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My tegu as you know won't eat fruit. After the whole fish hook scare, I am not doing the injecting thing anymore. I took your advice and bought a food processor. I got some chicken and a little beef, made a minced meat.

Then, I made another minced meat with chicken, papaya, squash, greens, vitamin, mineral, calcium powder and added vitamin C, and I made meatballs. I was half expecting him not to eat it, because everything I tried before don't really work (except injecting the fruit into fish).

I put it in and he ate! He has thus far been eating chucks of stuff his whole life, chunks of meat, and chunks of fruit offered (not eaten), mice, etc. He would pick up a mouse, pull it away, gulp the whole thing down, go back, pick up a chunk of chicken, go dray it away, gulp the whole thing down etc. I could see he was surprised when he bit into a meatball and it ripped off a little piece. I saw him as he continued to eat, trying his damdest to balance his bites and keep the meatballs in one piece and just swallow and gulp them whole as he usually does, but they broke apart, and a lot of the fruit just fell out, and he ended up eating a lot of the surface parts. Sticking to the substrate making a mess.

I then tried squeezing the meatballs into a huge meatloaf and he ignored it.

All in all, its a victory. I got him to eat this preparation, or at least try. But the thing is, to get the fruit in him, I need to make the meatballs NOT disintegrate like that!!!!! Then he can get the fruit in him more!

I noticed that the chicken/beef puree sticked pretty solid, but when mixed with fruit, it just was kinda watery....

PLEASE CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO MAKE THE MEATBALLS STICK TOGETHER MORE SOMETIME BEFORE TOMMOROW'S FEEDING! I AM PSYCHIED!!!!!

And how to stop it from sticking to the substrate? I'll try getting a bigger plate but I am again half expecting him to only want to eat from his usual dish. The dish is big enough but he likes to grab a fish, walk away dragging it along, then eat it, come back etc...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I WANNA DO THIS AND MAKE HIM EAT THE DARN FRUIT!!!!!

Can I add some flour or corn starch or something? I don't know what can make the meatballs stick together...

One way is to lower the amount of fruit u add to the meat mix, its the jucies that are causing the meatball to fall a part. If you can remove or partly dry some of the furit before adding it to the food prossesor then that might help. If not you can try adding an egg to the mix, this is how some people make thier hambugers hold togeather and it won't add an odd taste like corn starch or flour might add. If you don't want to try egg or draining the fruit, then try looking up recipies for freash meat balls and grilling burger becuase they often have the problem of meat falling apart durning cooking and have some good tips that mihgt work. I'd look somemore up for you but im not near any of my grilling books... sometimes i hate work, lol.

Good luck, oh and this any cooking its mainly trial and error until you find a blend that works.
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Leo Gex
1.0 Giants
0.1 Giant Albino
0.1 Red strip/hypo
1.0 Patternless
0.2 Normals
Others:
1.0 Giant plated lizard
0.0.1 Blue Tegu
1.1 dogs
2:0 chinchillas

Hi, Thanks! But are you sure about the egg thing? Given that these are gonna be uncooked, wouldn't the egg make it even more watery?

How much egg per how many meat?

And how would I dehydrate the fruit? I remember seeing a machine on some television ad that let you dehydrate fruit, but that was years ago I dont know where to get that anymore.

I think they didnt mean to actually dry the fruit but to dry it with a papertowel, maybe squeezing a bit to get excess water out.I also would try a little less fruit in the mix as well so it will stick better..Once he starts getting used to the flavor maybe he will start eating it in chunks better.
You could also try putting meat babyfood on the fruit chunks so you dont have to mix everything together like that, thats how I started mine.

Another thing is to try and start feeding outside the cage.I had a skink that got a bowel obstruction from swallowing its food with some substrate(aspen bedding) on it.Tegus are bigger so maybe that is less likely to happen to them, dont know.
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I applaud you for going to such great lengths for your scaled friend ... My tegus have phases , sometimes the will eat meat and No veggies/fruits then other times just the opposite
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Safari Tom
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