My tegu as you know won't eat fruit. After the whole fish hook scare, I am not doing the injecting thing anymore. I took your advice and bought a food processor. I got some chicken and a little beef, made a minced meat.

Then, I made another minced meat with chicken, papaya, squash, greens, vitamin, mineral, calcium powder and added vitamin C, and I made meatballs. I was half expecting him not to eat it, because everything I tried before don't really work (except injecting the fruit into fish).

I put it in and he ate! He has thus far been eating chucks of stuff his whole life, chunks of meat, and chunks of fruit offered (not eaten), mice, etc. He would pick up a mouse, pull it away, gulp the whole thing down, go back, pick up a chunk of chicken, go dray it away, gulp the whole thing down etc. I could see he was surprised when he bit into a meatball and it ripped off a little piece. I saw him as he continued to eat, trying his damdest to balance his bites and keep the meatballs in one piece and just swallow and gulp them whole as he usually does, but they broke apart, and a lot of the fruit just fell out, and he ended up eating a lot of the surface parts. Sticking to the substrate making a mess.

I then tried squeezing the meatballs into a huge meatloaf and he ignored it.

All in all, its a victory. I got him to eat this preparation, or at least try. But the thing is, to get the fruit in him, I need to make the meatballs NOT disintegrate like that!!!!! Then he can get the fruit in him more!

I noticed that the chicken/beef puree sticked pretty solid, but when mixed with fruit, it just was kinda watery....

PLEASE CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO MAKE THE MEATBALLS STICK TOGETHER MORE SOMETIME BEFORE TOMMOROW'S FEEDING! I AM PSYCHIED!!!!!

And how to stop it from sticking to the substrate? I'll try getting a bigger plate but I am again half expecting him to only want to eat from his usual dish. The dish is big enough but he likes to grab a fish, walk away dragging it along, then eat it, come back etc...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I WANNA DO THIS AND MAKE HIM EAT THE DARN FRUIT!!!!!

Can I add some flour or corn starch or something? I don't know what can make the meatballs stick together...

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