5 1/2 female veiled not eating much....

[IzzieC]

Hello! I am hoping Izzie is just bored with her food and not getting sick....She has always had a HUGE appetite and enjoyed hunting for her meals. The last 3 days she has only eaten maybe 5 crickets the entire day. So far today she has only eaten one larger cricket. (Usually she will eat 5/6 in morning and then again in the evening.) My mom got her larger ones, she has no problems eating them, but maybe she doesn't like them? We have her some other things on the way, phoenix worms, waxworms, and superworms hoping that will be of more interest. We are getting her laying bin in place, because I am worried she may be ready to lay and that's why she isn't eating...
She looks healthy to me. Poop and pee are good...going usually daily and urates are white. Energetic....races for the door whenever I come to her cage. Any thoughts? (We think she is right around 5 1/2 months old)

 

[Theveiled]

She looks gravid to me but I dont have much experience with females. Maybe @jannb or @Andee could help out more

 

[Lizzie The Chameleon]

Yes she looks gravid to me too. Do you have a laying bin set up for her? They can lay eggs as early as 4 months even without mating,

 

[Lizzie The Chameleon]

You also need to decrease her food intake to about 8 prey items every other day

 

[IzzieC]

I thought she was still young enough to eat (within reason) of what she consumed in a 10-15 minute window twice a day?? I just know one or two crickets is not nearly enough compared to her normal appetite.

 

[Andee]

5 months is when you decrease a female's intake. You decrease because it causes them to produce more eggs and sooner. What is her basking lamp set at? She is definitely gravid, you need to have an exotic vet and money to take her to one just in case. She is really young to be gravid, though it's not unheard of, you just may have more complications because of her size. I would get the lay bin in as soon as possible and hope for a small clutch.

 

[IzzieC]

5 months is when you decrease a female's intake. You decrease because it causes them to produce more eggs and sooner. What is her basking lamp set at? She is definitely gravid, you need to have an exotic vet and money to take her to one just in case. She is really young to be gravid, though it's not unheard of, you just may have more complications because of her size. I would get the lay bin in as soon as possible and hope for a small clutch.

Her basking temp is 78-80 degrees during the day... at night the environment cools down to mid 60's now that its cooler weather.

 

[IzzieC]

Update on Izzie....

She is eating 5-6 medium phoenix worms a day and I have given her a few wax worms since Wednesday as a treat (I know not to feed them very often). She seems very interested in her new food...but I am wondering for a 6 month old juvenile if that is enough food? Seems like a lot less compared to when she eats crickets (which she has NO interest in still).

Here laying bin is in place...but I do have a question...when we put her plants in her cage we covered the soil with rocks so that she wouldn't ingest any dirt...but now her laying bin is all dirt/sand...do i need to worry about her ingesting any of it? Seems like if one is safe, the other should be safe uncovered as well?

 

[cass737]

As far as her interest in crickets goes, my panther goes through phases where he isn't interested in crickets, so I'll only offer non-cricket prey for about 2 weeks. Then I'll reintroduce crickets and he will be snatching them out of the tweezers as I'm putting them in his enclosure.