Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Will BT's take anoles? Is it worth it? The Bahaman brown anoles cost about as much in 25-lots as small-adult live mice.

Also, a supposed expert told me that BlackThroats in the wild eat mainly birds. Could that be true? Given their body shape and that they are terristrial makes me doubt it. But he said on-site stomach content exams revealed a high % of avian prey. Huh. Would feeding rodents, rodents, and rodents still be ok?

Roger

Theirs nothing wrong with feeding them lizards, however if your going to do so at least breed them yourself, feeding imports should be outlawed. Why on earth would anyone take from nature when theirs so many options available?

When I feed lizards or eggs its either cause I don’t want to sale my surplus or incubate them. Otherwise I feed the regular foods, BT do very well on roaches, African snails, chicks and rodents, the first 2 can easily be bred in numbers without much problems, in fact I once produced enough to sustain a colony of BT on them alone, these are what BT eat in nature, at least a big part of there feeding.

There is a huge feral population of a variety of exotic lizards in S. Florida. That's where I would get them from. I would never invade a natural habitat for feeders, I assure you. I buy USA CB too, because IMO there is enough captive variety in lizards and snakes to satisfy anyone. *No one needs a Croc. Monitor*, yet even those can be found as USA CB.

I guess the bird question was too ridiculous to reply to LOL.
Where did you get your starters for your African Snails colony?

Roger

well chicks are bird in my book! or at least they use to be? lol

sure feed them all the lizards they will eat, dont wory thers no danger unless you got them from pesticide lands.

thers a good population of apple snails in FL, unfortunatly African land snails are illegal in FL.

you could also feed a number of alien fish species?
locust?

anything you know will help local fauna, thats a good way to help pest controle.

I colect 10,000s grass hoppers from local farm lands, and make many friends in the process.

Chicks, right, oops

Here north of San Francisco, we have the European snails. If you put several in together, and breed them, and feed them well with lots of calcium, they get as big as golf balls. You can raise them in 5-gallon buckets, but when the eggs hatch, you better have fine screen over them, or else your neighbors will burn your house down. I have a friend who commercially raised these snails, but he got dissapeared by the 1989-1990 recession. He couldn't compete with the foeign product.

But I wander. I bet if BT's like African snails, the European ones will do fine. Their shells are fairly fragile.

Roger

A couple months ago I fed a 2' green iguana to a 3' blackthroat. It was rather brutal, I ended up killing the iguana myself (blackthroat got a butt grab on him and it went downhill from there). Funny the blackthroat had the iguana's tail hanging out of his mouth for two days as it rotted ("mommy is that his tongue?" "um Im not sure honey..."

I fed a savannah a blazing blizzard lizard yesterday. Then an african egg eating snake to a cal king. That took forever.

Here's a vid of mine of a blackthroat eating a parakeet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bTAS9iutFE

Fed another parakeet to a bluetail and wow that was a mess. He tore it's crop open with his claws and ewwww. A yacare / spectacled cross caimen got a parakeet last week and ...well it was quite the flurry of activity to say the least.

I regularly feed scorpions to my savannah. Now that is awesome.

I obviously have no qualms about that sort of thing. Besides the rodents we so readily feed our reptiles have a much more advanced nervous system and fear response, so I certainly dont think 'ah poor lizard' (well that iguana got to me after a while...).

Tom

oops forgot to say sorry for anyone that is offended, I am sure there are strong opinions present.

oh and no that is not the blackthroat's enclosure before anyone even goes there.

Tom

I'm positive I speak for many in here. tpalopoli, you have issues. Do you also play frog baseball, and fry insects with a magnifying glass.

I agree I put it in a crass manner, and I apologize if I came across that I enjoy watching animals suffer. That is simply ridiculous.

We seem to be a society that likes to pretend our chicken or our beef or our shoes comes pre-packaged and was never a live animal that did indeed suffer, often greatly and completely needlessly. You or certainly most all of us on this forum do not need this to survive. We eat it or wear it because it tastes good or looks nice or is convenient. But we make sure we are far removed from the killing and suffering so we feel better. No worse, we feel nothing.

Consider monitors...all the frozen mice you have at this moment or in the past most likely suffered greatly, much more so than that iguana or one of those parakeets for example. Mammals in particular have a highly developed sense of fear and pain...honed by millions of years of evolution. That trait is in fact how we survived and why you are here today. Interesting you do not consider yourself sick or twisted for feeding your monitor these animals...yet you participate in it only for your own personal and selfish enjoyment of a reptile. Even the neck dislocation method of killing mice is simply brutal in my opinion...dont you think they have a moment of extreme terror as their necks are clamped on to? Or that even after the dislocation they are not feeling complete and utter terror and pain for a moment as their life slips away? Or the choking, gasping & writhing around in pain gas method? How sick is that?

