Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was hoping some of you could shed your thougts on the best way to get a beardy to eat her greens.......... She is about five months old..... 11 inches long (five inches w/o tail) alert and steadily growing..... all seems fine except we cant get her to eat her greens....... She wolf's down her dusted crickets and worms but rarely takes from her green bowl..... We have tried dandellion greens, mustard greens, kale, baby roumaine, shredded carrots, strawberries, even some of the dry baby dragon pellets but she wont touch them..... every morning we put a new dish in her cage..... for the first few months, we were feeding her crickets (out of her cage) twice daily... as much as she would eat within ten minutes or so..... recently, to try to get her to eat her greens, we started to feed her crickets only once a day......... still no luck........ last week, we tried not feeding her crickets for a day and a half, still no luck......... thoughts? I hear that eating veggies really kicks in as they mature, but from what i can tell, even babies/adolescents should be eating a variety of greens/crickets........

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.....

MDK

Try freezing a few dozen crickets... thaw them out and put them on top of the greens. You can try shaking the dish a bit to make the greens move (movement can stimulate them). When she's an adult, you can cut the crickets off for a longer period of time (2 days or so). I wouldn't try too hard to force her at 11"... she'll come around eventually.

I even sprinkle some thinly sliced carrots on top of the greens. My dragons are very attracted to the color and they LOVE carrots as well. This often "tricks" them into eating their greens. I try to give my dragons a variety of greens in their diet, but they seem to love mustard greens the most. Try some tricks like that to get your baby's attention. The bright color attracts them to the bowl and as they "attack" the carrots or whatever you decide to try, they get mouthfuls of greens as well and find out they aren't so bad! After awhile, they will eat their greens. They are just like kids! You gotta trick some of them into eating their vegetables and some will just eat them on their own! Good luck!