fav monitor foods?

[Colin Vestrand]

mice, super worms, roaches, and lean ground turkey supplemented with calcium and vitamin d3 are what i've always done.

[StormDragon]

Whole prey items only! Your Bosc is too big for a bug diet and even with dusting them will not get all the nutrients it needs. Varanids draw all their nutrients from their prey which includes not just the calcium but protiens also. Bugs, and "human" foods do not have that even with a suppliment.
Proper diet would be:
Mice
Rats
Chicks

The only way you are going to get an obese monitor is by over feeding and no exercise. Proper caging and climbing logs are what ensure good health. Not to mention you can do enrichment exercises for them like hiding a mouse under something for them to figure out how to get it or putting the food item up in a climbing log so they have to use natural methods to get it.

What is the monitors current setup???? Temps, substrate, so forth and so on???

[wolfy-hound]

I have tegus and a blackthroat monitor.
The tegus eat mice, baby quail, small rats, a small amount of ground turkey, eggs, and fruit(they seem to like the granny smith apples and grapes best, but get quite a variety).

The blackthroat eats mice, baby chicks, small to medium rats, some ground turkey on occasion, eggs, and on occasion fish.

The fish I get locally. Technically it's bait fish, makerel mainly. But it's caught and packaged locally and is fresh and whole and good. I've actually cooked some right out of the same package for the lizards.

The MAIN diet is mice for all the lizards(with a LOT of fruit for the tegus). The rest is off and on, with ground turkey almost exclusively for when I happen to run out of rodents due to poor planning, OR if I was dumb enough to not thaw rodents and it's too late to do so. (Or in one case when the silly cat got the thawed mice.. sigh. Pets...)
All rodents are frozen/thawed for my lizards. I don't like to feed the lizards live rodents.
Hope this helped.

[Thunder Kat]

she loves large crickets, baby rats, hopper mice, and she gets small amount of turkey or beef for an occasional treat. i will give her crickets for as long as she'll take them she eats up to 50 crickets a week and she gets 2-4 rodents a week. she doesn't eat worms any more. it just took a few days to settle in and like i said she loves crickets i think she just likes to hunt. i love her and i'm having a lot of fun with her. she's very active and as soon as she sees me she stands on her hind legs too see if i have food.

[qiksilver]

kat, she sounds active from what you say, you care about her a lot as i can see it but follow daniels instructions as he knows his info as does storm dragon, whole foods are really best and bugs can be offered it she likes if you supplement, and your previous pics seemed a little dehydrated, but keep up the work, monitors are harder than snakes.

p.s. Frank Retes, the pioneer, yet a-h some think of monitors in the US feeds all rodents if you care about his routine. Many dispute him and feed varied diets, which are always good, but you can't dispute his results, only his attitude... do what works for you and keeps her growing, fat and happy...


p.p.s. happy new year, and I wish you and cortana the best you deserve it, she's hard work, keep her healthy... sorry if i ramble, it's been a long new years eve.

[Thunder Kat]

kat, she sounds active from what you say, you care about her a lot as i can see it but follow daniels instructions as he knows his info as does storm dragon, whole foods are really best and bugs can be offered it she likes if you supplement, and your previous pics seemed a little dehydrated, but keep up the work, monitors are harder than snakes.

p.s. Frank Retes, the pioneer, yet a-h some think of monitors in the US feeds all rodents if you care about his routine. Many dispute him and feed varied diets, which are always good, but you can't dispute his results, only his attitude... do what works for you and keeps her growing, fat and happy...


p.p.s. happy new year, and I wish you and cortana the best you deserve it, she's hard work, keep her healthy... sorry if i ramble, it's been a long new years eve.

she eats 2-4 rodents a week, the crickets are mainly for exercise. when i take her out she climbs on my shoulder and falls a sleep (like she is right now). she was a bit dehydrated in those pics, the first i posted was when i first brought her home and the other two pics are when i was trying to get her settled in (she makes it hard for me to read her temps because she buries her thermometer). i'm getting a gun for temps and humidity for my b-day (next week) so the temp/humidity issue should be solved. and cortana says happy new year! now i have to date all of my paper work 08. HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!!!!!

[nixer]

i just got a baby sav but did anyone ever think about rabbit instead of beef or other fatty meats rabbit is also alot higher in calcium or maybe i got that backwards

[bonheki]

Lets see I feed
-crickets
-worms (superworms)
-mice
When he gets a little bigger I will feed chicks,rats.

Other then that they can eat alot!
heres some safe food items that can be used
WHOLE SEAFOOD
Crabs
Shrimp
Octopus
Fish(Trout, Bass, Crappie, etc etc)
Crayfish(crawfish{Whatever you want call them}haha)
Mussels
Clams.
More foods
Snails(a favorite)
Snakes
large bugs(Roaches, Tarantulas, Scorpions, Millipede�s, Locust)
Rabbits
Guinea Pigs
Pigs (if you have large albigs and other species of Varanids)
Frogs
Lizards
Turtles
Fertile eggs