As your BTS is still growing, I suggest feeding him every day till he's closer to 18 months, then drop to every other day. What I did to ensure my BTS ate his greens, is to put all his greens (collards, dandelions, mustard greens, endive, escarole and other dark leafy greens listed as safe for iguanas or bearded dragons www.beautifuldragons.com has a great list for dragons that can be followed with bts's). I typically mixed two staple greens (ie collard greens and dandelion greens) with a couple vegetables, such as bell peppers, zuccini, radish greens etc. and blend it all up till everything is coarsely chopped.

I then add a little bit of calcium powder (a pinch or two depending on how much chopped greens I have (I typically make about a cup chopped per batch) and a pinch of multivitamin powder and mix well. I store this in a tight closing container in the fridge for 7 days...usually with two skinks, this is enough to last about a week. When I feed my skinks, I add a bit of fruit (I think only 10-20% of total volume of fruit is all that is needed for skinks.) 2-3 times a week.

To encourage the skinks to eat the chopped greens I always just added about a teaspoon or two of low fat canned cat food, usually Fancy Feast chicken, turkey, beef or mix chicken/turkey. I never used any of the seafood ones. I only use the cat food as a sort of binder, to help mix up all the greens. I place this on a lid or shallow bowl.

One thing I discovered is if a little bit of crested gecko diet is sprinkled over the greens, this seems to entice BTS's to eat greens quicker. I had crested geckos most of the time I had BTS's so it was no problem adding some of the mixed diet (comes in a powder, just mix one part powder to two parts water).

Once my BTS's were adults, (2 years about) I only fed them 2-3 times a week, and usually had one meal that was dusted superworms, silkworms, or hornworms. Rarely, as a treat, I would offer a pinky rat (typically no more than one a month, but I averaged maybe one ever 2-4 months).

Once BTS's are full grown, care must be taken to ensure they don't get obese...I have seen alot of really fat BTS's in forums and at shows...often twice as wide as my adults and they would be about the same length.
-----
PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]