Getting Fat Tails off Crickets...for good!

If you own an AFT, then you know just how picky they are when it comes to feeders. Myself having over 300 reptiles, it's just not economical nor convenient in the least to keep crickets around. So I decided to go on a cricket strike and get all of my reptiles off of them for good. The fat tails were the hardest to convince, but here's how I did it....

The first step sounds bad, but trust me, it didn't harm any of my fatties. I simply started spreading out the time between feedings in the beginning. I went from every 2 days to eventually feeding less and less every 5-7 days. While I was decreasing the amount of crickets, I was also introducing different feeders. I would offer mealworms, supers, dubia, and lats at feeding. I would then watch to see what was consumed and at what rate.

After about 6 months of slowly reducing feeding times, and the amount of crickets offered, I was able to just stop feeding them crix altogether. At this time I was feeding 2 supers and 2 dubia per fat tail every 5 days. Some were more stubborn than others, but the combination of hunger and fast moving prey stimulated their feeding responses. I then started getting them back to a normal 2-3 day feeding schedule, and offering more prey. Once I had an idea of how much they would eat per feeding, the rest was easy. If you have any other questions about this, feel free to post them here, or even add to this.

I had no idea AFT's were picky eaters.

I'm glad my leo's when right for the supers.