1 week into withholding insects to encourage Mirage to eat more greens and veggies. She protests every single day and only takes 1 or 2 bites of her greens before leaving the rest to waste.
I know there aren’t a ton of Beardie people active on the platform, just frustrated and seeking help.
We tried adding fresh herbs (parsley, cilantro) to her greens, no result.
She will not touch Mustard or Collard greens, the only greens she shows any remote interest in is baby Arugula and turnip greens and even that she doesn’t eat much of.
Dandelion greens and flowers are not readily available for us to feed her.
She loves Yellow Squash but she can’t just solely eat that, we shred it and top her greens with it and she’ll eat the squash leaving everything else. We try other shredded veggies as salad toppers (Bell peppers, zucchini, butternut squash, carrot) with no improvement.
We try topping with bee pollen with no interest from her.
She’s still active, not showing any signs of illness, she still basks. Its been 1 month since she fully stopped brumating.
Normally we feed her about 5-8 large bsfl, 3-4 sm/med dubias and every other meal we offer 1-2 superworms, Hornworms and Waxworms are only offered as an occasional treat, she gets insects Monday and Friday so twice a week. All non-treat insects we feed her are gut loaded with the same veggies and greens we try to give Mirage in hopes that at least the nutrient and vitamin contents in the greens/veggies are still consumed by her.
Edit because I forgot to add: We do top her salads with calcium too.
When I kept a special needs blind beardie for awhile someone suggested that I mix some of this with water to make a type of “slurry” if you will, because he never could eat his greens for his previous owners. Since he was blind he couldn’t eat on his own anyway. I just did a coaxed syringe feed several times a week along with some insects.
You may not even want or need to consider this but it really worked for him and me both.
I had a very picky iguana when I was younger that would eat banana baby food… Finally got her eating veggies run through a food processor mixed with the baby food and vitamins.
Can maybe try a few different fruity or squash flavors and try something like that
We used to use organic Gerbers baby food (the kind that is essentially just pureed fruits or veggies, no other additives) to our hermit crabs and they LOVED it, I like the idea at least testing this out for a picky beardie
Plus, those little glass jars of baby food are like $2 each, so it isn’t costly to try and test a few flavors
Just make sure you get the organic ones/the ones with an ingredient list that only includes the veggies and not any extra stuff
Kale was one of the first things we offered when she was little, never touched it either
We rotate what greens we offer weekly between Mustard/Collard, baby Arugula, turnip greens, bok choy and kale. She only ever shows mild interest in the Arugula.
We are going to possibly use the baby food method drizzled a bit over her greens and see if she likes that.
I was going to suggest dandelion greens, as I recall that being my childhood beardie’s favourite salad base, but I see they’re not readily available to you. You could try growing your own, I guess?
Oh don’t even get me started, becoming a solo adult paying for my own bills right as COVD started and then everything started getting even more expensive each year has not been fun
Or maybe 10 for a buck!
