GeckoFanboy
Member
I had the scare of my life lastnight!
Scooby had just shed the night before, and spent all day sleeping. Around 9:00PM lastnight, he came out of his hide and perched on the roof of his cool hide. I went in to check on him, and was messing with his cricket and mealworm containers under his tank (I had gut-loaded them the night before). Anyway, he came down off his perch and was watching me maneuver his feeders. This is always a sign to me that he wants to eat...he paces along the front of the tank watching me deal with his bugs.
In hindsight, I probably should have never fed him, regardless if he was acting like he was hungry. He has a belly full of shed skin. Anyway, I pulled 3 really big crickets out of the gut-load container, dusted them, and dropped them into his tank one at a time. He gobbled them up. Usually, when he's full he'll head back into his warm hide, but he sat their looking at me, like he wanted more food, so I thought, "I'll grab him a hornworm...he loves them."
I should have never done this. I don't know what I was thinking. So dumb. Anyway, I grabbed a hornworm, and they're getting kinda big now...too big! So I plopped the hornworm down into the tank, and he stalked it, and chomped it from the side. He took it and shook it like an alligator. Somehow, he managed to get one end of it in his mouth, and started gulping it down, biting into it. But when it got about halfway down, I realized how big it actually was, and he had about half of it sticking out of his mouth, and his attempts to swallow were getting further between. This was when I panicked. I could see him puffing and his lungs pumping. I ran into the other room to grab a pair of scissors, as I was going to try to cut off half of the worm sticking out of his mouth. I was so worried he was choking. The worm was huge! I kept thinking, "OMG, he's gonna die. I can't believe what I just did." Amazingly, he slowly worked this huge worm down his gullet, like a snake will do...very slowly. The worm was huge and I could see the profile of it inside of his gut...actually see the blue tone coming through his skin.
Scooby sat for the longest time, worming his body around to swallow the thing. He was totally chubbed out after his meal, and walking with his head very upright. In fact, when he went into his hide, he kept his front legs erect for a long time, I guess helping him digest the food downward.
Anyway, it was a complete and total scare. And I will never feed him a hornworm that big ever again. I guess I'll drop my extra large hornworms off at the reptile shop and see if the guy there wants to feed them to his bearded dragons, because my Scooby is not gonna eat big hornworms like that ever again. Whooooh!
Scooby had just shed the night before, and spent all day sleeping. Around 9:00PM lastnight, he came out of his hide and perched on the roof of his cool hide. I went in to check on him, and was messing with his cricket and mealworm containers under his tank (I had gut-loaded them the night before). Anyway, he came down off his perch and was watching me maneuver his feeders. This is always a sign to me that he wants to eat...he paces along the front of the tank watching me deal with his bugs.
In hindsight, I probably should have never fed him, regardless if he was acting like he was hungry. He has a belly full of shed skin. Anyway, I pulled 3 really big crickets out of the gut-load container, dusted them, and dropped them into his tank one at a time. He gobbled them up. Usually, when he's full he'll head back into his warm hide, but he sat their looking at me, like he wanted more food, so I thought, "I'll grab him a hornworm...he loves them."
I should have never done this. I don't know what I was thinking. So dumb. Anyway, I grabbed a hornworm, and they're getting kinda big now...too big! So I plopped the hornworm down into the tank, and he stalked it, and chomped it from the side. He took it and shook it like an alligator. Somehow, he managed to get one end of it in his mouth, and started gulping it down, biting into it. But when it got about halfway down, I realized how big it actually was, and he had about half of it sticking out of his mouth, and his attempts to swallow were getting further between. This was when I panicked. I could see him puffing and his lungs pumping. I ran into the other room to grab a pair of scissors, as I was going to try to cut off half of the worm sticking out of his mouth. I was so worried he was choking. The worm was huge! I kept thinking, "OMG, he's gonna die. I can't believe what I just did." Amazingly, he slowly worked this huge worm down his gullet, like a snake will do...very slowly. The worm was huge and I could see the profile of it inside of his gut...actually see the blue tone coming through his skin.
Scooby sat for the longest time, worming his body around to swallow the thing. He was totally chubbed out after his meal, and walking with his head very upright. In fact, when he went into his hide, he kept his front legs erect for a long time, I guess helping him digest the food downward.
Anyway, it was a complete and total scare. And I will never feed him a hornworm that big ever again. I guess I'll drop my extra large hornworms off at the reptile shop and see if the guy there wants to feed them to his bearded dragons, because my Scooby is not gonna eat big hornworms like that ever again. Whooooh!
