Erm, water monitor makign me angry lol

[JLuck13]

Okay everything has been smooth sailing so far with Monet (my baby water) until the last weekish. Usually he gets crickets/supers and a few roaches a day, with a hopper every once or twice a week, wekk ive noticed he has not been eating his insects, i mean not one. I always count everything i put it, and of the last 30 supers, 20 roaches and 50 crickets, i have pulled everyone out of his cage. yet he is hammmmmmmmmering the mice. Should i just switch him over to mice only? i dont have a problem doing that, but what would his feeding schedule be then? He is really healthy, and i can see him keeping/gaining weight and length, and he is shedding nicely. Im just kinda stuck with the stupid feeding thing

any advice?

[bsash]

I would not give mice or rats as a daily food item, it could cause them to get a fatty liver. Try not offering them to your water monitor, until it starts eating what is better. I know my monitors won't look at crickets anymore, is it still eating the roaches? I have found when I started giving roaches they didn't eat much else. If not, just stop giving the rats and mice for awhile, the monitor will eat again, they can be fussy sometimes.

[mumps]

Feed him mice. Appropriately sized, one or two per day. Or small rats, depending how big he is. My ornatus is eating 2 medium rats, 5 days a week. At two years of age, in August, he'll go to every other day.

If proper housing is provided, he will live long and healthy.

I had a Nile monitor eat rodents its ENTIRE life and he lived to be 16.

Fatty livers develop if there is no room for activity and/or basking temps are too low.

Water monitors are garbage cans and will consume everything, but yours seems to have a preference. Give it to him.

Chris

[JLuck13]

thanks mumps. He is about 18" and in a 5 x 2 x 2 so im pretty sure he has enough room to exercise and run around. He is completely active too so i wont worry about that.


As always, thanks for the help

[mumps]

Hope I helped.

Keep me posted on how Monet is doing. Take lots of pics, it's fun to compare them later on...

Chris