Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello Guys!

I would like to know what is the TRUE in the question of feeding with rodents a BT or a WT monitor! I've heard and read a lot of time, that a little bit dangerous to feed a Black Troat monitor with rodents, while allegedly the fur or the hair of the maus or rat cause dyspepsia or constipation. What is the good rate in the feeding of an albigularis with rodents pro week or in how many percent can I give him any rodents a week? When he is young I know that he need every day feeding, but how many percent should take the crx and how many the pinky maus, and when he is a sub adult or adult lizard what is the percent of the rodents per a week?
I will feed him with a good variets, but because of the full nutrition value of the rodent I have to give him it , but I don't know exactly what is the good rate or amount a week!
Maybe I have to feed him with rodents with less fur?? Please write me THE TRUE!!! What is the best feeding?

Thank you for every experienced answers! Tibor

The True? I'm not really sure what you are asking, but its fine to feed your BT rodents. If they have enough heat, it should not be a problem for them to digest anything. There is no need to try to find hairless mice or rats or anything. While the monitor is young, try to feed more crickets and insects but after about a year you can feed predominately rodents.

Be pretty useless for, here she is only 1 year old, shes a Faust cross by the way.

Dont get me wrong insects are a great addition but not a staple, rodents and birds are a great staple.
Here she is at 6ft 5 inches and 32 lbs.

She has eaten birds for most of her diet in her life.
A lesson in reptiles, impactions are a result of improper conditions, as in living conditions, you know, dehydration, low temps, unusable temps, etc, not hair, feathers, fur, or substrates. Healthy monitors can darn near digest 16 penny nails, Im sure they can.

ROTFLMAO!!Well, everybody looks comfortable at least . Question about using birds as food...........Do they cause diarrehea(sp) in monitors like they do in some snakes?

Quig
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Don't interupt me when I'm talkin' to myself

In most snakes birds are no different than mice.
Some are a bit loose with day old peeps until they get used to it, but adult birds or any a few days or more old dont make them any more or less than mice.
If you feed day old peeps use mice also, stiffens their stool.
Its not diarehia, just that the day old is full of yoke, and feathers partially digest, they are scales, hair does not.
Ive seen better growth in individual monitors over the years with birds as the basis than with rodents as the basis.
Birds are a great food source.

Both Whitethroats and Blackthroats, hatch at a size thats already large enough to feed on fuzzies and small mice. The problem is, crickets are too small and albigs do not care for tiny meals(they have big heads you know)

So yes, Shvars right, constipation is caused by POOR husbandry, not rodents or fur.

Fur is roughage and roughage is needed to maintain a healthy digestive tract. So my advice it move up to information thats not from the dark ages. Cheers.

although rodents are healthy for black thoats to eat, a variety diet is even better. one thing that should definately be added to a black throats diet is snails. they absolutely love em. and it's just as much fun to watch them eat. it's amazing to watch them remove the shell before swallowing them down.
cheers
shay

You state that a varied diet is "better". How do you know that? Better yet, how did you measure that?

In my experience, a rodent diet is by far the best. The monitors grow faster, stronger, breed better and live longer.

So what did you use to measure a varied diet? Other then it sounds good to you. I admit, it does sound like a good idea, but unfortunately, in practice, rodents work better.

Please understand, its not because I like rodents or anything like that. Its simply what has worked best over the years.

This pic is of two hatchlings, the upper one is three months older then the bottom one, which just hatched. The upper one only ate mice. I have also raised generations of albigs on mice.

So show me your evidence that a varied diet is better, thanks. Cheers

sounds like a no brainer to me. i don't doubt your success using rodents, afterall you're posting pics of eggs and hatchlings all the time. but i would imagine it would be quite expensive for you to provide varied diets for all your goannas. i know you breed your crickets and probably breed your own mice as well. it would cost you a pretty penny to buy food items that you can't breed like prawns, shrimp etc. and i would imagine you don't have the time or space to breed other animals like chickens or quale. but for those of us who only have a few to work with it's worth it.

there are others however who say the production of their animals tripled when they went to a varied diet vs a rodent diet especially when offering similar foods they eat in the wild such as crustaceans for dums, and waters, and foods like snails for albigs etc.
i don't have blood work results if that's what your asking for but with many different prey items they'll receive all different kinds of minerals their bodies will benefit from. not to mention a little stimulation.

nice little albigs by the way

cheers
shay

sorry to inform you, there are no others that can claim a varied diet have tripled or even doubled there success. Also a proven diet means it has been tested over other foods.

