquid onto the leaves of my veggies.
He smelled the babyfood on the leaves and ate them all up!!!

 

[beardiesrawsome5]

you should continue the feeding of greens but on thing you can do is go to your local pet store and buy a food call instant dragon food for adult dragons my dragons love it completely it is much healthier than lettuce all you do is put it into there dish ad warmwaterlet it sit for a little bit then drain the water and they eat it its easy dilicious and healthey beacause it has dried dandilion green dried grasshoppers little tiny chuncks of lettuce and much more and if they dont eat it trie a drop off apple juice on your lettuce or somthing they dont like they cant stand the taste and smeell of it good luck!

 

[peera]

My male doesn't think much of greens either but once in a while he'll be all over them, you never know when it'll happen. I agree with the above posters to just keep them available. I know it feels like throwing money away, but he's probably eating more than you think. The way I got my older female to eat greens was I refused to give her live food until she did. She's a wonderful salad eater now, and it only took a couple weeks. Dragons are cold blooded, so it doesn't hurt them to go a while without food. Many go 3-4 months without any food when the brumate during the winter. This should NEVER be tried with a baby, but as you're pretty sure dragon is full grown, it's fine.
I do want to address 2 things posters before me have said.
1. DO NOT, under any circumstance, put a live plant in your viv. The water burns off and raises the humidity to very dangerous levels. Air Plants are ok, but they won't do anything for your dragon nutritionally.
2. The pellet dragon food is certainly not better for them than greens, there's a lot of debate whether it's good for them at all. As a "crouton" on their salad, it won't hurt, but it should never take the place of salad. Anyhow, I tried it once and none of my dragons would touch it.

Oh, and I noticed you occasionally feed mealworms. They aren't very good for your dragon due to high fat content and low meat-to-shell ratio. Superworms are a better, readily available worn source. I know they look the same, but they aren't, they're completely different species.