Hi there. I have finally gotten my tegu willing to eat fruit, banana at least. But he CAN'T eat it.

I mixed some meat chunks in a plate with whole banana, and also banana chunks. He kept trying to eat the banana, but he can't. It just kept slipping out of his mouth. It is on the plate, and he bites it on the left and the banana just squirts to the right. He bites towards the right and the banana spurts towards the left etc. I tried partially squashing the banana so it is less slippery but he still can't get in more than a bite. These are ripe bananas.

So I tried propping the banana so that the edge was off of the plate. I can't prop it too far because it wouldn't balance. He bite it, but he ended up biting the plate as well and lifting the whole plate. And he spat everything out, plate and banana. Then he tried again to bite it, same thing. Then I tried clearing an area of substrate and putting it on the floor and he won't even look at it. I tried mashing the banana into a pulp and he won't eat it. I layed strips of fish on top and he still don't eat it. He only wants whole intact banana but he can't bite it.

He has only been able to eat one bite in almost 20 to 25 mins of trying. Now he has given up he won't even eat meat that I tried to give him after.

I am so frustrated, to see my tegu finally willing to eat fruit but he is unable to. My heart pounds when he tries to bite it and it ends up slipping away or he bites the plate and spits it all back out.

Someone please help me I am so frustrated. He is so hungry but he has only been able to eat one mouthful in the last 4 days.

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Have you tried cutting the banana into smaller chunks, maybe a small cube? This might make it easier for him to grab hold of.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Yes I have. I have cut them into cubes. They can't be too small because he ignores all small things, meat or otherwise. He's a big tegu almost 4 feet. He still can't grab them because he does the same darn thing where he bites like he bites the fish, like 2mm, which breaks off and he swallows, but the ignores the rest. he seems to think the banana will hold together like a fish or a piece of meat, that he can gulp it down. He has the same problem with ground meat. When I place the banana so that the end is facing him, he will try to grab it like a fish'es head. But he would always end up biting the plate as well, even if I stick the banana about 2.5 inches off the edge.

Ok I don't know if this will work, but are there "edible" plates? I am kinda laughing as I laugh this but it is a serious question. I mean, is there like plates made of pastry or something? I also bought a cutting board which I will use instead of the plate on the next feeding. I plan on propping the banana, not on the edge of the plate, but on another banana!!!

Also, does anyone know what kind of "home use" machine I can get that I can use to slice chicken meat into big but thin slices?

__________________
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

they sell meat slicers atthe store, I have one that works for hams and it also adjusts for, lunchmeat, etc, They are a little spendy though, I paid a little over 100.00 dollars for mine. Good luck!

Hi, can I be a little daring and ask you to please show me a picture? LOL!

I live elsewhere and people generally don't speak english here. I can print the picture and show them.

__________________
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

Ok. Hubby is not here and I am technically challenged with the camera but I did a google search and here are a bunch that will work and there are some that are reasonably priced. hopefully this link works, lol.
www.nextag.com/meat-slicer/searchhtml

ok You have to enter the words "meat slicer" on the top of the page to go to the page that I was looking at, lol. Sorry I am very technically challenged

Thanks for the meat slicer thing.

Back to the eating fruit thing... can someone advise me here? I tried today to put the banana and fish on a cutting board instead of a plate. He would usually try to eat the banana on the plate but would be unable to as previously mentioned and he'd bite onto the plate edge by accident and then spit it out and give up. So I put a big cutting board and put the fish and banana on it. He don't eat at all today. Not the fish, not the banana. In fact, I went out of the room and came back and he pushed all the food onto the floor. I don't think it was deliberate I just think he crawled over it. Usually he sees food in front of him he will bite it but seems on the cutting board he didn't eat.

I don't know if he is not hungry, or doesn't like the cutting board, or what.

Should I just keep feeding on the cutting board? Or back to the plate and just let him figure out not to bite the plate?

I do worry because this way he will not eat much if anything. But then again he is too fat and need to lose some weight anyway. But even considering this, eventually I have to find a way to let him be able to eat the bananas, so please advise.

Plate ... tried. Cutting board ... tried. What else?

This is really strange. When he was getting too fat, he'd eat so much. Like 4 fish stuffed with fruit in them. However, He got too fat, and he is on a diet. So I fed him the same amount, but every other day. Now he don't eat even half the amount PER every other day feeding as he did when he was fed taht much everyday. He would eat 4 units, let's say, of food every day before. Now he is eating 3 units of food every OTHER day. And that's despite I give him 4 units. I don't know what's happeneing. It seems that he is LESS hungry now that I feed him LESS frequently. I am worried about this.

__________________
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