baby V. t. tristis only eat crix

hi,
i've received my baby V.t.tristis about 1 week ago. he/she is eating fine. it doesn't take take the cricket from the tongs, but would only eat it when it see it crawling around (when i'm not there). when i'm there, it won't eat it. it also doesn't eat anything else but crickets. should i starve him for a few days and try again with other food items, like roaches, mealworms, and little lizards?

I just wanted to add that it has UVA and UVA with a basking area of 112*F, ambient temperature at 80, 2 hollow cork barks, and a broken vase to hide in.

yea go ahead and stop feeding him for a few days and see how that works if it dosnt work take out the new food and try again the next day but no crickets

Hello, I really suggest you should research much more. First of all basking temps should be no less then 130f degrees and ambient should vary from 70-75 up to the higher temps near basking sites. UVA and UVB are very important but if your monitor does not achieve the heat it needs its all worthless. As far as feeding, You forgot to mention 1 detail. How big is the animal? Alot of varanids like fast moving prey over slow moving. Hence they will leave dubias alone for crix. Alot of varanids seem to shy away from worms like superworms. They actually seem to like earthworms over superworms. I would not worry about type of food so much as the proper husbandry. With proper husbandry appetite will pick up. There is also nothing wrong with crickets if they are gutloaded and dusted. I would never starve any animals over it eating the wrong food. Any fool that will tell you to starve a baby or juvenile right in the most important times of development and minimize nutrition just to get the animal to eat different food should not keep reptiles. Would you starve your child because they seem to like eggs more then oatmeal for breakfast?? Try looking into the red roach, latteralis. They are really fast but they dont really climb and dont fly. They are one of the most prolific roaches too. Please do some more research on your monitor. As you have a general idea.

thank you for all your help, but i got them on N. cinerea (a.k.a. lobster roaches). and they are all very responsive. i have three and one of them seems to be hiding a lot, but he's a great eater when he come out.