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She ate SOMETHING!

Abukuchick Mar 16, 2006 04:52 PM

Well, I know it's not much but I saw her chase down and eat a fruit fly! It's not much, but its something! Right after that a cricket climbed on her and she just kicked it away, so we'll keep adding the little flies for her. Hopefully when she's feeling more secure, she'll eat something else.

He seems to like the fruit flys too, they crawl up the glass to where they're hanging out and get munched in one smack!

We finally have everything right. It took several days to get the temperature gradiant and basking area's to the right temp, but now we have a cool spot of 72-75F, a mid-range of 80-85 and a basking spot of 92. The female also seems to have discovered that the floor is warm and spends some time down there.

One question, how many fruit flies does she need to eat a day to sustain herself? We're getting more worms soon, but at least she's willing to eat some sort of insect until we find something more substantial that tickles her taste buds

Replies (4)

jasonw Mar 21, 2006 06:32 PM

I would say feed her as much as she will eat. Are you supplementing the food as well?
My Research and Collection

Abukuchick Mar 22, 2006 04:13 PM

We've found something else she'll eat, pinhead crickets. We've been trying to feed her lots of flies, but our viles are empty and the store doesn't have any with actual flies! Now we have to wait for the wormy maggot things to turn into flies to be able to feed her those. She did almost eat a waxworm the other day, but she spit it out (I think it was too big). Is there anything else small she might like? We should be able to catch some house flies soon, I'll try those when we get some.

We spray the worms with vitamins, but the flies and pinheads are difficult to spray as I can only dump them out of their enclosures into the tank, otherwise they escape. The pinheads to have 2 different foods (one is fluker's orange cubes, the other is a dry mix used by our local reptile experts) and water gel with calcium, so hopefully that'll be good for her too.

She is still wasting away and I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't make it in the long run. The male is doing wonderful, nice and fat and eating everything. Hopefully we can give her enough pinheads to keep her from losing any more weight until we can get her eating larger crickets or some type of worm.

She has been hanging out on the bottom of the tank on top of the undertank heater. Is this normal or odd behavior? She tends to stay under the lighted area, but moves to hide herself under some leaves. I know that they are arboreal and prefer high places, so why doesn't she? Could she be too weak from lack of food to hold herself on the vines, or maybe she just likes to have a warm belly? These lizards are nuts!

Oh yeah, the male showed his dewlap for the first time a few days ago. He seemed to direct it at me, what does that mean? The next day he did it near the female (still looking at me) and she did it herself and then ran away! He did it once more in a plant, possibly at me again. I feel bad that I freak him out so much!

-Martha

Abukuchick Mar 22, 2006 09:55 PM

Tonight she ate a whole wax worm without spitting it out! Hooray!

ajr Mar 23, 2006 12:08 PM

I wouldn't feed wild caught flies. They are filthy and probably filled with parasites. There a few places where you can order healthy flies raised as feeders. You can get maggots and let them change as you need them or get them ready to turn into flies.

You can cut a piece of waxworm (maybe a quarter of an inch or so?) off the head end. It will move around for quite some time. It would probably be a more manageable piece.

Andy

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