Reptile & Amphibian Forums

to make this quick he eats superworms, crickets and other insects and even turkey diet but refuses to eat mice i,ve fasted him for about 4 days before but he still won't accept mice so I was thinking I could use a meat grinder and grind up mice to mix w/turkey

sorry i was rushed;he,cedric, is a black throat, i got him from proexotics about a month a go , he is now about 18 inches long, he is in a 3'x3.5' enclosure ,it has cypress mulch substrate a basking spot of 130-145* Farenheight, ambient is 80*F , humidity ranges from 30%-75%, there is a large water bowl, a retes stack and several hides, i would post a pic but my card reader is broken and im saving up to have a way to feed him no matter what so i cant buy a new reader, he is offered insects 5 days a week, and meat twice a week, the only problem is that he only accepts san diego turkey diet and not mice , ive tried fasting him for 4 days and then tried to offer both a pinkey and a fuzzie with tongs and then left it in there over night, and nothing so i was thinking i could use a meat grinder and grind up some mice and mix it with the turkey 50/50 ? any better ideas? is this okay?

>fasting him for 4 days
That is not fasting.

It's not really an eating problem if it eats, it's just it doesn't eat what you want it to. If you want it to eat mice only feed mice. Once it figures there is nothing else, it will eat mice. If you don't want to feed turkey don't feed turkey, it surely won't escape, and mix up some of it's own.

Of course, you need to be sure there are no other factors. Personally with my young or small monitors, as long as they eat crickets they get crickets. If they don't want mice, I don't give them mice. Once they start eating mice they get mice and crickets.

When a monitor gets a certain size, it takes alot of crickets to keep it full (or to even make a slight difference), while it's fun to throw a thousand crickets in with some argus, it's cheaper and quieter to throw in a bunch of mice (it will fill them up better too). So the crickets are tapered off, except for 'special' occassions.

If there are any doubts about the animal's health see a vet. But, IMO there is nothing wrong with a young well fed monitor not being thrilled with mice.

--Robert