General questions

[bowsertime]

So she's been a little more active tonight... climbing up into her poop house, exploring the hide on the cool side of her house, climbing on top of it, et cetera. She looked in her worm dish, but didn't seem very interested. I tried to wiggle a mealie in front of her and she just turned away and closed her eyes again.

Something else strange is her thirst. During the day, she'll often come out several times and just drink for 20 minutes straight. I have a very shallow plastic cap for her to drink water out of and I usually have to fill it twice a day because of how she drinks it up.

She came out of her warm hide when her lights went off after about an hour and started licking her vent again, even though she didn't poop. I tried to get a look under her tail as she was walking about, but there doesn't seem to be anything there.

 

[Dog Shrink]

Exactly what kind of lights are you using for her? Bright lights can cause stress which could cuase her to want to keep her eyes closed more esp. if they're bright uv type lights or incandescent lights over 25 watts.

As far as the handfeeding goes, it just might not be enough movement to stimulate her hunt/kill reflex. motion is what is needed to really interest them in food and maybe as they age their visual accuity diminishes a bit from when they're younger. What is her substrait and how exactly are you heating her tank again please.

 

[bowsertime]

During the day, she has a regular light bulb, like we have in our light fixtures. It's in a lamp a small distance away from her tank. During the night, she has a 40W red reptile light for viewing purposes. Would it be better if I just used my tank light? It's an overhead that fits over the 20g screen top and has a long tube bulb.

I don't think it's a lack of motion that's not interesting her. She was very eager to eat from my hand before, and particularly eager to follow a mealie that crawled along the floor, trying to get away from her. Now, the mealies wiggle in front of her between my fingers and only elicit the 'turn away, close eyes' response. Dropping them on the ground will occasionally get a glance, but nothing else. She has only been on mealies so far, because I don't want her getting addicted to waxies at this point in her life.

Her substrate is plain reptile carpet. Her tank's warm side is being heated by a Zoo-Med UTH.

 

[bowsertime]

So I turned off her red viewing light to see if it would help. She spent a lot of time hiding away in her warm hide, but eventually came out and does seem to be keeping her eyes open more. Still no interest in wiggly mealies, though.

Earlier, while the light was on, she was licking her left eye, but there doesn't look like there's anything in it.

Edited to add:

So she's become a LOT more active since I shut off her 40w viewing light. Eyes aren't closing anymore, either. That's good stuff, thank you. I think I'll just keep the curtains open for her day/night cycle from now on. I might need to get something extra for heating for her if I'm not using a bulb, though.

She's also very anxious to find out what's going on outside her tank now. I walk past, she follows, I look in from above, she tries to climb the glass and locks eyes with me. So I tried to give her a mealie... still a no go, but progress is progress. She won't pay attention to them hand-held or on the floor, but I'll give it some time.

Here's a pic of her. I think she's still keeping decent weight on her.

 

[bowsertime]

Hi again.

Woke up this morning to find Binti sleeping out in front of her hide. Eyes were closed again. She eventually woke up, but didn't move much, and then lifted her head and closed her eyes again. I just have a light from the kitchen on right now, about ten feet away. She'll be getting the sunlight soon and we'll see what happens from there.

 

[Dog Shrink]

That sounds like great progress. I was very suspicious of teh red light knowing how Eros acts with it when I had one on him to suppliment heat. Give her a chance to get re-settled and she'll start eating I'm sure. I think she'll be fine. Her wieght looks pretty good. She looks pretty big actually. Have you considered trying superworms dropped in front of her? At her apparent size it may be that mealies just don't entice her. It might be worth a try for a different feeder. Just remember nothing that's girth is wider around than the space between her eyes is what she can eat. The daylight that comes into the room thru the window will be all she should need to establish her day/night cycle and it will be a lot less stressful for her in the long run. Thank you for making those adjustments. As you can see it means teh world of difference to her well being in the long run. Something else I was thinking after reading another thread is maybe try an experiment with her substrait... maybe she got a tooth snagged once eating a mealie off the repticarpet and now she might be a bit deterred from that experience. Maybe try paper towels for a week or so and see if the substrait chance makes any difference in her eating habits. It's worth a shot.

 

[bowsertime]

I actually stopped dropping the mealies on her carpet for her after I noticed her getting snagged on the carpet a lot. Unless it accidentally dropped out of my fingers, I pretty much always kept her eating either from her dish or my fingers, which she was very happy to do.

I haven't tried supers yet. Isn't their chitin a little more difficult than mealie chitin for a juvie to digest? Assuming she threw up the other day, I'm just kind of wary to try something big or hard to digest on her, in the off chance that she actually shows interest in eating it.

Sorry if I'm being a little spammy on the boards here, but I made a thread up in the medications sub-forum because I figured, ever since Binti's shown some change in behaviour/habits, these sorts of questions might be more suited to that sub-forum.

 

[Dog Shrink]

There is actually LESS shell on supers than on mealies. This is why I like supers, they eat less in a feeding, get more nutrition and less shell. People often mistake that supers are just overgrown mealies, but they are not, they are an entirely different species. Superworms (zophobas morio) are different from mealworms (Tenebrio molitor). Different species, different nutritional ratios (superworm protein level of 17.4% compared to 20.27% for mealworms, .05% calcium for supers versus .04% for mealies, 17.9% fat for supers versus 12.72% for mealies, 6.8% fiber for supers versus 1.73% for mealies), different shell (exoskeleton, not as thick/much on supers as mealies), different environmental needs (you can refrigerate mealworms to put them into stasis and prevent pupating and last longer but if superworms go below 65 they die. You CAN NOT refrigerate superworms,but they will NOT pupate as long as you keep them fed.