Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My 5-6 monther approprietly named 'B****'
always been a moody lil girl.
2 days ago she started refusing crix.
Regular green intake... just stopped taking crix.

3 weeks ago she was on supers for 2 days, and went back to crix.

Nothing has changed in her setup
temps high 105-110 low 85-90 gradient between
On tiles

Under 125 watt MVB at 13-16" basking distance.

I offered her a few supers today, and she rushed them showing how hungry she was for meat.

She is 14, almost 15 inches now

about 3/4inch between eyes

I wont stop on greens, I always offer 1/3 more then she ever eats

should I wait it out on her crix, and expect when she gets real hungry she will take em? or can I comply with her obvious strike, and go with supers 2inches early?

Thanks

I'm a little concerned about an MVB at 16"-20", as I recall they should be farther than 24" from the animal. Also the low side temps. are a little high. 85-90 is a good high side ambient temp. What size enclosure is she in?

Crickets in my opinion are the best feeder. I hate them but since you can gut load them effectively I feel they're better for growing babies. My 2 babies hatched the 1st week of May are almost 18" and 390 grams. I chock most of that up to the quality of food they eat. You can buy a Fluker's brand grain gutload at most pet stores and use apple slices for moisture. I buy a grain gutload in bulk at progeckos.com.

At the size of your dragons I think you have no risk feeding them superworms so I wouldn't worry about impaction. I usually try to hold off as long as possible letting my babies have other live food since as you see they tend to move away from crickets when other options are available to them.

At this point I'd just feed them whatever they'll eat. Maybe offer crickets in the am and supers in the pm or something like that. That way they never go a day with no live food.

Thanks
your concerns,
85 is the max temp on the cold end, normally around 4pm, my apartments temps warms by about 5 degrees in the summer.

MVB, I got them as to the advice of a pet store, i then read a great deal about them, for the 125 watt, i read a min distance of 12" and for the 160 watt a max distance of 18"
she will normally chill around the base of her at 16"

I cutload with a product called YUMMY, its packaged and refrigerated, I have 3 tuperware containers, about 15 litres each i think, about a foot by 18" on the base, I drop in a table spoon of the yummies, its a green moist sludge

I then put in 20-40 crix in each tub, they r the feed for the next day. He eats the crix, I clean and replace food and crix for the next day.

She eats most of them everytime, the left overs get carried over to the next tub, sometimes about 20 left over for the next day.

the cage is 4 ft by 2 ft, 24 inches high

She was born march 30th, so jsut 5 months old, about the age of your juvie, but yours is much bigger!

I had just gotten a new 1000 3/4's for her, so I will fursure continue to offer them each morning, and fill in with the supers at night

Thanks

I have the same low side temp. problem in my main dragon room during the summer. With 11 enclosures in one room, it often gets to 90 by late afternoon, even with automatic fans to move the hot air out.

I just never believed in those weird looking gutload products, but who knows. I don't do any prepared food for any of my animals or feeders. Old fashioned I guess.

My babies were hatched 5/2 & 5/4 so they're about 5 weeks younger than yours. I will say the have pretty big genes though. Both their parents are 22" . Their father is only just 1 year old so who knows how long he'll top out at. Next year I am hatching babies from 2 small rescues (less than 400 grams and 17". I am curious if husbandry will make them significantly bigger than their parents.

The 'Yummies' are a gelled moist food for reptiles, i have used them but find my dragons don't seem to like them much and the crickets will eat it but end up with green poo.

too much dyes in the stuff.

Crickets I tend to feed fresh greens, crushed rodent lab pellets, fish flakes at times (though I cant' stand the smell of the fish flakes do don't use them much) and grain cereals as well.

I personally don't use Fluker products for my own reasons, but have used home mixed grain gut loads I found on borderview dragon's website, which is mostly rolled oaks, skim milk powder, crushed low fat dried catfood and multivitamin added...I haven't used it in awhile as I find what i use now works just as well.
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PHLdyPayne

I used to gutload my feeder crickets with tropical fish flakes, but switched to good quality dog food because the fish food cost so much because they go through that stuff quick, but it does enhance color on my animals. Another stuff I tried is the chick mash. The crickets love them also and they're cheap. I use crushed dog kibble because I got a dog, it's already available, so I just crush a cup or two of it for my cricket colony.