Stubborn

[ayiaskepi]

Hello all,

My new (still yet to be named) cham is totally refusing to eat out of any and all feeding cups I try (yes even the almighty one for "tough customers"). Can anyone help? I want to get him to cup feed and away from strictly free ranging.

Below is a pic from yesterday.

 

[Tygerr]

Are you sure the feeder cup is positioned in such a way that your cham can see the bugs in it? (i.e. it shouldn't be right at the top of the cage or hidden behind foliage)

And what feeder insects are you putting in it? Crickets are quite active, so they'd be a good choice to attract your cham's attention. But if he is refusing those, maybe try a treat insect like waxworms or superworms.

Other than that, there's not much I can advise other than to wait it out. He's bound to get hungry some time. And a cham his age can go without food for a couple of days without harm. So just keep re-stocking the feeder cup until he gives in and eats from it (re-stocking because you should take out uneaten insects at night and re-gutload them overnight).

 

[ayiaskepi]

Thanks for the advice.

I guess I can try that, but he's only 4 months old. How long can he go without eating if he continues to be so stubborn about the cup. As soon as I take the crix out of the cup and place them in the cage, he goes right after them. Tomorrow we will see what happens.

Thanks again.

 

[sharkey]

if you have the patience you can 1) get a binder clip and clip it in a good spot that the cham can easily get to 2) the next day (so your cham can get use to the clip) fill a cup w/about 20 crix, 3) w/one hand behind your back, use the other to show the cham the crix in the cup (make sure you have his/hers attn) then 4) clip the cup to the binder clip at an angle so that the crix can slowly climb out of the cup therefore attracting the cham to snap them up while the crix are on/in the cup.

you need many crix in the cup to make lots of noise/movement and b/c so many will escape b/f the cham learns to go to the cup to eat.

once he/she is done eating you will need to collect the escaped crix out of the cage to prevent the cham from hunting and therefore avoiding the cup.

this is a pain in the neck process and takes a while but chams are slooooow in so many ways.

even so, i have one cham out of 9 that will NOT eat out of a cup no matter what.

 

[Huey08]

Hi, I had this problem with mine at first. i put the worms such as waxes, and supers in the cup, but i let him have about 4-6 free roaming crickets. a few days later, it would be 3-5 free cricks and the other 2 would go in the cup, etc etc until they were all in the cup. took about a week and a half.

at first i would have the cricks in a glass cup from the cricket cage. i would wave em around my cham to make sure that he saw them, and i made sure that he followed the cup with his eyes as i dumped em into his feeding cup. make sure the cup is opaque, and sits below him, and make it deep enough for the insects but not deep enough for him to fall into. i have read and about chams actually going down into the cup to feed with no way back out and getting eaten by the bugs.
good luck!