So, I think Sydney is awake out of brumation now for good. He had woken up several times during brumation, but he never ate anything when I offered it to him. Today was day two of him being up, so I took him out and put him in his feeding container with some crix. WHAM! There's the lizard I know and love! He gobbled them up quickly! It's nice to see him active and eating again instead of just vegetating and making me worry, like he's done all winter.
So anyways, after he ran around on the floor after eating, he curled up in a corner, so I put him back in his tank so he could bask. I walked out of the room for a minute and came back to see him sitting up with his front feet up on the edge of his veggie bowl. I thought to myself "He hasn't eaten his vegetables ever since I spoiled him with too much crickets...he's just messing with me". I left the room for another couple of minutes, and when I came back he was up on his basking spot, and his food dish had clearly been tampered with. Now I'm not sure if he ate his food or if he just moved it around! I gotta start counting out how many pieces of greens I put in there. I'm going to give him a week on a very low protien diet to see if he eats his veggies, and if he does and start gaining weight, I'll be very happy. He's not like my mali uro that will run to you when you put greens in or hold some in your fingers, that's for sure.
By the way, I discovered a rather ingenious way to keep Syd from knocking sand into his food bowl or vice versa. I put some rocks (big ones that he can't ingest) in a corner and covered it with sand so it's about 1" or so higher than the rest of the sand in that section of the tank, and then I set the food bowl on top of that. He can't whip sand into it with his tail as easily, and it's out of the way of his daily jog across the back wall of his tank so he doesn't drag food all of the tank anymore. Can't believe I didn't think of this before. Of course, shelf liner would be easier, but he seems to enjoy the sand.
-ryan
