Reptile & Amphibian Forums

as you know i have the 3 week old baby,well after installing a huge water fountain she reacted to it greatly jumping right in having a good ol'time so he/she is hydrated,but im having problems feeding.I have feed her 1/2 a medium size meal worm but she wouldnt take it on her own so i hand feed her without force,she opened her mouth when i put the meal worm in her face,I was wondering how much should be enough for her untill she can feed herself as its kind of hard hand feeding her when she does not want to and i dont want to shove it in her mouth and cause un-needed stress.

any help is always appreciated and thanks in advance.

Do you live near a source of small crickets? Most pet stores carry both large and small crickets. I would suggest you pick up a few and see how that goes. My babies almost always respond to chasing little crickets if nothing else gets their attention.

As for the mealies, if you are having to cut it that cuts the chances of him becomming interested in it as most mhd, including the babies just aren't interested in anything that doesn't move. I raise my own mealies so that I always have a good assortment of sizes available. I start the hatchlings on the tiny, like 3/8 - 1/2" long and by the time they are 3 weeks old they are eating 5/8 - 3/4" long mealies. They eat a lot of them too. I put about 70 in a dish with chow and dust them well. My 7 babies have them cleaned up in 2-2 1/2 days so you should figure 2-6 worms or small crickets a day.

Once you have him eating well see if you can get him interested in red wigglers. Some tropical fish will carry them. I really think that once they start eating wigglers or night crawlers they really grow and bulk up nice.

Hope this is some help. Keep us posted, and welcome to the forum.

Marcia

thanks for the advice,i've tried small crickets but didnt seem interested but hopefully will respond better in a day or so,and i have small crickets on hand at all times as i have 2 small leapord geckos,this is my 2nd dragon and the 1st one ate like crazy when i 1st got him but later died being a WC import miss him much was a fantastic pet.btw been here in the dragon forum for a few months but after pandora died i didnt post here cause i missed her hopefully this one being captive hatched(not captive bred) he should do well with check ups...any who thanks again and i have a pic of him ill get up soon,tommorow hopefully,have to say very friendly animal for being so small not even my geckos like being held for more than 10 seconds including my adults

Yes, I recognize the handle now! Yes, I would give him a day or two to settle in. If he is responding to water that is a good sign. Interest in the food will have to pick up shortly though as they can't go too long without food as tiny as they are.

I am glad to hear you didn't give up on MHDs due to your initial experience. They are wonderful. I have had a scratch or two along the way and although my Leos (when I had them) were very tame they didn't like to be held long. I had a rescue pair that hadn't been handled in their two years of life and the female was so wild she couldn't be held without putting up a fight. She would hiss and kick and thrash around trying to bite me at first. One time she did nail me and actually broke the skin and removed a bit of flesh from the palm side of my hand! Left one heck of a bruise. I have had a dragon or two bite me but never did it leave any sort of a mark even.

As you can tell, and probably recall from before, I am partial to MHDs

Marcia

my 1st dragon for some reason hissed after feeding but never bite when i picker her up but was always willing to come out and hang around for a while,one of my babie geckos tried to bite but i never give up on a reptile no matter how much they fight,trying to be a nice person i decided my 3 foot iguana needed some sun so went to the beach(big mistake)she was a rescue and must have been around dogs cause she went balistic when she heard dogs and it took me almost 45min just to grab her as she was putting up one hell of a fight and i had to resort to restraining her but after she was on my shoulder and away from the dogs she was fine,she later made a new home at NERD(new england reptiles)my brother in law owns the reptile show there and he took her to live with the others in the huge cage they have there

Yea, I don't give up on them either. My leo that took the chunk out of my hand became one of my nicest girls and gave me some really beautiful babies. She went on to start a breeding group for a new herper when I got to busy with the mhds to keep up with the leos.

later,
Marcia