feeding mealies from a bowl

[LISA127]

Hi. I have a question. I have an 8 month old leo, who eats mostly mealworms, with some crickets thrown in occassinally. My question is, she will not eat them from a bowl. I have to basically, one by one, put them down in front of her on the paper towel to get her to eat. Which is a pain, because sometimes she is so intent on begging me to take her out that she won't pay attention to the food. Any ideas on how to get her to eat from the bowl on her own?

I have a 3 month old leo who does eat from a bowl. I'm hoping that when she is old enough to move in w/the older one she will "teach" her to eat from the bowl.

[Pixie]

What I did to get my leo used to eating from a dish is start with a white, very low edged plastic lid container. I would do the same and put one mealworm in it and she would grab it. I then would start putting more than one, and slowly more and more. Mine ate hers pretty quickly so she got them before they escaped.

Once she takes a few from the plastic lid, change the "dish" to a higher lipped one and if possible find another white one. I keep a bit of calcium powder in my food dish so the bottom is light colored anyways and they see the mealies easily.

At first I made sure that she saw me when I would put the mealies in her dish. I also make a tapping sound on the little plastic container as I'm dumping the mealies into the dishes. Now they know, they hear the tapping and come right out!!! Like a dinner bell :D

Good luck,
Pixie

[ANACONDASAURUS]

Yes that is good advice.

[Alicewave]

I have two that wont eat out of bowls, but I never tried that hard to train them to do it. I'm trying to get all the babies to take mealies from a dish right away. My first two took to it no problem but my latest two are being more stubborn about it.