C.cornuta skinny and lack of appetite

[danfrog]

5 cm is pretty small still. I think your cornuta might be captive bred. Either that or the little guy has had a long journey. I would try the mouse thing. I would offer live pinkys to trigger a feeding response. Would also offer several over the next couple weeks to fatten the little guy up. Sorry your little dude is being stubborn. I know coruntas can be a pain with feeding.

[Hypnotic]

Thanks for all the advice guys! Grif, I don't think the dubia has burrowed yet, I tucked the substrate pretty tight and it hassn't been in there for that long. But I will keep it in mind, and when I give it a check tomorrow morning, I'm hoping to see more missing then just a dubia. I'l definately pick up some nightcrawlers and mice, I do want to get him some nice fatty mice inside of him, hoping I can fatten him up and make him crave food a little more.
We'll see how tomorrow night goes, I'l be sure to post an update.

[Lija]

Right..... Remind me of someone here. Both the way he eats and colour too, I say they're twins! But mine is unicorn lol and screams at me once in a while.

anyhow, look I don't have much experience with cornutas, I have just one. Mine eats randomly and always you need to ask very nicely, meaning rub his lips quite a bit, then that lazy stubborn dude may take it and then will sit and hold in his mouth for what it seems forever. 5cm is what 2,5"? Then exactly like mine, it is about right size for a boys, but he does look skinny. Try to convince him that he needs to eat
by the way mine will never go for big prey, I might try one day pinky, but I don't think it will work, pacman food balls has to be small in order for him to eat.

[CHiNO]

good thing my was CB, eating like a champ. i feed it nightcrawler pieces, it had no interest in crickets or other small insects. try using some sliversides(fish).

[Hypnotic]

Yeah, it seems the wild caught ones are really picky eaters. 5 cm is about 1.9". I've actually talked to some people and decided to drop in a pinky tonight, hope it dissapears. I'm steering clear of fish as a concioce choise. I'd only trust fish if I bred them myself, and I'm not going into that. I don't need an extra terrarium right now.

[Hypnotic]

I've given him some more time, but tonight I felt it was time for decisive action. I've tryed to feed him with my tongs in his enclosure, this failed. He kept turning around, making it impossible to keep teasing him with his prey, but I saw his mouth open on a few occasions, so I decided to up the level of manipulation.
I've then placed him in a feeding enclosure and noticed he was biting down, but spitting the locusts back out when he felt the legs... So I removed the legs. And these following pictures, fill me with INTENSE JOY and a clear message to switch to nightcrawlers. This week I will be exchanging my staple from locusts to nightcrawlers, I've also had this duscussion with a vet earlyer this week, and offcourse all of your advice.
The vet even gave me a few syringes along, for the difficult eaters. He told me that if I have picky eaters that spit them back out dusted, I should mix up a little water/supplement mixture and inject a little of it into the nightcrawlers. I'd love to hear some opinions and experiences on injecting feeders with supplements and maybe someone allready has some experience on the subject?
Either way, I'm beyond happy that I finally got my cornuta to eat. I plan to offer food every other day, since he allready showed me a clear signal (pushing my tongs away) to note that he was full, or done with me atleast.
He ate 2 locusts tonight!
I have to admit, he din'd seem to be trying to eat, more trying to bite whatever was tormenting him, I kept it up for 15 minutes, untill he started swatting my tongs away with his paw, I took that as a sign of "I'm full".