One small point. Those two authors did write, but I am not sure how much personal experience they had.

In most cases, items like this are analized and not tested in the field(cages)

What I bring to the table is that testing. I am not going by theory or the nutrional make up of a mouse or rodent. I am going by generations upon generations, species after species, of actual use.

I am not a A or Z person, I do not know What the actual "Best" food item is, nor do I care. What I care about is actual results, and that I have.

What is odd is this precieved prey set of natural monitors. Of course they have that, but that is not important to captivity, unless that prey is ALL they ate and refused to consume available food items we have at hand. That is not the case. Varanids, consume a huge range of food types, as mentioned.

What is odd is, the most handy of captive food items, rodents, works well. I say superior, and I have the right to say that, as I will indeed weight any other diet that produced the equal results we have seen as we have seen with rodents.

As mentioned by others and I, its not entirely the prey item that produces superior results, in fact, if given mice and kept in poor conditions, the monitors will still fail. Its cage conditions that express the Value of a diet or food item.

Others do not want to talk about that. It seems they are food items promoters, hahahahahahahaha.

Again, My standard statement is, WHOLE FOOD ITEMS" work best. Amougst those whole food items, rodents or mice, work extremely well.

Lastly, we are working with INDIVIDUAL animals, and that is more important then SPECIES. Some have individual preferences. An example is my work with Croc monitors. My first group, were totally afraid of BIRDS. Got me. THe female I have now, loves birds. My Lacies would leap thru the air in an attempt to catch birds as they flew by. This female croc monitor does the same, She will jump around like a pogo stick to get at birds.

Yet, her base diet is rodents. Yet if a bird hits the window or is fresh dead on the road, she gets it. And yea, she eats rodents, just not her favorite.

The real point is, rodents are something a newbie can rely on and base the rest of their husbandry on.

The common misunderstanding here is, tricking monitors to feed. Thats an old fashion snake trick. Monitors are not picky, a normal monitor under middle of the road conditions, eats the food item, the tongs holding the food item, your fingers(got scares) the hand the fingers are connected to, up to the elbow, before it decides you are not food. Thats normal.

If you have to trick a monitor, then something is seriously wrong and that is what needs work. Cheers

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