Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As some of you may know, I have been struggling to get my 2 year old beardie onto veggies for quite some time now. A few monthes ago I had some success when he started eating carrots (which I don't like because they're hard to digest for him), some peas, and red pellets. Well, I was hoping I could get him eating other stuff, but now he still eats just those from the salad, and not in good quantities either. How can I get him to eat greens and other good stuff? Right now I have him limited to only 10 crickets monday, 5-10 wednesday, and 10 friday, with veggies and stuff everyday. If I can't get him to eat his greens (there's gotta be a way, doesn't there?), what other food options do I have. I bought him repcal pellets, but he only eats the red ones, and there aren't many red ones. I could try just offering greens for a while, but he is going through pinworm treatment (he's been basically infested with parasites since I got him a year and a half ago), and he is already pretty skinny (not badly skinny, but not nice and plump like a healthy beardie). We had problems earlier this year where his uric acid was too high and his calcium and phosphate levels were jumping around a lot so I really need to get him onto good veggies before he gets kidney problems.

Besides ideas to get him to eat his greens (which he doesn't even seem to recognize as a food source...how do I change that?), are there any healthy foods that are brightly colored? Please help, any and all advice is needed. I'm just about at my wits end here.

I have noticed that the hotter I keep mine the more greens they eat. Perhaps the water content of greens is more attractive when they are hotter. This is a casual observation of my 2 adults. I also have 16 hatchlings that eat a lot of greens and are kept very hot as well.
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Since he is underweight, maybe try putting some silkworms or waxworms in a bowl with his leafy greens. He should go after the worms, and he may get some greens in with them and decide he likes them. The worms also make the leaves move around, which can get his attention. Mine likes raspberries and strawberries, maybe throw some of them in to.
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that might result in the beardie refusing to eat his greens unless there's worms in it tho, i've heard of it happening b4.
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My baby Beardie!(aka the Fugative)

This may sound disgusting, but since he likes crix, mash some up into a juicy paste and rub it all over the lettuce. I never tried it because mine eats greens, but its just a thought.

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0.0.2 RES's (The Boondock Saints)
0.0.1 Common Snapping Turtle (Aggro)
0.0.1 Eastern Red Bellie (Jake)
0.0.1 Map Turtle (Mappy)
0.2.0 Bearded Dragon (Yeungling,Killian)

My advice is to start hand-feeding him some veggies. I hand feed all of my young dragons (even the adults most of the time, but not every day) squash and other veggies every morning. I cut the pieces long and real thin and then place the food firmly against the slit of their mouth. Most dragons will open their mouth enough for you to slip the veggie in and then they bite off a piece and swallow it. Once you get the hang of it, its like Pacman, gobble, gobble, gobble. Anyway, this is the best way to insure that they're actually eating veggies and I've found that it also helps to make them more tame. For stubborn dragons that don't take to hand feeding right away, put a drop of water on their snout, when they lap it up, put the thin veggie in.

Taking into account that he does in fact eat the red pellets, have you considered using food coloring to make the green pellets look redder? I would consider trying this if I was having the same problem.

You could add more green ones in time and even mix them up a bit so that the red sticks to the green, then hopefully stop coloring them altogether once he starts to get used to the idea of eating food that is green. In addition since is eating the red pellets you may also want to chop the greens up finely and mix them in with the red pellets so that he ends up eating that by accident. When I say mix up I mean really mix it up so that everything is pretty much stuck together.

I noticed that several of my dragons prefer red over any other color but will eat the green when they finish picking out the red. Others prefer the green, go figure.