To all the respondents: I did not desire to hit a wrong nerve, but I guess that is what I did. Yes, rodent only diets have had great success with many Varanus sp. including V. rudicollis. In the last post, birds and rodents were offered: that is offering some variety. I offer frogs as a primary food source, not an only food source, because like in the US and Europe with rodents, where captive raised rodents are widely available, farm raised frogs (raised for human consumption) are widely available here. No, I am not suggesting mice are raised for human consumption, just pointing out that the frogs here are raised in highly controlled conditions.



Because I am overly protective in the care of my many reptile species, I presently do not feed birds, even though they are widely available, to my reptiles due to the ongoing bird flu here in SE Asia. One of the local crocodile farms lost many crocodiles to infected farm raised chickens, which scared me off until this virus is eradicated. Once bird flu is no longer an issue, birds will also be included in the diets.



As far as preferences go, when offered a large quantity of frogs with a rodent already in their stomachs, I had monitors regurgitate the rodents to make room for the frogs. In the end of the feeding, regurgitated rodents were on the floor and all the frogs were all gone. Since that had occurred, I only feed frogs or rodents at a single feeding or insects and frogs together. As stated in the earlier post, all the Varanus sp. native here (Thailand) love to eat frogs (V. bengalensis nebulosus, V. dumerilii, V. salvator and V.rudicollis – I am still trying to confirm V. flavescens in this country, so far without success.)



In my earlier post, I also wrote many monitors' desire for certain lizards. I have lost Calotes sp. and Physignathus to Varanus sp. whose lengths were almost equal (due to being at capacity at the time, I temporarily housed them together), notably V. prasinus, V. doreanus, and V. bengalensis nebulosus. There is something about these 2 groups of Agamids that monitors are crazy about. None of them will eat Hemidactylus (housed with all the monitors to eat the smaller insect which make their way into their terrariums), but I had one eat a Gekko this week.



In summary, all I am saying is that variety of whole foods offers more nutrients than a single whole food type. More nutrients- better diet. Of course, the source of the food items is important. Except for occasional lizards and fresh water crabs, all of the food items given to my monitors (frogs, fish, insects, and rodents) are farm raised. I am not refuting anyone's success with diets they have been using.

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