Now no need to argue me, just get those breeders here! or give me names.
I am interested to hear them.

Here goes nuthin'
I don't feed a base diet of rodents to the species I work with and have had piss-poor results when doing so.
I wouldn't say I've doubled or trippled my production, because when I fed out strictly rodents my animals didn't produce a thing. Not to say that rodents don't work, they just didn't work for me or the species I keep. When I feed a rodent based diet ( after visiting you FR) my animals production dropped to zero.
When fed a "natural diet" consisting of crawfish, whole bodied fresh and sea shrimp, along with roaches, mealworms, quail eggs and a very occasional mouse my animals produced like wild fire.
Although I wouldn't say I feed a "varied diet" because I feed out shellfish 5 or 6 days a week, not much variety there, I just stick with what works for me.
Not attempting to start WW3 here, but if you guys are going to ask for someone who has been successful with a diferent aproach, I thought I should speak up and share my experiences.
This year we have hatched out 6 clutches ( over 70 hatchlings) with another clutch pipping right now.

Cheers,
Ben

www.roughneckmonitors.com

Ya Right!

But I am curious, why are you getting out of them?
I mean producing 70 babies a year can surly justify a few expenses, especially if shell fish are so cheep?

i'm not sure i understand your question. why am i getting out of what??

oops, sorry wasn't to me

"ya right"
???
What is it you find hard to believe?
Everything I post about I can back up with photos, witnesses,etc, what do you need?
Ben

When I got a computer last year I thought that I would give selling monitors to the public another try, but I am left feeling the same way, sick of dealing with the public.
Also I lose $ breeding monitors as it takes me away from my work.
I love keeping and breeding monitors and will never stop, but it's my hobby, not my livelyhood.

Jobi, as I have stated time and time again, I'm not getting out of them, in fact I'm getting more into them, I have 6 adults and 4 juvis, and am stopping incubating not breeding, to focus my spare time on traveling to S,E Asia to see where they ocurr and hopefully see them ( and the rudi's) in the wild, and to spend some time getting the website/ other writting projects together.

This pretty mush sums up everything I wanted to know, I too prefer to dump eggs then deal with the public. Anyway going to Sumatra soon for gonocephalus species, I was hopping to cross over to heterophilis land and see what we’ve been missing. I have your email and will keep you informed if you like.

Never said crustaceans where no good, I simply wanted you to know that they can cycle on a rodent diet. Like others dums don’t keep my interest much.

cool!, have a great trip, would love to hear anything about wild dums, and would love to see pics of the areas they occur in. Thank you.
One last time for the record, I never said that dumerils can't do fine on rodents or that crustaceans improved my hatch rate,
Just that I had improved overall success with a shellfish diet.
Not that it is better or that everybody should run out and switch, I have no problem with rodents, I just don't recomend them because of my personal experiences, take it or leave it, no skin off my teeth.
I love the dumerils and find them to be a bunch of fun to keep and very beautiful, to each his own I guess.
Cheers,
Ben

Actually, I used a varied diet for many years. In fact, an extreme amount. Over the years of seeing what was important in the diet, rodents won out.

I would remove items and see if it effected anything. The only two items that effected performance was, rodents and crickets. Take those out and it adversely effected performance.

I do find it odd how you have me all figured out. I mean, you say i this and I that. But you don't ask, you just think it. Kinda like you thinking a varied diet is a no brainer. Its simply made up.

You see there is a actual difference between theory, you know, what sounds like a no brainer, and reality. Reality is what really works.

I am not saying people should only feed rodents. I am saying rodents are very very good and work extremely well as a total diet(larger monitors). Rodents are also a "no brainer" as the staple or base to any diet, that includes other items.

