Posted by:
FR
at Tue Sep 20 10:34:30 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FR ]
Please understand, anyone can say anything, its a free country(some will argue that)
But its simply apples to oranges, to donut holes, when you compare wild diets to captive diets. They do not relate, not with monitors. Monitors, simply put, can and will consume whatever gets them to tomorrow.
The apples to apples thing is important in captivity. That is, what diet allows for the best success in captivity(where the question is important). In the past, it really did not matter what you fed them, as their basic husbandry was so bad(off) that diet was a bandage or excuse for poor husbandry. The monitors failed from poor husbandry, but failed faster with a poor diet.
Whats absolutely needed is, a standard diet you as a keeper can rely on. That is, if you meet normal husbandry, and offer this diet, then your charges will achieve life events and longlife. For instance, with snakes, wild snakes do not consume only white mice or lab rats or fuzzy rabbits. Yet in captivity those do provide a base for success. But surely people should not be bound by habit and not offer anything else. They simply need to understand what will allow success.
This goes for monitors, There are two basic food items that have shown great success for achieving life events and longevity. That is mice and crickets, but there are more, like birds, rats, other rodents,eggs, roaches, hard shelled worms(superworms etc) The only thing that has shown to be criticial is, they like their snake cousins, need whole food items.
More to the point, for newbies or even longterm keepers that do not understand success, what is needed is a base to work from, not a smorgesboard of what you do not understand. For instance, not understanding what is needed, is approached by shotgunning, that is, give them all sorts of stuff and hope it works. The problem is, those who have done that, are not the ones who continually achieve success. They seem to continually achieve failure. They simply move from species to species, as they wear out their charges. Then claim to be experts. Please understand, those that offer you a varity is important, really should show their longterm success. If they cannot show it, then why would you want to believe it? After all, husbandry and diet is actually an applied discipline. In such, it achieves results. Have them show their results.
If I were new to monitors, I would want to know what diet is dependable and easily obtained for what I was working with. That would be important. Because I am not a robot(programed), I fully understand, I can offer other items or fun, but not for necessity.
The problem is monitors are reptiles, and most newbies are mainly concerned with getting their new pet, soon to be lap lizard to feed. What you fail to understand, their willingness to feed is based entirely on their conditions, they are indeed reptiles. A monitor kept in good or even normal husbandry will eat the chrome off a trailer hitch, that is, they will readily consume about anything. And further more, they appear to like to eat anything, the reason is, they like to eat.
The above paragraph is very important because so many newbies fall back on the old, my monitor really likes donuts, excuse. Whats important is, your monitor maintains health, whether it likes it or not. Once healthy, then even donuts are not a problem(in moderation)
But no matter what the theory boys have to say, and they do say(to bad they don't back it with doing). Its better to understand whats needed, a successful base diet, then guess(as they have been doing their whole failure prone lifes)
What it boils down to is not theory, There is now a history of longterm success. There is no need to guess, there are very successful diets and husbandry. Your task as a newbie is to find those exsisting programs and see what they are feeding, not what someone sitting in a room without monitors has to say.
There is a real need to theorize about why keepers do not want to use what has been proven to be successful. I would think that would be step one. Then once understood, you can take as many steps as you like. But wouldn't understanding step one be a good thing? My theory about this is, its far easier to except failure when following theory, then when following something proven. That way, you can always blame the theory, after all, its only theory.
The facts are, any species of monitor can and will achieve adulthood within a year, to a couple years, depending on size. Savs, have no problem reaching adulthood within a year, with proper husbandry(what allows use of a diet) and only consuming mice and crickets. But what is required is that the keeper have a brain and learns to use it. You do not have to feed only mice and crickets, they are an established base diet.
For those who promote theory, please understand, we can read and we too understand what monitors ate in nature, but we also understand, this is not nature. The focal point is very important, what works here is far more important than what worked in nature.
Thanks for reading and, after all is said and done, its the keepers choice and full responsibility, if your monitor fails, its only your fault, the information is out there, as well as all sorts of theory. Still, its only your fault for failure and your joy for success. Cheers FR
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 About diets and apples and oranges, and plain old donuthead theory - FR, Tue Sep 20 10:34:30 2005
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