Newbie owner, 2 yr old won't eat anything but worms

[SonnysMom]

We just adopted a 2 year old male named Sonny Black. He's very friendly and appears to be very healthy. Our issue is that the previous owner hand fed him superworms but he's not used to greens or anything else. We keep giving him a green salad with romaine and have tried strawberries, apple etc.. but he refuses to eat it. We bought some Repashy Grub Pie and Veggie and put that on top of his salad but no luck. Have even tried hand feeding him the Repashy and veggies/fruits separately but he wants nothing to do with them. We also tried putting a few superworms on top of his salad but he won't even eat the worms! He likes to climb on our lap if he's out of his enclosure to be hand fed the worms or he will go on his basking log to be hand fed. We don't mind a bit of hand feeding, could help us with bonding but how do we get him to start eating on his own and a better variety??

 

[SonnysMom]

think mine is only post with no replies today

 

[SonnysMom]

Not feeling very welcome. Guess I will research other forums.

 

[beeneufe]

Hi - the forum seems pretty quiet today. I also have a 2ish year-old who doesn't like veggies, or crickets, or anything that isn't a worm. You mentioned he is used to being hand fed, so he's probably gotten rather lazy. I might suggest some tough love. Halt the meat for a few days, and keep providing the salad. It can be frustrating watching your beautiful work dry out and go to waste, but consistency is key. For worms, more tough love. Put the worms in the dish and if he doesn't eat them, take them out (as you don't want them crawling around when the lights go out). Don't let him get his way. If he is hungry, he will eat!

My girl doesn't eat crickets and dubia roaches are illegal where I am, so I feed a lot of supers. I switch it up by offering other worms like silk worms, wax worms, horn worms, butter worms on occasion. If you're supplementing and gutloading (superworms will munch on greens) it shouldn't be too too big of an issue.

Romaine shouldn't be fed to beardies btw. The greens I have had the best luck with are dandelion greens and bok choy. Squash is a common favourite, along with mustard greens. I usually top salads off with wax worms because they are smaller and the chance of her grabbing some leaves is higher.

 

[PatsyB]

Sorry, I was at work all day yesterday and have some family issues that need to be dealt with. I can usually get on the forum first thing in the morning and go through posts.

If you are still here, I have a 4 year old dragon that refuses to eat her salad on her own but loves super worms. Since there is a lot of chewing involved in eating super worms, I put pieces of greens in her mouth while she is chewing and that is how she gets her greens.

 

[SonnysMom]

Thanks for the replies. It's been slow going, he still isn't eating much. We're averaging 2-3 superworms and 1 or 2 pieces of greens in a day, doesn't seem like that's enough.

 

[PatsyB]

Older dragons don't eat a whole lot and usually eating bugs every 3 days is good for them. With Dexter, because she doesn't eat her greens like she should, I offer her bugs every day. Sometimes she will eat only 2 and sometimes she will eat 6. Another important thing to do is make sure your bugs are gut loaded. I feed my bugs the stems and ends from the salad items I feed the dragons. This way they will hopefully be getting the nutrition still without really eating the salad.