What kinda bothers me is, why do you pass on information to others that you yourself have not proved(successfully used). I say that because, a forum is a place to pass on our individual experiences(mainly) not pass on heresay and such. You can say, I have used a varied diet to X success. That would be great. Then we can debate which is better for whatever reasons.

If both approaches worked well. That it would be a win win situation. But to just pass on something because you read it????? and it made sense to you????

See, now you have me assuming stuff about you. Like you do with me. I am assuming you have not done to much with monitors. I am assuming you have not actually done anything to actually compare.

You could have said you read a varied diet is good. Then I would ask what kind of success the source of that information had.

The reason I put so much effort into this is, some of these "no brainers" are what is holding back monitors in captivity. Its plain sad to me that so many thousand(tens of thousands) monitors die every year, with keepers using these no brainers. In my opinion, monitors are very easy to keep. They don't just die, you have to really kill them.

So please do not think I am picking on you. Its just sad that people keep passing on horrible husbandry and keep killing monitors. Cheers

first of all i don't think i have you figured out. i made harmless assumptions that mean nothing if i'm wrong. i don't have the time or interest to ask you every single detail about stuff that is of no value.
second, other than suggesting a varied diet (doesn't kill monitors) i don't recall ever giving husbandry tips. however i do have 10 wonderful years working with varanids. but if you call success producing loads of babies then i havn't been successful yet. but if success is making mistakes and learning from them then i am successful. either way there's no need to make assumptions of me, just state your facts
cheers
shay

You did give advice. And having babies is the minimum level of exsistance. They do that to the worse possible conditions. Not the best. Anything below the ability to reproduce is exstintion.

I have said this many many years ago, If you kept a dog or cat or horse or cow, in conditions they could not physically reproduce, you would be arrested and fined and do some jail time.

Its unfortunate for reptiles, they can survive(exsist without living) for long periods of time without being in the right conditions.(inherent survival methods, to endure poor natural conditions)

That you fail to understand that reproduction is only a simple gauge to determine the most basic of suitable conditions.

Lets think about this. I have two ackies that each laid 13 clutches in one year.(our personal record or ackies) They not only laid them, but are now larger and fatter, then when they started. Lets assume for the moment, that the husbandry that allowed that is a 10 on a scale of one to ten. Now lets take a female that laid one clutch. Lets say shes in conditions that can be considered a one, on that same scale. After her clutch, shes nice and healthy. Now lets take a female that is kept in conditions that do not allow any reproduction. How would you rate her husbandry? If she lives and appears healthy, I imagine you could call her husbandry a minus one. On a scale of 1 to 10.

I think you will not call that unproductive female a minus one. Mainly because it will cast a negative lite on your husbandry.

Now consider, all animals central task in life is to exsist, to exsist is to reproduce(recruit) So your husbandry did not allow the most basic of life functions. How can you call that more then a minus one???? A scale should start at meeting the most basic of lifes functions, shouldn't it. Or do you consider a heartbeat the most basic?

Of course there are many degrees in the minus area, as well. I would imagine just keeping a monitor alive is a first step. But is that really something to be proud of??? Just to allow it to live and not do anything its designed for?

Your picture looks real nice, I cannot believe a monitor, particularly a breeding machine like argus, will not breed in such conditions. That is unless theres something wrong with its diet!

I mean, do you have any idea why in 10 years you did not hatch babies? Female monitors, will lay eggs, male or no male, from less then a year of age, on. We have an argus cross that has laid 63 clutches so far. Unfortunately the last five or six, is without males. As after her original male, she is hard to pair up. Now that shes old, she does not except males easily. She beats the beans out of them. But she does keep on laying eggs.

She is a test female, she was fed only mice from the day she hatched. Yes I hatched her. The test was about two things. First to see what a diet of mice would do. And second, I fed her more then I normally feed, to a point of, she got huge and FAT. I do not like fat monitors, but I wondered what Fat meant under suitable conditions. It seems to have meant she could produce lots and lots and lots of babies. Funny thing is, she is not fat now, she is very normal.

Oh by the way, if you do not have time to ask questions, then maybe you should rethink what your doing?

Let me ask a few questions. You say you had monitors for 10(whatever)years. Did you have females during that time or simply had a male monitor for that lenght of time. Did you have lots of monitors, several, a few?

