Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I would like to know how to prepare the sdz diet for my red tegu. What is the sdz diet composed of and can I find the ingredients easily in a store? Also how can I feed mice to my red. He has never eaten them since he was a baby. Will he recognize the frozen mice as food if I thaw them out and put them in his feeding dish?

Hello there! The SDZ consists of 2.5 lbs of ground turkey (we use a 3 lb pkg.), a 16 oz pkg of thawed frozen strawberries, 1 adult centrium vitamin, and 1 tbs. per 1-lb of meat of bone meal. However, the bone meal is very difficult to find by us, so instead I have subsituted rep-cal calcium Vit D3 supplement for the bone meal, along with 2 tbs (total) of the rep-cal herptivite mineral supplement. Mix these ingredients together into a meat loaf consistency. We roll them into about 2" balls and leave a few out for 2 days of feeding. The rest are kept frozen until needed. Important: we use the rep-cal dual supplements in the SDZ because the minerals do not counteract the calcium benefits as some other minerals do. The minerals tend to bound to the calcium, thus not allowing proper digestion and usage. We feed this to our Reds about every other day, each one of our 2 gets 1/2 of the thawed meatball. I heat it a bit in the microwave first to take the chill out. If the SDZ is fed to blues or B&W too frequently, they will get diarhea and it is not pretty or fresh smelling either!

Good luck with the red!!!

Greg

I was having trouble finding bone meal as well. I found it cheapest online at http://www.calvetsupply.com/product.asp?3=282
7lb supply for around $15

I was talking to Stella St. Pierre about the blisters on my B&W's tongue and she seems to think it's maybe lack of proper nutrition. I was using the Rep-cal Calcium w/D3 (no phosphorus) and the rep-cal multivitamin with ground turkey every other day (medium rats on the opposite days). So, I'm going to try the bone meal route