Hi there! First post here on the forums, and hopefully you can help me.

My Crestie is just uninterested in food. Don't get me wrong, he's not starving, and he shows no symptoms of illness or disease, and he is kept in a clean, humid environment at 76 degrees, but he's just really not interested in food!

I've tried leaving him in a feeding tub with a cricket, and even in the dark because he's nocturnal. I've tried holding the cricket out for him for ages, but he still doesn't care. I've had him for a month and only successfully gave him a cricket twice.

As for CGD, he will lick it off a spoon or my finger, but only a bit before he becomes uninterested and walks off. I often end up putting it on his snout to make him actually lick it off.

Well, he's lasted for a month so he's clearly eating (i've seen him excrete waste several too) but its still not ideal that I have to make him eat. I want him to be able to feed himself. Thanks in advance, hope you can help put my mind at ease somewhat!

[Olivine]

If you've only had your crestie a month or so, he might still be settling in to his new home. To be honest, the more different techniques you use to get him eating, the longer it may take him to settle and, therefore, the longer it might take to get him eating regularly. I'd therefore be inclined to try to keep handling him to a minimum and just quietly feed him at a regular time in one place for a while and see how that goes.

When you say he's eating "a bit" roughly how much do you mean? Cresties have very small stomachs, so young cresties generally eat very small amounts (maybe a quarter of a teaspoon, if that): even adults will often only eat a teaspoon of CGD or so. To monitor how much new arrivals are eating, I generally just put a very thin layer (1mm or so thick) of CGD in a milk bottle lid: if the crestie is eating, then you should be able to see lick marks. Personally, I would never put a blob of CGD on a cresties nose: there's always the possibiity that they may inhale it.

With regard to live food, none of my Rhacs are particularly keen on crickets (I think because they are one of the more difficult feeders to catch). Have you tried offering your littlun roaches? I pop a few dubia roaches in an Ikea tea light holder (the steep glass sides mean that they can't escape) and just stick them in the vivs (counting the roaches beforehand means that I know exactly how many have been eaten). Another alternative is locusts: they are much slower than crix and, therefore, easier to catch.