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I have a couple of questions, Quest my ornate has a toenail misssing, do these ever grow again? He has a normal looking toe, but no nail. You can see it in the pic - his right front leg.

Eating - he only wants to eat out of my hand. What can I do to correct this?

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

helga lost a toe nail right when i got her. she was very unhealthy and she stuck her foot on the screen of my sliding glass door and the nail came right off. it has very slowly grown back. as long as it is just the nail gone and not the front part of the toe, then the nail should grow back, or that is what i was told. quest's toenail will probably grow back faster than helga's because she has all kinds of feet problems. she only has 12 or 13 out of 20 toes
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vonnie
***There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. Mary Wilson Little ***

Yes, the toenail itself will grow back assuming that the toe isn't damaged. Ra had split one of his toenails right down the middle and was causing him a lot of pain. The vet just pulled the nail out and sealed the wound with a medicated powder. Ra's nail has grown in now. Just give it time and check the toe every so often to see if you can see something growing back in. They can still function quite well with missing nails.
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1.1 Mali Uromastyx (Ra and Isis)

also quest looks pretty healthy so give him time to get used to his food plate. like if he will not eat for a day or two because he just wants to be lazy, i don't think it will kill him. just monitor him and see if he starts to take an interest in the food. helga really hated the deep dishes, i have to feed her from margarine or tupperware lids. the two weeks she was on sand, i put a paper towel down on the sand and the lid on top the paper towel so she did not drag sand all over her food. you can also try to lure him over to the food dish area by having food in your hand and then once he is over there, drop it and see if he will fish it out of the dish. it always worked for the puppies we raised, but i have never tried it on a uro. i hope this helps some
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vonnie
***There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. Mary Wilson Little ***

thank you for the advice. I have tried feeding him on a paper plate. That did not work, I have also tried leaving him for a couple of days, but not noticed any food gone, it is hard though to know if he is eating out of his bowl, as when I get home from work all the food is dried up and I am not sure if he ate.

I have tried checking over the weekend when I am here, but have not seen him eat out of his bowl. I will try dropping it in his bowl as he is about to eat out of my hand. Thanks.

How much should he eat daily?

I do hope his toenail grows back although it does not seem to bother him.

yeah they are little troopers and do not seem to mind when parts of them are missing. helga will try to climb screens if she is near them and she does really well for only having a few back toes to push with but i never let her get very high because i worry about her falling.
does he have rocks in his cage? that is a nice natural way to keep their nails trim, as they can get really long and end up breaking off or twisting the toe. plus it does not hurt so much when they are crawling on you
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vonnie
***There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it. Mary Wilson Little ***

Yes, I do have a few rocks and other such things in his cage. He climbs and glass dances from around 11:00am to 8:00pm. He is very active.
I am used to cutting both my guinea pig's toe nails, but I do not know about cutting Quest's. I do not think I could keep him still for that.

As much as I really hate to say it, the only way I can trim my Uros nails is if he is a little chilly. I usually do it after he has been out of his cage running around my living room for awhile. He wriggles less and is more likely to sit still enough for me to trim at least one foot. I then trim them on a rotating schedule.

It is a trick I feel a little guilty about, but it seems to traumatize him less, since he doesn't run away from me for the next 3 days (whish is what he seems to do when I have done something he felt was inappropriate (aka "threatening").

Elizabeth
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