Monitors and snakes are brutal unforgiving predators and the very act of 'owning' one places me right in the mix of that. I dont pretend otherwise by thawing a mouse or a chick or mixing vitamins with 'ground turkey'. I am well aware that I have chosen, for nothing more than selfish reasons...to remove an animal from their natural environment (CBB or not) simply for my own enjoyment. I can cloak it under the guise of education or conservation or whatever I like, but the truth is the truth. This requires the suffering of many many animals that would otherwise not suffer in this manner. At least those that kill for food or clothes do it for more than personal entertainment, none of us here can say the same as we throw a thawed mouse into a monitor enclosure.

I suggest you look around at the huge glass house you find yourself in and drop the rocks. I understand it is a 'PC' world nowadays, but I am not a 'PC' person and never will be.

Tom

Good defense, as a hunter I have to make a similiar defense all the time about being the person who kills my food rather than farming it out.

By blazing blizzard lizard, im guessing your refering to a blazing blizzard leopard gecko....

WTF is wrong with you man?

Thats like, a $30+ lizard, why would you use something like that as a feeder? The price alone counts it out- its just not economical for the amount of food your are supplying.

Which means you are just doing it because you like watching an animal die.

What im abit confused about is the last part of your first statement- the part with the "mommy" thing... so are you the mother, letting her child watch in morbid fascination as their animal struggles with an oversized feeder, or are you the unknowing child doing something terrible that your parents dont understand properly? Just wondering.

Im a hunter too, but theres a big difference between stalking a deer, turkey, a wild animal capable of escaping/evading you, and a captive bred animal being fed to a monitor like that. What you're doing is sadistic, and you really need to consider getting some therapy.

People dont care about cows and chickens conditions because many are never showed it. If they had it put right there in front of them, THEY FEEL SOMETHING, usually their lunch making its way back up to say hello for a second time. Its the fact that people dont have to see a cow having its head cut off by a giant mechanical blade, or the fact that chickens have their feet and beaks cut off to avoid pre-kill damage. If they did, and if they werent the lazy, ignorant sheep that most Americans are, they would likely become vegetarians, or at least seek humanely killed substitutes- many have.

You try to compare the millisecond(and thats all it is, whether the body continues to move or not- the nerve stream is broken, which means it literally cannot feel anything anymore, period) of pain/fear/terror a mouse might feel as a result of the neck-break killing method, to the long, drawn out, often terribly bloody/phsyically damaging process that occurs when a monitor takes a live food source.

Theres no comparing that mate, im sorry there just friggin isnt- you cant compare less than a second of fear and no pain, with minutes on end of unbelieveable pain, extreme terror and the end result being a still half-alive mouse being swallowed to end its life in the acidic belly of a large lizard.

Yet you yourself claim you think the neck-break method "brutal".. ok, logically, that makes no sense.... you say you find it "brutal" but you would rather feed the animal still living to your monitor, so it can feel the creatures teeth puncture its skin, feel its bones being broken, etc....

You need to understand something- not everyones mind is one track like yours.

By this i mean, you seem to think that everyone in the world shares your same reasoning for owning a monitor- THEY DONT.

You own a monitor, like many jackasses, to have a predator in your home.... but, like most, youre too poor or too much of a coward to own a large predator... so you turn to things like monitors and snakes.

I dont own my animal because I like watching it KILL [bleep].... and I know there are many others that feel the same way.

You're very right, you arent PC material.... you're PsyC material, Psych ward material to be exact.

Im not gonna sit here and argue with you- it wont change anything.

But I will say this: theres something wrong here, with you and nothing more. The good thing about humans, prolly the only good thing about them, is their ability to show compassion and kindness to others, including "lesser" beings. When you lose that compassion, you lose what makes you a good human....

Just something you should think on.

It isn't what you feed that's disturbing, it's the torture you're putting the feeder animals through....and you care to tell everyone about it. You remind me of a young Jeffrey Dahmer before he honed his skills.

I feed brown anoles to my monitors sometimes, as well. They are more equivalent to a pinkie mouse in size - there isn't much to them. I think it's more practical and economic to just use crickets and mice, but go for it.

It appears you are doing this for entertainment.?
This does not sound like you are feeding them out of necessity.
Whether you agree or not the result is cruel and inhumane.
Why would you feed a 2' iggy to a 3' foot BT? That is just plain torture. You even stated yourself it was bad...

People like you give reptiles and responsible reptile owners
a bad reputation!

what I find entertaining is a monitor acting like the awesome predator it is. As I have stated in my opinion that iguana suffered less than the FT mice and rats I often feed my monitors.

To be clear the length of the iguana vs BT was provided simply to lead into the tail hanging out of his mouth as it rotted, not to imply they were close in size. They werent, the BT dwarfed the iguana by a significant amount. If he would have got him by the head it would have been over quicker than a thumped mouse. So I got him by the head and ended it quickly when it was obvious it was going to last a long time.

