I have a Bearded dragon that is around 11 months, 17 inches and around 300 grs.He is a rescue and when i adopted him he had MBD.A severe one! He could not walk very well, eat by himself, etc...etc...etc..For the last 5 months i ve been handfeeding him 3 times a day and now he is much better.Almost cured.He grew up 6 inches and got almost 200grs during this period.The only problem is he doesnt want to eat by himself!I know he can do it but when i stopped hand feeding him for one day he starved! He only ate 2 or 3 peas and a small piece of collard and dropped 20 grs!
But im going to travel for Chritmas for one whole month and i dont have anybody to hand feed him during this period.So HE NEEDS to start eating by himself!What should i do? Please, help me to convince my stubborn baby to eat by himself!
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Should i starve my Beardie?
Replies (6)
spoiled him 
This may sound strange, but we have seen it work.
Gawd, people are gonna think I am nuts.
Put his food in a bowl, both salads and his protein (worms, crickets etc) let he see someone else feed you from it (not the worms and crickets , but the salad) make him think you are being feed the other things also...... then fed hand feed him his food, do this for a few days, then eat from the bowl yourself, (or make him think you are), then put the bowl in his enclosure and walk away.......come back at times and pickup something from the bowl and act like you put it in your mouth and make a big deal of how good it is... then walk away.
Keep repeating this, but pick him up and put him near the bowl also, and grab another piece youself, and keep walking away.
They are VERY hard to break from hand feeding sometimes, but they do need to try and eat on thier own. He is in good shape now and missing a few meals are not going to hurt him.. you have a month-6 weeks to get him eating on his own.......
LOL, if all else fails, convince him it is winter and time to brumate!! 
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Kelly Affonce
DeKeaff Exotics
www.dekeaffexotics.com
AIM: DekeaffGrrl
I have a VERY tame, sweet and dewormed URO.My URO eats like a pig.I was thinking about caging them together for a while...Only to make Croissant see the URO eating.What do you think?
Several reasons..
Your Uro needs a higher basking temp, from what I've read 120 degrees, much higher then the dragon.
Never mix species. What bacteria may live naturally in one, may be deadly to another.
Both animals can be territorial, one will have to be submissive, which may cause it not to eat, not to bask, and to hide.
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TheClassyLizard
Another solution is to switch to silkworms. Unlike crickets they won't try and eat your dragon at night, or scurry to hide as soon as you drop them. The silkworms are easier to catch and I find, more enticing to your dragon. I would feed him one worm, drop one infront of him and make a show of pointing your finger at it, nudging it and encouraging him to eat it. Or you can keep lowering your hand closer and closer to the bottom of the cage when you feed him something (not as easy as it sounds..since I tend to hand feed silks to my dragon and he will charge my hand when he sees I have something in it).
Do you also hand feed him his greens or just insect food? If you just hand feed insects but he is eating his greens...you could sprinkle some pellets onto his salad and get him used to eating that.
Oh, another thing, from your earlier post, I beleive you indicated you wanted somebody else to feed your dragon while you are gone? Somebody you don't think would be willing to hand feed? If they are not ok about doing this with crickets, maybe silkworms would be something they can handle. They could use tweesers to carefully pick up the worms and feed it to your dragon that way.
I spoon fed him (vegetable soup) for the last 5 months!I used to mix the veggies with Bearded Dragon pellets and to give him like a soup!He never ate an insect during his whole life because during his whole life his mouth was way too big to allow him to pick up an insect!
Yes, i have a maid that will stay at my house during the whole month of December while im out of the country.She will give food to all my reptiles but i dont think she will agree in handfeed Croissant!
