Persuading a Sav to eat Dubia Roaches...

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paul112

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 26, 2006
796
1
16
United Kingdom
Hey again.
I set up a Dubia colony ~a month ago. I had 10 breeding adults, 50 near-adults, and have since seen around 50 nymphs. The 50 juveniles are now maturing, but I seem to have a surplus of males.

Now, this colony is only to support a young Savannah Monitor, and my adult Tokay Gecko, so feeding a few off so soon isn't a huge problem to me. My Tokay gladly nails any roaches I put in the bowl in her tank, without a second thought.

Unfortunately, my Sav seems to need more convincing. She's chased one or two over short distances, then loses interest when she gets close. Ideally, I'm trying to cut out my need for Locusts for my zoo.

Does anyone have any creative ways of convincing her to eat the damned roaches? I was thinking of maybe putting some mushed dogfood on the back of them, but I've never tried feeding her dogfood so she might just snub her nose at that too.

I've tried putting them in a cat food bowl in the tank, and she just sniffs them. Surely someone here must have had to convince their herps to eat roaches too?

Cheers,
Paul
 
Just let him starve a copple of days and he will eventualy acept them. Dont forget you still need to include more food items in the diet
 
Thanks, I'll try it. How long would be the longest I could stop feeding her without needing to worry that she's actually starving?

She also gets small mice, earthworms and boiled egg in the diet. As a side note, I want to try feeding some snails (bred for food, not wild caught), do I throw them in with the shell on and let her smash them up, or do I have to deshell them first?

Cheers,
Paul
 
Yes, you can feed the snails whole. How big is your sav? If she is getting mice and worms I assume she hasn't had to do much active hunting (unless the mice are alive), she might be just lazy. Try maybe tong-feeding a roach and see how that goes. My sav would eat pretty much anything, but when he got bigger he didn't show much interest in insects.
 
Cool, glad she's eating them, they're a great food source.
 
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