Back to the subject. Heres the problem. Beginers need to know what will work. Something reliable. Something they can depend on. They need that so they can not worry about diet and work on other areas that most likely need far more attention. So someone with a Sav can feed mice and crickets and be assured that if other conditions are OK, their monitor will prosper. That is good advice, to offer something that works. Advice of real value.

To offer a varied diet, is almost meaningless. It simply means lots of different stuff. But it does not say, WHAT STUFF, and how much of each item. What percentage? You see, there is nothing concrete or dependable about saying a varied diet. In this case, it may mean, the person saying it, is not using their brain.

Those of us with successful experience, understand, healthy monitors can and will eat everything, they are trashcans. A reptilian rat so to speak. But to get started you really should start with something simple, easy to obtain, something with a consistant supply and something KNOWN to work. Then you can play and have fun with other stuff too. But you already know whats needed.

The reality is, your advice, "a varied diet is a no brainer" is really not a no brainer, it only complicates something simple. A good approach for beginers should be, "keep it simple stupid", you see, we can and will complicate many other things. So its good to known what works, not only what works, but what works really really well, A TEN, so to speak. Yes, you can add other stuff and make it a nine or and eight, but its all good, yes????? Cheers

in my past experience i kept monitors because i loved these animals. for many of those years i didn't keep males and females. i had a stamp collection so to say. i had many failures and i learned from them. it wasn't until a few years ago that i decided to focus on my love for reptiles and make a career out of it. had i decided that at the beginning i may be on a different level now. unfortunately i've been in the military for the past 5 years, and that really slowed any progress with my animals. now all my attention is on providing the right environment and the needs of the animal to promote breeding.

and by the way i have plenty of time for questions. but i don't care to ask questions that have no value as i stated. should i ask, if you've bred chickens? i don't care if you did or didn't. i ask questions that help me with husbandry, breeding, captive behavior, or wild behavior.

i've mentioned before that my female past away (winter accident) that's why this male doesn't have any offspring yet. however i did take something from you by buying a group of 4 young panoptes that will live together for their first year, or atleast until i can somewhat accurately sex them. then i'll pair them up. i'm hoping and planing on firtile eggs by this time next year. as i recall my last female cycled for the first time at 12 months old, and did so like clockwork every 3 months.

and to through jobi a bone, Ben Aller says he has much more success breeding his dums with a varied diet including crayfish than with mice and crickets.

cheers
shay

cheers

Your history is fine. No problems. The question is, Is that material for you to give advice or recomendations from? It seems to me, your just now begining to test what is important. The begining is not a place to give advice from.

And surely this is only about diet. You have not recieved any evidence that a varied diet is a no brainer. You simply think or hope it is. The problem is, its not a no brainer, and to a point that all those that I know of that are very successful keeping monitors, use a very limited diet, but a good one, or they would not have success. In otherwords, we, have learned what is important and what works, FROM DOING, not from theory or what seems to be logicial.

My first varanid project was with ackies in 91. I actually went to where they were found. Checked fecal contains, and used those very items(as close as I could get) Guess what, I did pretty well with ackies and that varied diet. Now, Its not varied at all and I do better. My first female ackie surprised the world of monitors by laying six clutches in one year. Now we have over doubled that. That sir is the point. Cheers

i thought id add my 2 cents in here as well. the only personal experience i can speak from is my ackie so ill speak about that.

i used to feed my ackie crickets everyday with a pinkie mouse or two once a week. up until 2 weeks ago or so that was all i had fed them when i decided to try some mealworms, and i offered him a little bit of egg one day also. when i did that i was amazed how bigger he had gotten. he must have grown 2 or atleast an inch and a half in two weeks.

it seemed like the variety added something to his diet that he was missing before. with crickets he only grew about 1/2 an inch a week.

Frank, you can try to twist and manipulate that all you want but thats what happened and thats my experience so im going to take it for what it is.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

I guess I would not know, because while your raising up that one. I am only raising up about, let me count, 6 reds, 6 yellows, and 6 blackfaced, and 6 stripednecks. Hmmmmm thats 24.

