# Bearded dragon will only eat from my hand



## BoomBeat (Jan 1, 2011)

Hey all, just got my first bearded dragon a week ago. 

Here's a pic of Nova 
NOVA | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

She(at least i think shes a female) will only eat crickets,veggies when hand fed and doesn't seem really interested to eat from her bowl. She does look at them with that "sideway look" lol but won't try to run after them. Shes about 3 months old and her basking spot temp is 105f . I don't really mind hand feeding her but i do want her to start eating by herself.Do you guys have any suggestions as to how i can entice her to start eating from her bowl? Also can anyone identify what morph she is?


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## regtuck (Oct 7, 2012)

She's a nice looking girl, thanks for sharing. Cant help morph-wise I'm afraid. Basking temp is fine - how long does she spend under the basking light? As a rule of thumb, 10 minutes is good, less than that its too hot for her, longer than that its not hot enough. All beardies have their own favourite temp, so some fine tuning might be needed.
Does she spend time exploring and moving around, or is she a typically lazy dragon? (This may explain her reluctance to chase food). It is possible that the crickets are just too fast for her to catch, so why bother chasing! Have you considered small locusts? They are slower and a good mouthful.
Wouldn't worry too much about the no greens situation - she is still young and she may never get a liking for veggies. The livefood protein is what is needed now. Have you tried any of the small varieties of worms? Many people leave a dish of mealworms or similar in the viv so that the beardie can snack when it wants to (and they don't run away).
Sorry, I've rambled on, but any of this any help to you?


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## Google Astaroth (Jan 17, 2013)

Absolutely gorgeous dragon, lovely pattern. It's pretty hard to tell morph without better pictures, of the full lizard from above/sides etc. But a very good looking Beardy.

I actually think it's pretty nice that she'll only eat from your hand, I like to think it's your dragon completely trusting you, and while it is always fun watching them running around devouring crickets, it certainly isn't a bad thing. Or alternatively maybe she's just very lazy and prefers the food just placed in your hand :L

The basking temp seems good, mine is kept at 105 also.


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## tomcannon (Jan 2, 2008)

As she's new she is probably still settling in and may not feel comfortable enough to tear around her viv chasing crickets. My advise would be to persist and she will eat eventually. You don't want to keep hand feeding as she may decide that's the only way she'll eat and more likely than not increase laziness. Its very hard to stop this habit once its in place. Refrain from hand feeding and she'll get the idea. Once she is happy chasing them around then you can hand feed on occasion if you wish.


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## BoomBeat (Jan 1, 2011)

Thanks all for the info . I stopped hand feeding her 2 days ago in fact and to my surprise this morning i found her feeding bowl empty. Shes a pretty lazy dragon(aren't they all?) and to facilitate the work for her i removed one hind-leg from each of the crickets to stop them from jumping around and placed them in her bowl where she can eat them easily without having to run after them lol. As for dusting im giving her calcium +d3 and multivitamin once weekly(saturday). Is that enough? Iv read alot of conflicting information on this. Heres a couple of more pics i took when i got her.

Nova2 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Nova 3 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


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