Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a dragon (female, 1year and 4 months old) who is a spoiled lil brat and I only say that with love. I know how important it is to give them a varity of foods but she refuses anything but crickets and worms. For two weeks I introduced to her pellets, salad mixture, mustard greens, collard greens, kale and more. She didnt eat a thing the entire two weeks. I just broke down and gave her crickets because i'm afraid of her starving. I even spent 30 mins moving the leaves around thinking maybe if she see's movement she would give it a try...and nothing. She looked at me like I was nuts and walked away. How do I get her to eat stuff other then crickets. Thank you!

I had the very same problem from my beardie when he was younger (little over a year now). When I picked him up, he would and sometimes still does open his mouth in a defensive posture (sometimes it seems agressive). I would just take a piece of the green and put it into his mouth. He didn't take to it at first, but eats his veggies a little better now. It is just being consistant. Some people even advise on using baby food (veggie and chicken) by putting it on the tip of their mouth so they will lick it off. Then again, sometimes you give them so much that you can't really tell if they touch it. They need protein at a young age, but a good veggie staple as well.

what u can do is put so crix ontop of his food and as he (or she) is attepting to get the crickets they might get some veggies and find they like it

I have tried all that you have mentioned other then the baby food. She is extremely stubborn...she is soo good about everything else (drinking water ect.). Has anyone tried the vibratoring bowl thing? Is it okay to use for a dragon. Please let me know!

Although its a bit late for this now, the best way to get a beardie eating their veggies is to introduce them to veggeis at a young age. When i bred my beardies i fed the babies mostly crickets and such but also made sure they had some veggies to choose from. Although the, obviously, prefered their buggies, they picked at the veggies too. You cannot expect a lizard that has never seen veggies before to just take to them. I used the same method with my adult female (2 years) and when she was just a few months old, teased her into eating veggies a couple times a week. Now she eats them with gusto, consuming huge salads that seem bigger than her. My advice would be to be consistant and not give up, keep showing her the veggies and dangling them in front of her face until she finally tries them. It is really helpfull if she is already accepting live food from your fingers or the occasional pinkie mouse. So if she still ignores the greens after a while, try hand feeding her mealies and pinkies, once she gets used to taking food from your fingers, she should be more apt to take the greens.

good luck!!

~mim

I have the exact same problem with my bearded and my brothers bearded.

Hades and Draco are only eating worms and crickets now for some odd reason.

I leave endive in their enclosure along with some turnip greens. I tricked Hades into eating a green bean, I put a wax worm in it and he got the wax worm and bean at the same time. Other then that neither of them are eating anything green.

Does this mean that they are both sick? Draco is downstairs in my brothers room and Hades is upstairs in my room so there is no way germs could be transferred (I scrub/wash my hands very very good before I go into my room even if I don't handle my animals because of the risk of salmonilla).

Is there anything I can do to make them eat?
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