Crestie Help Please

[Sarah1340]

My crestie hasn't eaten in a long time so my vet told me to feed him critical care formula three times a day with a syringe with a cannula on the end. My technique at the moment is to dribble at bit onto his nose until he licks it off and then try to put the tube into his mouth when it is open. He's gotten wise to this though and has started flicking the tube out of his mouth so the formula goes all over me! Is there a better technique that anyone can recommend?

[Gertrude]

How old is your crestie and how much does he weigh?

If he is not eating then there could be an underlying problem because in my experience it is very unusual for any lizard to stop eating for no reason.

How long have you had him?

By the way, I would be reluctant to force feed becasue this will stress him out further.

[Sarah1340]

He is 1 year 3 months old and weighs 23g. I've had him for about a year now.

I'm waiting for him to do a poop so the vet can do faecal tests, but he's mainly excreting urates at the moment and not faeces. My vet instructed me to give him the formula this way, so I'm just following instructions.

[marky0283]

How long has he not been eating for?

Is he loosing weight?

What substrate do you use?

[Sarah1340]

He's not been eating for about two months now. He seems to have lost some weight, although I haven't got any scales so I can't quantify that. He's always been pretty scrawny (even when he was eating loads) and he seems to have got a little scrawnier recently. He's on kitchen paper. Both me and the vet suspect some sort of parasite, but until he poops it's impossible to be 100% sure.

[marky0283]

Did you change what food you were offering him?

Another thing you could try with the Critical Care formula is maybe mixing it with mashed up wax worms. It will taste nicer and he might be more willing to eat it. I know wax worms should not be given as a staple diet as they are high in fat but if he has lost weight then it will not do any harm

[Sarah1340]

No, we've kept him on the same food. We've offered him waxworms before a few times and he's just turned his nose up at them. However he is a lot older now. Do you still think it's worth a try?

[hutch]

He's not even interested in baby food mixed with honey and calcium? Or his CGD?

[deaxone]

well theres a wide variety of foods now available,what brand cgd are you using,
if its the komodo one you may have your reason,alot has been said online about how its just no where near as good as the repashy stuff,and alot of crestys wont touch it
if you havent already,i would try getting in both the normal repashy or t.rex cgd,and the repashy 2 part diet that comes in multiple flavors,
try hand feeding him as many different things and see what he likes,
also banana/mango/passionfruit mashed up,
if he takes to any of these you could mix up a batch with the meds and a bit of extra calcium etc,
it never hurts to try a easily visable feeding dish,also make sure his temps are in appropriate range

i hope you manage to find out what it is,good luck

[hutch]

Deaxone has a really good point there... My new cresties were wary at first coming down to feed so I rigged a feeding bowl up high in the vines and that worked a treat... apart from them stepping in it every now n then lol