Tips for Feeding tigers.

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LauraMartin

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hey, i have 2 tigers and they never come out for food, they burrow all the time and a lot of the time i will have to dig at least one of them up for dinner, i usually feed them every 3rd day, but i havent fed them now for 4 days because i want to see if they will get hungry and come out. is there anything u can do to condition them to come out for food, such as a sound everytime u feed them, similar to what a dog would respond to? or if anyone has any other tips on what i can do to get them to comw out for food that would be great. its not that they arent hungry, once i get them out, they eat and eat and eat, so i just cant figure them out.
 
LauraMartin said:
hey, i have 2 tigers and they never come out for food, they burrow all the time and a lot of the time i will have to dig at least one of them up for dinner, i usually feed them every 3rd day, but i havent fed them now for 4 days because i want to see if they will get hungry and come out. is there anything u can do to condition them to come out for food, such as a sound everytime u feed them, similar to what a dog would respond to? or if anyone has any other tips on what i can do to get them to comw out for food that would be great. its not that they arent hungry, once i get them out, they eat and eat and eat, so i just cant figure them out.
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I would have thought that conditioning could work, I have heard of people tapping on the glass of tanks before every feed and they is a queue for newts. Other people have spoken about their axolotl's (very similar to the Tigers) knowing the difference of say one hand coming into the tank (feeding time) and two (going to get picked up).

A good idea maybe would be to only feed them in a feeding bowl, leave the food in the bowl until they come up to feed. They will get used to eating out of the bowl and each time they are hungry they may come up and wait by the bowl for food.

All theory mind I have never tried any of this myself.
 
Thanks Levo, might give that a try, only thing is i feed them crickets and worms so all will climb out a bowl, im soon gonna switch over to roaches, i heard they love them, so maybe they will get more excited over them. i think when feeding il try and stick to a certain routine, so its always the same, like u mentioned, always only use one hand, maybe tap on glass. i just get a bit worried cos my smallest one, doesnt seem to like a lot of food, and takes about an hour just to eat 3 or 4 worms, she wont eat anything within 10 mins of the last thing. iv ordered calci grubs, fruit beetle grubs, roaches and red earthworms, to see if she will like any of them.
 
I cant help you with their burowing but I can tell you that mine love crickets i just throw a few in the tanks and watch the show. my smallest one has grabbed one by the leg and got the cricket in its mouth then shook it like a dog would a chewtoy.:eek:
 
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yeah mine shake the food like that too, specially worms.

does anyone know what sort of earthworms they like? i have bought 2 different types n they wont touch them, one kind was regular earth worms, or lob worms and the other is red earthworms, called something like dendobera or summit like that. im in the uk and i never found anywhere that does night crawlers, the people in USA on here often speak of them, but not available as far as i know, in the UK.
 
I forcep feed all my terrestrial/fossorial salamanders, though I've never consciously tried to condition them to accept food offered in this way (they took to it immediately). The tigers immediately come 'running' when I take the top off their Sterlite plastic enclosure, and they now pay close attention to where the forceps are, because it usually means food is coming. They will also attempt to climb up and out of the container when the forceps are in sight (especially if I am feeding other Ambystomatids or Salamandra in nearby enclosures).
 
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