Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I read on the forum once about how to shift a monitor from live food like crickets to such things as ground turkey...and I cant find it again. Can someone help me please?
Mamma

Turkey?
Whole animal foods are the best foods to feed to them period. Mice, crickets, quail, feeder roaches, chicken peeps, rats, etc. have all or almost all nutrients needed plus help keep stools hardened and smell alot less. Turkey is more expensive than mice, roaches, peeps,or crickets. So why switch?

is it ok to feed my savannah turkey cold cuts he seems to love it but is it ok to eat?

A hungry monitor will eat just about anything, including feces. Does that make it healthy for them?? Do you think that they will stay away from cold cuts because of the salt content, or do you think they will just eat it because it smells like food? To answer your question, no. Its the same if i make some lard look like a steak, and smell like a steak, and even taste like a steak. It would be terribly bad for you if you ate that "steak." whole items dont have additives such as preservatives/salt/other crazy stuff. Why does everyone get all crazy with their feeding. Are mice or insects too hard for you? Sorry for the rant, but I think that the cold cut question was crazy. So sue me.

Truth

Many coldcuts are loaded with preservatives and chemicals that may or may not harm your animal over time (to the best of my knowledge, no studies have been done). Further, coldcuts are cooked, which breaks down many of the nutrients and proteins present in the meat. You may want to consider switching his treat to raw turkey (ground raw turkey is available in most supermarkets, only cost $1.49 per pound, and you can freeze the excess for later feedings), but still check to make sure there are few or no additives. I ephasize that this should only be a "treat", his primary staple should be insects (while young), rodents, and other whole food items.

The choice is up to you, really, but consider this: human remains are currently classified by the EPA as "toxic waste" simply due to the buildup of all the chemicals we ingest over our lifetimes. Do you really want to introduce those same chemicals into your monitor's system?

J.P.

always makes me hungry for a sandwich. It also makes me wonder if the posters take their own advice and eat cow heads and carrots for dinner instead of succumbing to the evils of cooked and processed foods .
Just kidding of course, my monitor gets whole rodents (while my dog gets 'slime in a pouch').

A world without processed food and McDonald's is not one that I'd care to live in

Just trying to give a more scientific viewpoint to the questions asked, hopefully get new keepers to think about th questions they ask rather than just look for consensus and a quick fix

You like it but its not very good for you.

It cracks me up how people here make assumptions based on what they have been told by others. The turkey is nothing like candy, but is quite healthy. You should read the paper before you talk, no matter your experience level.

Search the archives for the San Diego Zoo diet (SDZD). You really shouldn't need to do much more than put it in front of the monitor to get him to eat it. Realize, though, that monitors are healthiest on whole food diets. You're the one who wrote a few days ago that his mother didn't want feeder mice in the freezer, aren't you? (Or, perhaps you're mom, herself? I noticed you signed your post "Mama." One of the most basic components of adequate care for any animal is a proper diet. If you're unable to provide one for this monitor, it might be best to re-home it with someone who can and look into getting a non-carnivorous lizard. Having crickets chirping in the house and a freezer Morticia Adams would envy kind of comes with the territory when you share your home with monitors!

Why do you feed raw ground turkey to your monitors? How do I prepare it?

The San Diego Zoo developed and tested a turkey based diet a number of years ago for use with their Komodo Dragon breeding program. The "recipe" is 2.5 pounds of ground turkey (we buy it in frozen one pound blocks at 89 cents at the grocery store), 22.5 grams of bone meal, and one half Centrum vitamin tablet (crushed). Mix well, feed to voracious lizards.

The "turkey diet" has proven very useful at Pro Exotics, and we have been using it for a few years now with positive results. We only feed it once a week to our animals, as one part of a larger monitor diet (balanced with rodents and insect feeders). For us, it is very economical, and easy to use.

It is a fairly lean meat, and with the right mix, it has added vitamins and calcium as well, making for a fairly balanced serving. You can make up a few pounds of the diet, and then spread it into ice cube trays, where once frozen, you have handy individual servings that pop right out and thaw quickly. All of our monitors accept the turkey very readily, and for larger collections, it certainly seems like a good diet alternative.