Bearded salad dodger

[austin]

Hi all, i have been searching through some old posts to see if i could answer my question myself. I didnt quite find what i was looking for.

My Beardie is aprox 10 months old and 19 inch in length. The temps are all good, basking spot hits 105 f, ambient temp is 80-85 and the cool end is 75.
UVB replaced every 6 months (repti sun 10.0) He is very friendly and enjoys life out side of his viv more than inside.

The problem i am having is that he has never been interested in veg, i have offered him every salad item noted on the beautiful dragons site. Ive tried chopping them really small, leaving them quite large and hanging spring green leaves from the top of the viv but to no avail. Now and again he will take a bit from my hand but thats rare.

I gut load his crickets with veg so that he gets some veg nutrition but would like some advice on getting him to eat veg from his dish on his own. Salad is offered every day, sprayed to keep fresh and removed a hour or so before his lights go out.

I have cut down on the amount of crickets he has and stopped giving him locust so often (think he got addicted to them). This i hoped would encourage him to search out an alternative food item (veg) but still not in to the greens.

Your past experiences and advice would be much appreciated.

[ToxicSiren]

My bd was the same, here are few tips that may work.

• Make sure he can see you put it in.
• Make sure he knows its there eg build the veg high in the bowl.
• Offer veg first thing in morning, then dont offer live food till later in day.
• Try putting some meal worms mixed in witih veg...the wriggling may attract him.
• Try about with different salads/veg. My bd will only eat leaves eg lettuce (not iceburg)...and mixed herb salad. She will pick around any other veg i put in.

Hope this helps x

[austin]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
I have already tried all the methods you suggested. He knows exactly where his salad bowls are, i have 2 in there, 1 up the colder end and 1 near his hot spot, he just chooses to pretend they are invisible.
When i tried meal worms in with his salad he picked them out with pin point accuracy so not to get any salad lol.
When i spray the salad he quite enjoys watching the water drops rolling off the leaves and then licks them. He really is a bugger!!
I have tried not feeding him crickets for a couple of days to see if that kick starts a new found love for salad, he just gets grumpy and sits in his log like a spoilt kid. I then fold, feel guilty and give him what he wants.

[charlottej1983]

what types of salad are you feeding? many young dragons tend to not eat there veg, i have had this problem amny of times, sometimes the meal worm trick works, other times i sit there for a while with some tweezers, moving the leaf around prtending that its kinda "running" and this sometimes works.

[austin]

Hi, i don't think there is a beardie safe salad and fruit i have not tried.
Today in his salad bowls he has butternut squash, spring greens, peeled cucumber, a small amount of curly kale and a chopped up red grape. I also have a pot of water cress in there.

[dragonboy08]

Mine will only eat Kale and grapes!!!

[zebedeepink]

Mine was exactly the same. Even now at 22 months old she doesn't eat as much salad as she should. I don't think she ate any at all till she was around 6-7 months and even then, only a bite or 2 a day. She eats more now but still not enough. She does like the tatsoi salad mix and rocket and she one made a right dog's dinner out of red bell peppers and it took me half an hour to clean her and her viv. She looked like she had lipstick on and the viv was smeared with red all over.

Just keep offering different veg - she may just not like what is on offer - they are fussy little buggers. Chuck a few mealies in as the movement might catch her attention

[LauraMartin]

i had this same problem, my beardie wouldnt eat veg till she was 3 month old, i was getting worried and tried all the methods u had. in the end i thought ok, one day without food wont kil her, so i put 2 bowls of salad in, one of spring greens and one of mixed salad leaves, and no live food at all. by about 3pm she must have been starving, and i saw her walk over to the spring greens and start eating them! then for the next couple days i only put veg in untill about 3pm, then gave her live, then after about 4 days of that i just started putting both in, in the morning and shes been fine since.

[Adam98150]

If they do not eat their salad the best thing you can do is gutload their livefood with it.

[Antw23uk]

I woudnt be worrying too much and as long as your gut loading and dusting the live food your doing everything right.
I got my beardie as a 4 yr old and she would eat iceberg and meal worms only (yeah thanks previous owner!!)
I just kept offering a variety and reduced her live food to 2-3 a week. I to felt guilty not giving her live food every day but it does more harm than good in adult beardies so be tough, it wont starve if you hold back on live food for a few days.
Butternut squash done it in the end, she LOVES it. Well she does normally, i havent fed her for four weeks as she is brumating