# rankins dragon - feeding crickets



## octogenarian manxman (May 4, 2013)

Hi
I'm quite new to lizard ownership having only recently got a new rankins dragon who is fully grown and is rather picky about his live food. I've done a lot of reading around and sensible advice as far as I gather seems to be to offer a mixed selection of greens / grated butternut squash and then if some of it has been eaten by the end of the day, then to offer some live food. If the salad hasn't been touched, then not to offer live food. That seems straight forward but we are still trying to work out the best way to get him to eat the live food. We've tried putting a few crickets in with him in the morning and then clearing out what is left at night time when we get back from work with limited success. We put 5 crickets in 4 days ago and then another 3 yesterday and have just cleared out 6 tonight which means over the last few days he has eaten a grand total of 2. They all seem to hide! Does anyone feed their rankins dragon in a seperate tank to the one in which their lizard lives? If so, do you put any substrate etc in, or do you you just use a large plastic box and put your lizard in with a small number of crickets and wait around 10 minutes to see if he eats any? (the theory being there is nowhere for the critters to hide?) Of course he doesn't have any problem with being interested in mealworms so those are limited to a treat on a Sunday at the moment. Any thoughts would be gratefully received!


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## davy27 (Jul 17, 2011)

What size are you feeding I would not feed in a different viv I would feed live food every two to three days well gut loaded when a Rankin gets to adult size it will eat more veg than live try to mix up the food as that can get bored easy of the same food also just double check your temps some time a few degrees hotter or colder can change the way they eat


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## octogenarian manxman (May 4, 2013)

*rankins dragon and crickets*

Thank you for your reply. I think you are right in that feeding in a different viv is probably introducing extra hassle so we've followed that advice. We have been offering 4th size crickets which seem about right - we've tried various different ways, but I just think he isn't interested. I got some calci worms the other day and he wolfed them down. We might try silkworms and maybe also dubia roaches as well next for variety, although I must admit the idea of roaches rather gives me the shivers. We've been giving him mealworms twice a week recently - just a few on his daily veggies which we do vary. I think the tank temperatures are ok because he doesn't seem to have a problem with eating the veggies or worm type livefood - it is just the crickets............. We gave up on hoppers because they all seemed to go and sit on the ceiling of his tank on the bits furthest away from where the sticks and climbing platforms are located! I'm beginning to wonder if some insects have a warped sense of humour.


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## Andy King (Nov 5, 2009)

Adult rankins generally need less protein than youngsters so i wouldnt overly worry if he doesn't eat a lot of insects. 

If you're handling him, i would try and avoid it until he happily eats insects. I would also try not giving him any mealworms for a while. Often Rankins will pick the food they like the most and not eat anything else. You can pop crickets in the fridge for 5ish minutes to slow them down, might make them easier for your Rankins to catch.If he doesn't eat anything but mealworms put plenty of vitamins on them as this will obviously help nutritional value. 

Rankins are virtually identical in care to beardies. Heres a beardie caresheet that covers feeding and good/bad veg etc.

Reptiles Plus Free Bearded Dragon Care Sheet

Hope this helps


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## octogenarian manxman (May 4, 2013)

*feeding rankins dragon*

thank you, Andy, that is really helpful. I've just printed it off as there were a couple of veggies in there that I hadn't seen mentioned before. On that side of things he normally gets a varying mixture of dandelion, rocket, watercress, butternut squash, sometimes courgette, a bit of mixed leaf salad, mustard greens.


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