Advice on Fruits

[Shigfugjum]

So it's time to go grocery shopping for my 9 month old Tegu again. Up to now her diet consisted of 2 days of mice, 1 day of chicken heart/liver dusted with calc, 1 day of bugs, and 3 days of ground turkey blended with egg, unsweet applesauce, blueberries, and calc/nutrient supplement. She happily eats what I give her and seems quite healthy and active (I mean, for a lizard). However, it became obvious that the turkey blend had way too much water content; after they thawed a bit they turned to mush which made a horrible mess when feeding. Plus she would pee on my bed at least three times within 2 hours and that wasn't working out for either of us. I did some research, and I am going to try including less blend and more raw (mice/chicken hearts). For the blend, I plan on skipping the egg and going with dried fruits from a bulk store, and also try out some fresh fruits to eat on their own.

Long story short, I was just interested to know what fruits your Tegus enjoy. I tried strawberries, but she only seems interested in the tips where the fruit is most ripe on the inside and ignores the whiter parts. I was thinking going for dried cranberry for the blend, and see how she takes to fresh apples and bananas.

 

[Skeep]

My girl definitely prefers riper fruits. As for what types she seems to go through phases. Sometimes she thinks blueberries are the best thing ever and sometimes she avoids them. If I try giving her a new fruit by itself she doesn't even consider it as food, but she'll eat almost anything if I'm actually feeding her a meal along with it, so it's hard to say what she likes =) My only negative experience was with kiwi; it went straight through her system which was pretty nasty.

 

[Jackie & Hellboy]

That diet you mentioned has way too much ground meat and meat parts, you're better off with while prey items like insects, mice, chicks, quail etc. I think you can even order fertilized quail eggs online and they are soooo much more healthy for tegus(and us but that's a different argument hahah)

 

[Jackie & Hellboy]

Whole prey not whole prey sorry, for fruits try things like cantaloupe or papaya melons, mine love them, they also love grapes(seedless), banana on occasion, blackberries sometimes( when it comes to berries I've noticed they only eat a few, i think it has to do with the tart flavor of these types of fruit like strawberries you mentioned)

So if I were you I'd switch to whole prey items and fresh fruits only, skip all the mixing of foods. That could be as big of an issue as mixing chocolate into your dogs food, they'll eat it but they might not know a piece of food that could make them sick is in the mix. Go for a 50/50 whole prey and fruit diet and let them chose each piece of fruit or meat individually without mixing egg on it or anything else and they will let you know which ones are their favorites.

 

[N8bub]

My boy is a hog@ss and will eat anything but his favorite fruits are berries. I have a big bag of frozen raspberry, blueberry and blackberry I got from Costco. 1 day a week his meal is just these and frozen dubia and he'll eat the berries before the roaches.

 

[SamBobCat]

Personally my girl absolutely adores bananas, pitted halved charries, blueberries, and I've only ever fed her one strawberry and she seemed to like it, but they're expensive so I didn't want to get her used to them.