Reptile & Amphibian Forums

long story,
a friend had a huge litter of beardie babies a month ago. and since his job takes him out of town often, his roomate was in charge of the care. needless to say around 30 babies were lost in the last month. i adopted the best surviing 3 a few days ago. Hoping at least i could save 1 of them.
during the 1 month care, i do not know how well they had water, food, who ate and who did not, the heat lamp burned out once and was not replaced for a few days, i do not think a full spectrum light was provided either.

so now i have 3 in a roomie tank room to move run climb and all. the have the right light, under tank warmer and a temp reg room at night, (share with my sulcata tortise)

i got them to drink and lick water fine now, but their eating i am concerned with. they are eating the little baby crickets great now and are showing much better life, it is the veggie mix with the calcium i can not get them to eat, no greens no carrots, squash nothing, it is all shredded and mixed into a goo mix for them. i am concerned that it should be a good part of their diet for this development stage and was wondering what some tricks are i could try to get them to eat. the 2nd day my fiance and i got the 3 to eat some apple slivers from our hands once but thats all.

how else do i get a proper calcium into them if they don't touch their veggies?
also what is a good calcium mix for them 2:1? 2:0 someone told me 4:1..?? but i can not find a consistant answer i have 2:1 always for my turtles, but do not have much knowlege away from the shelled ones...

thanks for all the help to those who can offer it..

Troy & kaira
(our family)
gillian -eastern box turtle
olivia- 3 toed box turtle
RB- eastern box turtle
fred- Red eared slider
sofia- red eared slider
henry- sulcata tortise
3 baby dragons- not named yet......

usually, we dust the crickets one feeding a day instead of the greens. that way they get the calcium I use rep-cal wit vitamin D powder, phosphorous free.
its pretty common for the youngins not to be interested in greens. you might want to try not offering them in a 'goo mix'. other things people do is put worms in the greens so the movement gets the baby to bite, and hopefulyl accidentally get some greens and realize theyre not bad. dont do it too much though...mealies have too much chitlin for babies, and waxworms arent very nutritional and are addictive.plus there may be a size issue. you could do this with crix too if the container is high enough that they cant jump out. i got mine to eat greens because when i put my hand in the cage, she opens her mouth to try to scare me. i started putting greens in her mouth when she did that, shed get annoyed and bite them, and found out that she actually likes them. just hand feeding might work.
its really just a matter of trial and error plus time...but nothing to get too concerned about when theyr eyoung. just keep trying and theyll eventually catch on
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proud mama to:
1.0.0 ball python (mr snake),0.0.1 albino florida kingsnake (CK),1.0.0 leopard gecko (sebastian),0.1.0 colombian rainbow boa (luce),1.1.0 bearded dragon (kaipo and dulce), 1.1.0 colombian redtailed boas (adam and eve)

You can dust their crix w/ the calcium supplement, if you use a powder form. Rep-Cal Calcium w/ D3 is a good one used by alot of us here. At this age, it's normal for them to not eat greens/veggies, but they should still be offered everyday. One trick is to put your crix in the fridge for 5-10 minutes, to slow them down, then put them on top of the greens. As they warm up & become more active, your babies will be attracted to them & hopefully get a bite of the greens while going after the crix.
Good luck & kudos to you for trying to save the ones you can! Keep us posted!
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God Bless, Beardie Dreams, & Peace!
Pogoniacs