Need help with a picky Tamandua

About a month ago I recently got two precious babies. One of them is eating me out of house and home, yet the other just nibbles and is getting skinnier and skinnier. I've read and read and tried and tried different things. I need help asap with her diet.

Has she been wormed well? That's very important to be done after you get them even if the importer says they wormed them. A large load of worms can kill them. It's also good to treat for Giardi.

What are the poops like?

What are you currently feeding? Will she take raw beef, by it's self or mixed with anything? What things do you give that she is willing to eat? Have you tried different consistencies?

She was wormed with Strongid, and tested negative. It's more of a problem that she doesn't know "how" to eat. My other one sits by the bowl, claws it about four times and settles in to suck/lick it up. She claws it constantly, spills the bowl (I've switched to the heaviest bowl on the market", licks it a couple of times, claws it again and again. I'll sit by her and even hold the bowl for her. I've tried just beef and she'll claw it to pieces but can't get it in her mouth. I've tried different consistencies of mixure, one a little runnier and one a little firmer. She will lick banana baby food, but only eats about a quarter of the jar and she can't live off of that alone.
Her poops were firmer, but now they are very runny. She's just simply not getting the nutrition. Any suggestions ... I'll try anything!

Okay Stewie was similar when young but thankfully he gained some smarts as he got older. I'd still try to get her onto the beef based diet later but for now getting more food into her is more important. He wanted to only lick his foods off the side of the bowl so would spill the bowl then lick the food from the sides but ignore the puddle. His owners before me dealt with this by putting a smaller bowl on it's side in the big bowl so he could turn that and keep licking the sides. You could try that something similar. Eventually he learned to mostly lick it off his claws. He'd dip his claws then lick what dripped off the tip of his claw. Still very messy. Then later I switched to the beef.

Eldorado took a few days to figure out the beef diet but once he did he didn't touch the kibble soup any more. If she's friendly you can try taking bits of food and making them small enough to fit in her mouth and offer them to her. They normally do a good job or working out their own style of eating. Pua just claws pieces off to eat, Eldorado will take a piece and eat it off his tail, Mandua would take a chunk on his hand and shove it in.

Adding some yogurt temporarily might help entice her too since the South American diet usually has a lot of yogurt in it. Though it sounds like she is already interested just not quite getting it yet.

How long do you leave food out? Pua has food out all the time when she's awake and she returns to it several times rather than having one or two large meals.

She is the sweetest thing ever. I mean, all she wants to do is be held and loved and scratched. Fortunately, I don't work so I can spend a lot of time with them. Today I went and got a small "parrot" bowl that attaches to the side of the pen and I thought it would interest her if she had a deeper bowl. She seemed to do a little better. It's just that she claws and claws and ends up throwing the raw beef mixture everywhere. Then I spend an hour cleaning everywhere b/c I don't want any kind of bacteria to form and be unsanitary.
I also saw on an earlier post where you pre-make and freeze the mixture and then give them a scoop. Now, do you give it to them frozen and then eat it cold; and that's raw beef, correct, in the mixture? Also, is the spinach raw? I assumed it was. I'm in the process of finding "beef heart." Once I have that, I'll have everything.
Thank you so much for the information. It's a great thing you are doing, educating people who otherwise would be lost. There just isn't anything out there about these wonderful, unique animals.

Oh, yeah. I don't keep the food out but for about an hour, sometimes a little more b/c I'm scared the raw beef will spoil.

With the vinegar in the food it helps preserve it and I haven't had any problems with spoilage even left out over night. I also use thyme now more often than spinach as it also helps act as a preservative against bacteria. It seems to dry out before it can spoil but if I do keep some to long it's the molasses that ferments I think as it kind of smell like alcohol instead of bad like bacteria. I think the DE being in it helps some too.

This time of year Pua keeps weird hours so I am putting out the food frozen when I turn in and then it's thawed by the time she wants to eat as she isn't eating till after 3 am then she will come and go to it till morning sometimes topping off with a snack in the morning around 10 before turning in for the day. In the summer she is up a lot earlier so I put it out thawed but then switch it a few times for fresh so it's not out too long.

Most full grown tamanduas go through 1.5 to 2 cups per day. When that's the case it's fairly easy to put out just a bit more than they will eat so you don't have much left over the next day. I freeze it in large yogurt containers that last a couple days since they hold about 3 cups in them. With 2 it's mostly used up in one night but with just Pua it lasts 2. It's if there is extra and I keep it longer than that that I'll notice a change but like I said it usually dries up anyway first and not edible for that reasons instead of going bad. It should be perfectly safe to leave it out one night and you could just toss the extra in the morning. Adding yogurt or cheese will make it go bad much faster though.

A friend who has a lot of them keeps food out for hers all the time. She cleans up in the morning them switches it out during the day, I think.

Pua likes her food on a flat surface. She spreads the food around which does waste some but she licks up the little bits. You can buy these big white trays at home depot that work great. They are about an inch deep. I think they are called fridge trays for putting under appliances. Of course Pua eats on the drier so I just put a pee pad upside down as a place mat but I still need to scrub the washer and sink. Eldorado and Mandua started with bowls but both got to liking just having it on a flat surface better. I think it makes it easier to separate out a little piece.

Pua had the same personality. Very clingy and hard to get to eat and keep weight on but once I got her onto the beef diet she's been a whole new anteater physically. She only became less clingy after Stewie died but she still plays and snuggles with me.

Here's a video of Mandua eating in a tray https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Czml64IZU
He liked everything cold so I had to switch his food out more often but since mine are house pets I hear when they get up and can switch the food as needed. He was also nice enough to be up during the day more than Pua.

And yes it's all raw. I use frozen spinach and grind it up or I use a teaspoon of dried thyme(flat not rounded spoon full). If the leaves are big then I grind it first, use a coffee grinder or blender.

And here's Stewie eating beef https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km2fDUHt_mc
This was when we first switched to beef and I hadn't fully worked out the formula yet. It was a bit pasty. Since he had learned to eat the soup off of his claws he did the same with the beef but most seem to claw loose bits to lick like Mandua does in the video.

She seems to be a little better with the new bowls that are actually attached to the side of the cage. Enjoyed watching your videos and am going to try again with the beef diet.
She's such a snuggler and so sweet, and I'd be heartbroken if anything happened to her. Thanks for your info and hopefully all of the tips will work.
Happy New Year!

Hope she turns around for you too. Oh I did thin Eldorado's beef at first, not to make it soupy but thinned it down quite a bit so it was easier to eat but once he got the hang of it he preferred it undiluted, though I know you said you already tried different consistencies just tossing it out there.