This was a great purchase and our juvenile bearded dragon, Walter, really responds well to eating with these tongs and we can even use them to point out escapees as he sometimes gets that spacey-lizard thing going on. We move the end of the tongs in front of him, left to right and back a couple times and bam! He can refocus or notice an escapee and gobble it up. I normally review from pros to cons as most items I think I am lucky to have chosen wisely and enjoy fully with few complaints, with these I had a major issue but was able to resolve it with some ingenuity. That said, it was a problem. Let's start with that and get it over with... So, these tongs gave me no problem for weeks, then I don't know if the weather warped them but they seemed to get closer and closer at the end of the tweezer point. It became harder to pick up even tiny crickets unless I pried the wood apart with my pointer finger as I went to wrangle each cricket - that is not user-friendly. Annoyed with them, I held the pieces apart hoping to - I dunno really what I was thinking - but to pry them open a little more permanently? Well, yea, I did just that - snapped the things in two right in front of Walter and if lizards can give us dirty looks I swear his look said, "I suppose you aren't going to get me another cup of crickets, are you?" Well, I figured I would glue them up but before that I had an epiphany. If I had to put them back together again why not make em better? So, I made a shim out of scrap paper + gorilla glue, straightened it out so they would close proper and pinched it together with a chip clip - VOILA! Tongs fixed! Tongs have nice, wide opening that makes them so much easier to use. If they break again I will just glue em back together - maybe rubber band or duct tape em, who knows? But they work even better now than when I first got em. So, to the pros - 1. Gentle - Walter is a voracious eater. He sometimes grabs and noms the tongs. He gives no sign of distress when nibbling these like I believe he might with metal ones. 2. Safer for you - You aren't handling bugs so much and you won't get bit. Walter has bitten my fingers only once while hand feeding. It was some pumpkin baby food when we first got him and he wasn't eating so well or eliminating properly. He went: lick, hmm, lick, hmm, lick, lick, LICK NOM NOM NOM! It only pinched a bit but it's not a good experience or something I want him to be in the habit of doing so - tongs! 3. Good training tool - When your pet gets used to these you can use them to point. Animals are smart. He knows that the end of the tongs now mean insta-food or sometimes they point to food he can get himself. I am sure you could potentially do other training with tongs as an incentive to perform a behavior. Haven't got that far with Walter yet, though, he sure knows tongs = supper time! Bottom line - These can break. You can fix them easily. You can even make them better! (See attached pics) But these are nice, gentle and safer for your pet to eat from and cleaner and safer for you, too. These are recommended but as they did get wonky, which led me to break them lol, and I was the one that made them what I wanted them to be in the first place - well, I am giving them 4 stars for the review of what they are but what I have NOW I consider a 5 star item and I would buy these again if I had to get new tongs. Note: Added photos of the shim (it's not pretty but it works) the proportions of the tongs with my hand and a before and after of how close the tong tips were before and after I broke them and put them back together with the shim to prop them apart better. Hope this helps! Good luck!
