Only wants a few crickets....

So my issue is that my 2 month old is not eating a lot. I dont put crickets in his terrarium because he can never find them and I dont want to spend 30 minutes trying to fish the extras out.

So i feed him in a smaller terrarium, as to not scare him. He goes nuts and eats 5 crickets right away then loses interest and just climbs the walls trying to escape with no interest in eating. I do not think 5 crickets a day will do it for him. Any suggestions to feed him?

I was thinking being stubborn and he will eventually get use to the feeding terrarium? Or is there a trick to feed him inside his terrarium?

I had the same problem with my young beardie. She just seemed to hate food. Wouldn't touch greens and would only eat 5-7 small crickets and only once a day. I tried feeding her baby food etc. and nothing seemed to work. I ended up having to rehome her and she's just finally starting to come around at 4+ months. I guess she just started eating her greens and has started accepting crickets. I found the whole experience to be super frustrating and realized I'm not a lizard person through it, lol. Sticking with snakes.

I have no advice but I hope yours starts to eat. I definitely understand how frustrating and scary it is.

Number is kind of meaningless because of the size discrepancy. Five medium crickets provide much more food for a small beardie than 5 small crickets. Then pet shop sizes all differ. Instead, focus on your beardie, his weight, and how he looks (skinny, plump, in between, etc.).

Feeding outside the enclosure is not recommended if yours has an eating problem. They feel most secure inside their enclosure and that's where they should eat if there's a problem.

I have several suggestions for you to try:

1) If you don't want to set them lose in the enclosure, feed the bugs individually to the dragon using tweezers or hemostats.

2) Feed twice or three times a day, instead of once.

3) Try Dubias over crickets. Dubias are much more nutritious and dragons prefer them over crickets. Along these lines, try supplementing with other secondary feeders such as waxworms to stimulate an appetite.

4) If none of the above works, it sounds like you may have a husbandry issue. Make sure your basking and cool temps are correct and the dragon is getting enough hydration. Actually, you should check this first anyway.

Not sure where OP is located. If he's in Peterborough in Canada... Dubia are illegal across the country so that might not be an option for them. It wasn't for me.

Thanks for all the tips!

Yup Dubia is not allowed here. I tried feeding him in his cage by putting crickets in front of him and he ate. So he is hungry, he just doesnt like eating out the enclosure. But crickets do go everywhere. I am going to try cooling the crickets down so he has time to catch them before they run away. I may also try feeding several times a day out of enclosure if that gets annoying.

I am waiting for a stronger heat lamp in the mail. So he is only around 95-100 F right now. So when things get hotter, I imagine that will help too.

I think I joined beardeddragon.org. I got some good advice there. One of them that I didn't get to try...

Feed crickets a couple at a time. Put them in a glass mason jar with lid and calcium and shake them good. It makes them dizzy and dazed and they're really slow. Apparently it makes it much easier for dragons to catch them and they don't crawl all over. Maybe it will work for you :)

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