Feeding issues

[Brettm]

I have had my columbion now for three weeks. She is doing great the only thing I have run into is feeding. She seems to be picky and doesn't have the biggest appetite. She has ate five osix time for me since I've had her. The last time was five days ago and I've given her food every day since she sniffs at it for a bit and walks away. I offer rat fuzzies,ground turkey,hard boiled eggs,catfish. Should I just wait a few days before I offer her anymore? I hate having to waste food.
Thanks

 

[Matthew Krzemienski]

I've never owned a Colombian, so take everything I say with a grain of salt...but with my argentines, it was a matter of figuring out what they liked, which happened to be live crickets. They wouldn't touch anything else. Once I figured that out, it became a matter of how to work other foods into the mix. So I would sit there and have to coat these jumping crickets with ground animal meats and hope the tegus didn't shake the meat off and just eat the cricket (tegus are remarkably clever). After a few weeks of this, my tegus started taking meats alone and now won't even bat an eye at live crickets.

It's all about trial and error with reptiles as long as your husbandry is correct. If your animal has health issues causing it to have less of an appetite, that's a completely different issue.

Matt

 

[Brettm]

I've never owned a Colombian, so take everything I say with a grain of salt...but with my argentines, it was a matter of figuring out what they liked, which happened to be live crickets. They wouldn't touch anything else. Once I figured that out, it became a matter of how to work other foods into the mix. So I would sit there and have to coat these jumping crickets with ground animal meats and hope the tegus didn't shake the meat off and just eat the cricket (tegus are remarkably clever). After a few weeks of this, my tegus started taking meats alone and now won't even bat an eye at live crickets.

It's all about trial and error with reptiles as long as your husbandry is correct. If your animal has health issues causing it to have less of an appetite, that's a completely different issue.

Matt

thanks Matt i will keep working on it. hey i have a chow also

 

[Jango]

I have had my Columbian for almost a year now and she is pretty picky. She would never touch any bugs of any kind, crickets, worms, roaches, etc. But she has loved the ground turkey, duck, and quail from hairtodaygonetomorrow, especially the duck. However she will only eat about every other day or every third day even if food is offered. This has been constant the entire time I've had her.

 

[Jango]

Also, she loves raw egg yolk. I separate the white and create a little basket with some ground meat and she'll pick out the yolk before starting on the meat. The meat from hairtodaygonetomorrow is awesome, you can get whole ground carcasses so your lizard gets all the vitamins and calcium from the organs and bones. No supplementing needed.

 

[Brettm]

I will look into the hairtodaygonetommorow, tried ground turkey and butter worms tonight and no go she has good weight on her and she does eat just only a few times a week. Sounds like yourself jango, I will wait a couple days and try again.