So is that ok? You are pretty much saying it would be ok if it was a smaller iguana? How big? What ratio have you decided is ok? An anole is ok? What about a big anole and a little monitor? Hmmm interesting.

You see, that is what monitors are. They are carnivores, predators, scavengers. They are brutal and natural and wonderful for all of that. Dress it how you want to make it pretty...buy that big bag of packed frozen mice or that packaged ground up turkey and pretend it's ok and judge me, but you are fooling yourself. You killed those mice and those turkeys, and they lived and died terribly for no other reason than your selfish entertainment (owning a monitor).

Is feeding these awesome creatures just a dirty by-product of owning them? NO it is a big part of what they are! I want the whole animal, I am amazed by it all. If customers cringe at a monitor eating then I tell them they are in the wrong store...PetCrapCo is down the road.

So it is me giving so-called responsible reptile owners a bad name? I think it is you sir, you and your hypocrisy and your conditional respect for such awesome creatures that give herpetoculture a bad name. It is people like yourself that want a monitor until they realize it bites and whips and defecates and needs a huge enclosure. Oh and it eats! It eats rotten, live, dead...it eats A LOT and it is YOU that is pretending your hands are clean from the blood and the death, not ME.

Tom

Actually I know Eradi very well, and he is a very successful herp owner with a lot of experience.

In most peoples opinion, it is very cruel feeding live ANYTHING to a monitor. There is no proven fact that whole f/t prey suffer more being gassed than being eaten alive, or vice versa.

regardless of his experience I apologize for making it personal, that is not helpful in any way, I was just frustrated. Something about being compared to a horrific serial killer, called mentally unstable and bad for herpetoculture in general.

With respect to feeding live I just have a difference of opinion that I am aware may be contrary to others. You stated my case well by the way, there is no proof either way. I just think it is just as bad to pay someone to gas them for me. Obviously many of you do not feel the same.

Tom

I would have to agree with Tom. Monitors are hunters/scavengers . Allowing them to hunt is part of letting them be a monitor. I have read it over and over and over on this forum .If he hides all the time hes being a monitor. Let him dig thats part of being a monitor.Dont cuddle under a blanky with him thats not what monitors do. Dont let them free roam your home thats not natural for monitors. I agree but surprise surprise monitors hunt and kill prey animals thats part of being a prey animal thats what prey animals do and thats whats natural for prey animals.Its called the food chain and if you cant handle it maybe you should keep a pet mouse or hamster instead of a monitor lizard. The only reason I would not feed my monitors live prey is fear of the monitor getting hurt or parasites.
Comparing someone to a sicko serial killer because they choose to feed a carnivorous reptile live food and share his experiances of that animals awesome power with others not forunate enough to witness it is idiotic. I was in the herp house at the zoo during feeding time and a keeper was feeding turtles live pinky mice . It was brutal but we both watched in fact everyone in the herp house watched . I even have a couple of pictures. Outside all you heard about was how awesome the turtle feeding was. I think the keepers name was Ted Bundy. How about that sicko cult they call the discovery channel filming all those animals killing and eating other animals then airing it for the public to see.
I hunt are you gonna tell me I shouldnt hunt because the prey animal might get a boo boo or experiance some fear ? That super sized combo meal you ate probably didnt feel any fear or pain when they put a clamp around his neck and blasted him in the head with a sledge hammer or slit his throat. You just keep on thinking that. I tell hunting stories also and take pictures.

Hannibal

Luvhandle - You can hunt. You can do what you want. But if you come on this public forum and post long drawn out deaths of pet birds, or describe how long an oversized feeder live iguana struggled before it finally died, or how a parakeet had it's throat opened up while still living and then "mommy,mommy" comments from the kids - i have an opinion. IT'S A LITTLE SICK AND TWISTED! If you don't agree, fine. You're you. I'm me. Life goes on.

This has nothing to do with hunting. If you say you hunt, but like to miss the vital organs and watch the life of the deer leave it's eyes as it bleeds out and writhes in pain while you urinate over the animal and say, "take that, f#@!er!", then you have issues and I will refer to you as Bundy in an attempt to ostracize you. It was a joke as so many mass serial killers tortured animals as kids before "honing" their skills. Are we taking this a bit too seriously? It sounded like gloating over the torture of animals and not just amazement that monitors can kill large prey. Luckily there was a bit of remorse at the end of the post.

Of course there is pain involved with mice being gassed and cows being zapped with electricity, but those are more instantaneous "humane" ways of death. I'd choose a quick zap or passing out over being disemboweled or bleeding out over the course of 15 minutes if it were up to me.

Live vs pre-killed is a highly debatable topic with strong
feelings and opinions on both sides.
I may have read into your post the wrong way.? It seemed that
you were bragging about the prey and it's demise, etc.
If that was not your intent I apologize.
E