Switching from feeders to pellet food

[Dragon mom]

Took my beardie in to the Vet for a follow up fecal after finishing treatment for parasites. He is perky and acts fine but still won't eat. It's been 6 weeks of force feeding. Fecal showed that his coccidia had completely cleared but still had small amount of pinworms so she wants to give a few more maintenance treatments of Panacur just to be safe. She said to try and play around with his diet. Try changing his feeders as he may be turned off by what initially made him sick. I did that but still a no go. She also said she has seen in some beardies that they quit eating feeders all together. She said it happens a lot with snakes and just as a person who eats a particular food and that food makes them really sick, they never want to eat that food again. She suggested giving him pellet food and see if he'll eat that. Curious if this has happened to anyone's beardie ? I would also like to add that she ran his blood work and it came back normal.

 

[PatsyB]

Never heard of that before. I'm surprised your vet suggested pellet food. Pellet food is processed junk food. It's good in a pinch but with all the chemicals in it I would be afraid for that to be the main diet.

 

[Dragon mom]

Never heard of that before. I'm surprised your vet suggested pellet food. Pellet food is processed junk food. It's good in a pinch but with all the chemicals in it I would be afraid for that to be the main diet.

I think the vet is stumped as to why he's still not eating. Blood work looks great. Temps in cage are fine. Still some pinworms she's still treating for but cant figure out why he still refuses to eat. At this point I think it would be better if he ate something on his own even if it was pellet food. not the greatest in nutrition I agree, but I can't syringe feed him forever and he wont eat live food.

 

[BeardedDragon65]

after parasites are cleared, they still have dead worms inside their gut, and might take a while to start eating again. I found a post on another forum explaining it, but I cant quite track it down. Pellet foods are bad. Most of the contain corn, which reptiles cannot/have a hard time digesting. I still don't have squishy back on track, and its been almost a month since he had coccidia.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Are you giving probiotics?? with meds they just mess their bellies up he might just need his gut flurra straightened out

 

[Dragon mom]

Are you giving probiotics?? with meds they just mess their bellies up he might just need his gut flurra straightened out

Yes, I've been giving him probiotics.