Feeding how much how often??

[bman123]

I bought a adult male (4 yr old) raptor off a local breeder for $50. He is a big boy about 9inches maybe a little longer. He was always fed mealworms and I don't like them at all.
I got him last weds. Thursday he ate 3 super worms and a large cricket. Yesterday he ate 3 large crickets. Do you think he is eating enough or no?
I just want to know how much and how often do you feed your leos.

Here are some pics of him
http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/a...1271560750.jpg

[bman123]

http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/a...1271612607.jpg
http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/a...1271612751.jpg
http://i926.photobucket.com/albums/a...1271612708.jpg

[Stewart_Reptiles]

All you can eat buffet

My leos have a dish with meal worms in their enclosure at all time, of course I remove them to replace by fresher gut loaded ones but the dish is there at all time.

[olstyn]

His tail could stand to be just a little bit more plump, but basically he looks good. My adult female of similar size (she's just a hair under 10 inches in total length and ~75 grams last time I weighed her) eats 3-4 large crickets every 3 days. It sounds like you're doing something similar, so I can't really say anything bad about it. That said, it'll really work out best if you can observe what the animal does and adjust based on that. If you give him 3 crickets and he chomps them all down and is obviously looking for more, give him some more and/or feed him every 2 days instead of every 3. If he's ignoring crickets, feed less and/or space out the feedings a bit more. If you're paying attention, he'll tell you what you need to do.

[bman123]

Most of the time he is sleeping, he does get up at night and walk around and climb all over his hides so he gets some exercise but he mainly sleeps.

About his tail size. Should I feed him something different to get his weight up some? I give him crickets and or superworms. Sometime he wants one or the other so I keep both on hand. The super worms are easier to keep by far, they don't make noise or jump out of the container when I try to grab them but I'm gonna still use crickets.

I heard of using wax worms to beef them up a little but I also heard that sometimes they will only eat wax worms and it's hard to get them back on crickets or super worms.

I don't have a scale so I don't know his exact weight, I was worried about his tail that's why I posted pics of him so you can tell me if I need to feed something different or not. I have a bait shop that I can get fresh wax worms from, I am thinking about trying the wax worms but I don't know how many to feed him or how often. He ate Sunday so he should probably eat tomorrow.
I haven't tried to feed him yet today since he's been sleeping.

He is lazy and won't chase his crickets so I been hand feeding them to him. Do you think I should try to get him to hunt? When I put his food in he looks interested but won't strike. He will walk on the crickets or superworms if they are in his way.

[Clementine_3]

I vote 'no' on the waxies. Just keep offering him the crickets and supers, he will put a bit of weight on with a good, steady diet of good, healthy feeders. He is in good shape, not underweight to the point of despair. Just go slow and easy, if he is hungry feed him, if not don't

[bman123]

He was raised on mealworms and I don't think they were properly gut loaded, or he didn't eat enough of them. The last post kinda has me worried lol. I don't want him to be all skinny, I know wax worms are fatty but I don't know if he's gonna plump up just off crickets and superworms when he doesn't even eat that much.

Most pics I see of leos have these big fat tails and his is long and kinda skinny. I just want him to look good and be healthy.
I don't know his weight. Does walmart sell cheap scales that I could weigh him with? I'd like to know for sure his weight. How much do you think he weighs from looking at his pics?

[bman123]

Well he just woke up. He came out of his hide and was staring at his calcium dish. I took the lid off and tried to feed him a superworm. He wouldn't take it.
I grabbed a large cricket and smacked it down on the tile so I can hand feed it to him. He ate 2 large crickets in a row.

I tried a 3rd but he didn't want it. He eventually turned away from me so I stopped trying to feed him. He is awake now and walking around his cage. I out a small bowl inside there and put 3 super worms inside it. I have to watch tho because they can get out of the bowl. I wonder if I should get some meal worms from the pet store gut load them tonight and put them in a bowl and leave the bowl inside his cage?

I have to get more large crickets anyways as I think he is now preceding the crickets over the super worms. What do you guys think?
He just ate Sunday so maybe he will eat every two days instead of three.

[olstyn]

I vote 'no' on the waxies. Just keep offering him the crickets and supers, he will put a bit of weight on with a good, steady diet of good, healthy feeders. He is in good shape, not underweight to the point of despair. Just go slow and easy, if he is hungry feed him, if not don't

Agreed; waxworms are a *very* rare treat for leos, if even that. Presuming he's otherwise healthy, he'll put on enough weight on a steady diet of superworms, mealworms, and/or crickets. He only looks slightly underweight right now, nothing to be really worried about. As long as you can get him to eat consistently, he should do fine, even if the amounts don't necessarily seem like a lot.

For example, my girl put on her last 15 grams (from 60 --> 75 grams total weight) on a diet of 3 crickets every 3 days, and she didn't necessarily always eat all 3. It's not like we're talking about warm blooded animals that need a ton of food just to maintain body weight here.

[bman123]

The guy only fed him mealworms and I don't think he got enough of them. I mean for being 4yrs old he should be bigger then he is. I have another question now. I had his tank setup with tile. I out playsand under the tile to keep them from rocking. I had gaps inbetween all the tile so I used playsand inbetween the tiles to fill in the gaps.

The play sand wasn't at the surface of the tiles, it was under it. Well he pooped today and had a small amount of playsand in his poop. I immediately freaked out and took him out the cage. I took out all the play sand, I put down one piece of newspaper to keep the tiles from making that grinding noise.
I shoved all the tiles to the front and to the right. So now I have a 1/4 inch gap in the back all the way across and on the left side from the back to the front. The only reason why I used playsand was so I didn't have these gaps.
He has a calcium dish full of calcium all the time in his cage, I don't understand why he ingested the sand. It makes no sense to me. He doesn't hunt I hand feed him every time.

He's not impacted at all, his tummy is nice and soft and I can move my finger around his belly. It's hard to explain really but I know he's not impacted and he had a real little amount in his poop. I'm just tripping out because the sand in his poop. I'm gonna monitor his poop for the next few times and see what happens.