Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone ever heard of a monitor that will not eat mice??

I have a Dumerils and he eats crickets until bloated but looks at pinkies as if they were the plague. I even tried wrapping a cricket in some parts of a pinky to try and entice the taste for them.

I did this twice and the Dumerils took the time to spit out the pinky and then eat the cricket.

he will eat crawfish and shrimp but only a few bites and then refuses until i offer him crickets again.then will eat a few more bites of shrimp or crawfish

He was born on Feb 20 of this year
I got him aroung March 20 he was 7.5 inches
now , although hard to get a definite measurement he is around 16-18 inches. not skinny at all, not obese. very active looks great, thick tail base wide beautiful eyes. nothing to suggest sick in any way!

heat and humidity based on Ben Aller suggestions on set up.

everything seems great with him but the not eating pinky's confuses me. he is 9 month old and has never eaten a rodent and refuses to when offered.

is there any addictive traits with eatng crickets? would anyone suggest offering a brown fuzzy that resemblew the coloring of a cricket?

any and all input appreciated

You can try crawfish and shrimp. Dumerils love them. Yours may not like pinkys.

-----
Ed

why do you want him to eat pinkies so bad? your Dum seems to prefers crickets and crawfish so i'd give him as much as he'll eat. from the sound of it he hasn't been getting enough. i know it's not really fair to compare a dumeril to an argus monitor, but i have a 4.5 month old argus juvi that's over 28 inches already. Dums may not grow that fast but i'd pack his belly with what he likes. crawfish is a great food for Dums

cheers

Lol sometimes I dont thing people read what the person is writing. But he is feedi crawlfish. And feeding pinkies is a great idea a few times a week at a year of age. It adds variety and fat plus they are avaliable. But what you can try doing is cutting the mice to that the rep can taste it more and giving it the urge to want to eat it more. Are you warming the pinkies .What kind are you using frozen or live? I use frozen and i cut them in hafe not so bad cuz there frozen even thoe it still grosses me but then i let them thawl and use tongs to feed after i warmed them in warm water to get them body temp to feed. But im loves them mice and is around 19 in.So maby try cutting the pinkies a litt this might work GOOD LUCK!

Somehow I did miss that paragraph about shrimp and crawfish.
-----
Ed

Lol i for1get stuff all the time and go back end up relying 3 times lol

What you are experiencing is not at all out of the ordinary for this species. My two young dumerilii did not accept rodents for a long time. The older of the two just started, but it appears to be the least preferred food item. The younger of my two young dumerilii still does not accept them.

This species is not known ever to have been found with rodents as stomach contents, not that rodents are a common food item for most monitor species in nature (most rodents being nocturnal, while monitors are diurnal- they just do not cross paths very often). Just observing their foraging technique should show you that dumerilii are not looking for rodents.

As far as your monitors spitting a rodent in favour of a cricket, I have experienced my V. salvator's actually regurgitating rodents in order to be able to consume frogs.

Cheers,
Michael

Your monitor sounds fine, if its growing well, I would not worry about what its feeding preferences are.

Its my opinion, that monitors do not like small prey items. In this case, pinkies. Examples are, hatchling odatria will ignore small crickets and attack large crickets, even if WE think the crickets are too large.

A 19 inch Dums is well beyond the pinkie stage and most likely would prefer something much larger.

My own experience suggests healthy monitors are more picky with size of prey that prey type.

There is no problem raising dums on mice, of course you don't have too. This thing of feeding what you think they consume in nature is a little odd. As its never been shown that varanids are prey specific. All varanids that I know of, consume whatever is abundand in their habitat. And that whatever covers a huge range of prey types.

I got over that type of approach when my vet suggested offering fish to ackies. I said, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, ackies do not eat fish in nature(ackies normally live away from water) Yet, I offerred fish anyway, guess what, they ate the fish without hesitation. Of course, it does not stop there. Varanids are reptilian rats, they consume all things they consider edible.

If yours does not like mice and is healthy in all respects, do not worry about it. I also get the feeling(theory) monitors are good at keying in on a single prey type(at a time) This may serve them well in nature. Of course when that prey type runs out, and they get hungry, they will eat a doorknob. Which leads to this, if your really concerned and you really want your monitor to eat mice. All you have to do is make this judgement, is it healthy. If it is healthy, then do not feed it for a couple days. It should then eat mice, your hand, the water bowl, and the doorknob. Monitors are like that, all species. Cheers

I also have a young dumeril's born on 6-6-06. I got it from Ben/Michaela in early July. He is doing great and he eats mainly crawfish and softshell crab for the supermarket. My question is about , I think dzrider's photo. Into the photo the monitor is being fed a whole crawfish. I started feeding them when the monitor was very small, so I've always got the meat and guts out for the little guy. I guess this means it's okay to give whole ones of the appropriate size? I know, I know they aren't prepared for them by a varanid chef in the wild, I just worried about sharp shells hurting the lizard. Maybe I'll give it a whirl today.

Don't worry about the shell,etc. They will digest everything they consume short of rocks,sand and sticks eaten by accident (those will be shat). If a prey item is too big to be consumed...........hack it into bits and offer it on a little plate or yogurt lid. As long as they are getting the entire animal, it's good to eat. Fish, crawdads, mice, roaches, crickets. The only exception is that an all insect diet needs vitamin supplementation. If they eat vertebrates regularly, less supplements are needed. All monitors are pretty 'catholic' and will eat what is offered eventually.