I actually have some hatched at the same time as yours, they are near breeding size. I think another month or two and they will be.

Oh by the way, I raised a yellow ackie male to 27 inches in one year. Thats pretty good. But he was very exceptional, of the hundreds and hundreds I have raised, he was the fastest growing.

Oh darn this is so childish.

[img]http://www.varanus.net/goannaranch/ackiehatchlings8-9-06.jpg

Check out the middle one.

This is the middle one after it grew up. Have you ever raised up one single monitor???????

Anyway, thanks for the oppertunity to show off my nice ackies.

Frank, i never said i was an expert. i was telling something from my little bit of experience, which is my ackie grew more when offered more variety. no need to get mad and start posting pictures of all the monitors you've bred.

how big are the ackies now that were hatched at the same time as mine? that would be kinda cool to know. can you tell me when mine hatched? you've never answered me all the other times ive asked you that.

nice pictures anyways.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

Its a pleasure, its fun to share. Don't you think those were nice pictures? Of some very nice monitors? Why would I have to be mad.

I will let you in on something, this stuff does not make me mad or upset me. It does prompt me to share these pics.

All of these pics are already online at our site, nothing new. Just something to share.

No I am not mad, and there is good reason for that. I am not the one with problems. I am doing very well, aren't I?

The problem is for those who are not sure, or are having problems, or are just begining. Which does not discribe me. In fact, it's about their monitors, not even them. Their monitors are what will reap the benefits of useable information.

If you remember, I call mice or crickets and good staple, a place to start, something to base a diet on. Then I add, they also work very well as a stand alone diet.

That you argue like you do, is very odd, as you are saying what I already said, hey, just go back and look.

Also, You have never raised ackies, so you have no idea of the growth spurts they normally do. So without knowledge of what is normal, you give cause to something that is not the cause.

I know this, because I have raised ackies both with and without varied diets. I have also been very successful with both. So the term, not needed, pops up. As in, a varied diet is NOT needed, as you can raise them as fast, as well, as strong, without a varied diet.

The point you miss and reason your being arguementative is, because knowing that mice and insects alone works, gives beginers confidence that if problems occur, they do not need to blame diet, and look at other aspects of husbandry. Which I feel is important.

If you read the first part of the post, I mentioned that those of us who understand proper conditions, also understand, once monitor are in those conditions, they will succeed on a diet of pencils and doorknobs. Cheers

can you tell me when my ackie hatched and how big my ackies siblings are right now? you again have not answered that question when ive asked it. that's got to be the fourth or fifth time and i would REALLY like to know his hatch date.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

Its not a simple question. I have already told you, I do not keep track of every individual ackies birthdate. It is totally senseless to try to do so. I imagine for someone like you, having one ackie, you would feel its important. I would imagine you would keep track of the date of your first hatchling monitor. But consider after many thousand hatchlings later, why would you keep track.

I do know the time period, add one to two months to when you recieved it. Then you would be close.

I do remember I hatched a group of stripenecks at about the same time as your ackie. They are between 14 and 18 inches now. Why do you want to know?

Also, I am afraid, I do not care to have discussions with you, as all you seem to want to do is find cracks in armor. Which I find to be very silly. So if you want to be silly, have at it. I do not care.

Again, I am not the ones with problems, as those pictures illustrate. My monitors are doing fine. As you say yours is. What is particularly funny is, I hatched your monitor. Seems I did a good job. Cheers

no Frank you never answered that question that i know of, but whatever. i dont want to argue, i want to discuss monitors.

thank you, my monitor is 14 inches right now. i guess im doing ok then?

Frank, i know what a stripeneck looks like but what does a black face look like?
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

Heres the deal, I do not have answers for you. In fact, I have no idea what your asking. Its simply not worth trying to keep up with your silly games. Its also not worth going back and seeing what your question is.

The truth is, I only try to make people think. Then they can apply what they want. Or not. You see, right or wrong is results.

Truthfully your silly games are boring. In order for your ackies progress to be meaningful, I think you should not feed any rodents or parts or any crickets or insects. You know, the ideas I recomend. Then lets see how your diet works. If you do not exclude those items, then your comparison has little meaning. Cheers