Well I just weighed Sprocket last night. He's a male Crested, about 1 year old now (I got him as a baby from Matt at Pangea August 06). He only weighs 22 grams and has basically been at this weight for awhile now. He seems healthy as anything, jumps huge distances, very perky acting, sheds clean as a whistle every time, poops normally, etc. He was moved to a larger enclosure, hated it, tried a 10 gallon flipped up, hated that, now he's back in his plastic "baby" tub which he apparently prefers (refused to eat at all in the other enclosures).

The problem is and always has been with Sprocket is that he is a flat out picky eater. He was raised on GSD as all are at Pangea and very well started and healthy from a reputable breeder. He really could care less for his GSD and rarely licks at it. He will occasionally try human baby food (peach usually) but that's not even something I can depend on him doing. Forget trying to sneak any suppliments into his food or dusting live prey. Any hint of that and he'll refuse to touch anything for weeks on end.

With live prey he used to love crix, then went off them and now will eat them very rarely. Most of the time I have to remove the horrible hopping things from his enclosure. He does like mealies. Sometimes he eats them very well, sometimes he just ignores them for days on end. There seems no rhyme nor reason to why he eats or refuses to.

He's been moved to the ball python room where it's warm, low light and quiet. This didn't seem to make a whit of difference to his eating pattern and there's been no weight gain at all since we moved him over a month ago.

He's quite a friendly little thing. Quite willing to be handled and never makes any alarm noises. Climbs about his enclosure well, uses his various vines and so forth. He has a lovely full tail.

We aren't handling him much right now as I'm so worried about his eating and being low weight for his age. To my eye he's growing in body structure but beginning to look a tad thin for my liking. I tried for pics today but he was too busy trying to hop all over me and sneak up the wall to get anything worth posting. He's misted twice a day every day, sometimes three times a day.

Am I worrying too much? Any ideas on encouraging better or more consistent eating patterns? Would getting him a mature female somehow perk him up enough to want to eat better? I'm at a loss and a bit worried about Sprocket.