Take away food or wait till he becomes bigger?

[smaugthebeardie3756]

I hope this teaches you a lesson: not to withhold bugs. You are basicly silently letting this poor little guy starve to death. If he dies it is basicly your fault not providing the bugs he needs for basking. People like you should not have a bearded dragon as a pet in the first place by withholding bugs and expecting to eat a salad on his own and it is unacceptable. I dont have a bearded dragon but it upsets me that people do these kind of things to a bearded dragon and expect it to eat a salad on their own by withholding bugs. The original poster needs to be investigated for animal cruelty.

So I can't tell if this is someone that is serious and just misinformed/misguided or someone that is purposefully trolling people on here. Animal abuse is not providing a FULL and COMPLETE diet including leafy greens and vegetables. Dragons can be both picky and stubborn, but survival instincts will kick in long before they allow themselves to starve to death. OP and all others on here struggling to get your dragons to eat their veggies, stay strong and remember that they are hearty creatures from a difficult environment and can go quite some time without food or water (not that I advocate for withholding water, but still...)as they regularly do in the wild when these things are scarce. @morton-daniel, I sincerely hope you never get a bearded dragon because based on your comments here, you will be the one guilty of animal abuse.

 

[seleghari]

OMG......I won!!! I gave him a meal of roaches last night. And it's must a jumpstarted his metabolism because this morning when I put his salad bowl in he walked over to it and ate multiple bites of it on his own!!! So excited!!! Still not a whole meals worth. But he definitely knows it's food now! Marking this down as a win!

 

[Tonilee]

....Ignorance.

Which is extremely dangerous. Especially when false information gets spread. But with this wonderful forum they've just joined. They share in our opportunity to learn how to better care for these wonderful creatures.

Fruit is something that I believe could be perfectly left out of there diet all together if they don't seem to care for it. And no harm should came to them. As it isn't something they should be eating much of anyway.

However, if you'd like to try to persuade him. I'd try blending up/mashing the berries to make like a salad dressing and put it on his favorite greens. See if he'll eat that. And once he gets used to the flavor you can try him on the actual fruit itself cut up so he can smell them.

But just remember to go slow on it. This is NOT something they can eat daily!

Thank you so much I will try that if not I will just leave him be. He is doing perfectly fine without it anyways.