Veiled eating his live plants!!

[JlaPinska]

My male veiled is about 10 months old now. I have a ficus tree, 4 pothos, and 2 umbrellas currently in his cage. over the last 2 weeks he started chomping on his plants now within the last 2 days he is eating the CRAP out of them! This morning we woke up to find him having his second shed in under 2 months. I figured something was up because he has been restless for days.

Out of all the plants his favorite is the pothos. I bought a medium-sized one and split it into 4, and have them mounted down one corner of his cage. I set his dripper over the pothos since they can handle erratic watering and overwatering (i have actually had underwatering issues even with the dripper right over them lol) so he could easy walk at any level and get to water. suddenly two of the pothos are missing entire leaves and his triangle-shaped bite marks are all over on his ficus and umbrellas as well.

i wasn't expecting this at all lol

 

[laurie]

Better get used to it. Veileds are known to eat plants. I am glad to hear you have plants that will not hurt him, just keep a dozen pothos in reserve.

 

[JlaPinska]

i'm happy that he is comfortable i have only had him for a month and he was shedding when he arrived this to me is telling me he is healthy and growing thank goodness. i'm starting a dubia colony soon but right now he's just getting crickets and superworms. he wouldn't touch a horn worm. he doesn't mind hand feeding so we hand feed pretty much every day. trying to build trust. he loves food lol

 

[JlaPinska]

pothos seems to be growing fast. i have room for one more live plant i was thinking a Dracaena but i haven't decided yet. if he keeps this up i will have to buy more pothos for real though

 

[laurie]

I would check the safe plant list on any plants you want to buy, just to make sure they are safe since you know he likes to nibble.

 

[JlaPinska]

nibble! shoot he is treating the plants like an all you can eat salad buffet lol i knew they were plant eaters i did a ton of research to make sure i only got safe plants and i also go to extreme measures to ensure there are no pesticides or fertilizers etc. it's just that i have friends who have veilds who do not go at the plants like that. he is doing this on top of eating up to 10 crickets and 2 superworms.. i thought that was a lot and have started dialing him back to like 5 crickets and 2 worms since i feed him every day. i'm not sure if i should feed him until he stops eating or what because he acts like he could eat more when he is done. we are thinking he has a huge appetite now because he possibly wasn't being fed well enough from where i bought him. just a guess though. i am happy he is happy. he shed his entire upper body in 24hrs and his bottom half has turned dull so i will expect another 24hrs of seeing him roaming and scratching. he did stop all that to eat today. i let a friend hand feed him this time. he seems fine taking it from just about anyone. soo cool!

 

[ulamachula]

we had a female veiled and she would go crazy for orchid flowers, she would chomp them like they were the tastiest thing in the world. she also liked potos leaves a lot! yum yum