Hi! Ok, so my ctenosaura rescue, which wasn't eating on itself before, is now a little bigger and fatter after being "hand fed" by me for a while. For a long time it didn't want to eat by himself, so I ended up hand feeding him by putting food into his mouth when it was open. Sometimes he spits it out and sometimes he swallows. But regardless, he's fattened out now.

So I want to know, how do I wean him back to slowly eating on his own of food in the cage? I have as of yet, never ever seen him eat by his own accord, only when I throw things in his open mouth. Please help.

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1.0.0 Green Iguana - Tyler
0.0.1 Sulcata Tortoise - Mantow
0.0.1 Ball Python - Se se
0.1.0 Leucistic Texas Ratsnake - un-named (Suggestions welcome)
1.0.0 Blizzard Cornsnake het Anery A - Xiao Xiao
1.1.0 Normal Corn snake het Anery A het Amel 66% poss. het stripe - un-named
1.0.0 Red Chain Snake - un-named
0.0.1 Twin spotted rat snake - un-named
1.0.0 Grey Chinchilla - Gee Gee

Personally since he is back up in weight, I would cease the hand feeding, give him a day to get hungry and just give him the food. Try this for a few days and see what happens.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Thanks Merlin,

However, I DID give him a few days with no hand feeding. That's how I found out that he's still not eating on his own. If he is, he's doing it when I'm not looking. and he's eating VERY little. I suspect he does eat a little because during the entire first month that I kept him, I didn't see him eat, nor did any food seem touched at all. However, he grew about 4 inches during that time. But seriously the food wasn't touched at all. And to top it off, the lack of ctenosaura information makes me not even know how much they are supposed to eat.

I'm very confused about the husbandry. I rescued this darn thing as a Ctenosaura Similis, and have been looking for care info as such. However, judging from photos, I am now starting to think it is either a ctenosaurus palearis or ctenosaurus melanosterna. I have no idea how to tell the difference. Also, I had been given the advice to give them moderate to high humidity. However, I now find that these creatures actually live in very hot and DRY areas, with humidity in the 30 - 50% range max. I have been told that they are much more terrestrial than green iguanas, but he hardly EVER leaves the branches. I still think I did the right thing to rescue him from the poor conditions, but to be honest, I don't even really know what he IS!

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1.0.0 Green Iguana - Tyler
0.0.1 Sulcata Tortoise - Mantow
0.0.1 Ball Python - Se se
0.1.0 Leucistic Texas Ratsnake - un-named (Suggestions welcome)
1.0.0 Blizzard Cornsnake het Anery A - Xiao Xiao
1.1.0 Normal Corn snake het Anery A het Amel 66% poss. het stripe - un-named
1.0.0 Red Chain Snake - un-named
0.0.1 Twin spotted rat snake - un-named
1.0.0 Grey Chinchilla - Gee Gee

Will he eat from your hand, or only when you shove the food in his mouth? Because I don't know what to do about it if you are only shoving the food, but if it will take food from you you could try to just put your hand near the food and gradually move farther away since it associates your hand with food, otherwise I'd just got with the starvation tactic.

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Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

~*~Lacey~*~

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