Veggies and Yemen chams

[Psychobunny]

It's a bit of a pain, I noticed Smeagol, my male veiled cham, trying to eat the fake plants in his cage and rushed to stop him before he could swallow it!!

So far, the only way I can stop this is to satisfy his need for veggies!

Sooo, I offer him a leaf of kale, collard, whatever, hand holding it, and letting him chomp into it.

Putting in live plants is fine, but he will nibble on them and I would prefer that he nibble on something a little more healthy!

So, I have to ad this to my feeding routeen every day!!??

I tried putting one of those seed sprouting trays on the floor of his cage, but have only seen him go down there for a nice mouthfull of alfalfa one time!!

I thinkmy hand feeding has made him too lazy!! so I put some blue bottle flies in there for him whenever I can get nice ones from Grubco.
He does seem to enjoy chasing them down

He also LOVES blueberries and will come running to me when he sees one in my hand.
It took me a long time, and tons of patience to get him to eat his first blueberry! he had obviously never seen one before, and I had to hold it in my hand and keep it moving while he studied it, then finally snaged it!

Now, he would stuff his face with blueberries if I let him.
When in season, I will give him one tiny blueberry a week as a treat.

But does anyone have any suggestions what I can do so I dont have to hand feed him his greens every day?!

 

[AngieL]

We have a veggie bowl hanging on a piece of bamboo near the top of the enclosure.

We fill it daily with fresh kale, steamed yam, strawberry, whatever fruit and veg you want (as long as its on the safe list!) sweet things we try to keep as a once a week treat but we buy bags of sliced curly kale from tesco and put that in there every day.

Just make sure you put it high up enough and keep it in the same place so he learns where to find it.

My girl used to munch on the ficus but has stopped since we started providing greens every day

 

[Psychobunny]

Sounds like a good plan.
Do you need to change it every day?
I know how quickly greens like to wilt!!

 

[AngieL]

Yes you will probably need to change it every day because it's at the top where most of the heat/light is! The kale usually dries up pretty fast so what I do us change it in the morning so she can graze till lunch time if she wants