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#1773525
Utahraptr
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How much food 
How often should I be feeding my approximately 1 year old female? She had a vet visit yesterday (along with my beardie) and the vet said I need to cut back on food for my beardie (more veggies, very little live feeders). And he said I should start cutting back on Evie’s food as well - he couldn’t tell if she was fat, as she was "full of poop" and bloated up from that. He said she looks fine otherwise and would go back down to normal size after she pooped (she just did tonight, so I now have a fecal for him). But, if I’m going to cut back on her food, how many times a week should I feed her? She usually eats a ton (like 8 to 12+ worms) on one day, then very little (only a couple worms) the next day. She eats superworms, but I will occasionally order silkworms and hornworms for her - no crickets, she refuses smaller worms, and I haven’t given her pinkies. Should I just cut back to fewer worms a day, even if she wants more? Or should I just let her eat as much as she wants, and then not feed her for a couple of days?
For reference, she’s about 16 inches long, would be about 17 if she wasn’t missing about an inch off her tail.
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06/25/08 06:36pm
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#1773537
Silabiss
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Message To: Utahraptr In reference to Message Id: 1773525
How much food
Feed her every other day, and depending on the fecal see if she is clean. If she is clean then i wouldn’t worry about over feeding her much, i would be a bit worried about a diet that is high in chitin may possibly impact and cause constipation or that "bloated" look she may be getting. In the wild the main diet of Frilleds is actually caterpillars, which is close to 60% of their diet, along with Flies, vertebrates and beetles. There is no harm in trying new food, there is a good chance she will be low on different vitamins and minerals some foods can offer her, and always try to gut load your feeder insects with natural highly nutritious food. Hope this helps a bit, i for one always encourage a varied diet and have tried many different things in regards to gut loading and go as far as breeding different feeder insects to get as much variety as possible.
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06/25/08 06:54pm
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#1773598
Utahraptr
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Message To: Silabiss In reference to Message Id: 1773537
How much food
Hey, thanks for responding. We do gutload her worms, the superworms get the regular food that the pet store puts in with them (oats or cereal) and we also feed them greens and pellet beardie food. We dust with vitamins and calcium daily (I didn’t ask, should I cut that to every other day as she’s a year old? Or should I wait until she’s full grown before cutting back)?
We try to do variety, she is VERY picky. It took her almost 7 months before she’d eat a worm, she was on crickets and refused all worms we offered (pheonix, wax, meal, silkies). Then we came home from a vacation and she decided she liked worms, devoured canned silkies and moved on to superworms. A few days later she refused the silkies, and would only eat the supers. When we tried the hornworms, it took several days before she would try one, but now she loves them. Same thing with the live silkies, she seems to like those as well. I’ll have to order more of them, maybe cut off the superworms if they can be causing an problem. She usually poops every other day, a good big poop, so I don’t think she’s impacted. But the vet couldn’t tell yesterday. She did go tonight, just a small one, and still has that bloated look to her. Should I hold off on live feeders and see if the bloating goes down?
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06/25/08 08:03pm
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#1773749
Utahraptr
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Message To: Utahraptr In reference to Message Id: 1773598
How much food
Here are a few pics of her, and the bloated look - the roundness of her belly. Or maybe she’s just fat???
These were before we started feeding superworms, I’m not sure if she looks bloated in these or not
And this from last summer, not long after we got her. She looks bloated to me in this pic. Her fecal in October was clean, so she didn’t have any parasites when this was taken (and hopefully doesn’t have any now)
But not bloated in this one, taken the same day
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06/25/08 09:43pm
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#1775868
Utahraptr
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Message To: Utahraptr In reference to Message Id: 1773749
How much food
Got her vet results back today, Evie is clear of parasites :) She ate some silkworms tonight, I haven’t given her any superworms and I’ve been giving her 2 baths a day (once in the morning, once at night). She sat in her bath this morning for about 20 minutes, enjoying a good long soak.
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06/27/08 07:00pm
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