Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I heard of a Purina company called Mazuri that makes pellets for crocodilians, and a canned paste for monitors. You spread the paste thinly on a tray overnight and feed the resulting thick gel. Is this real monitor food?

Excuse me, I have to duck.

Roger

All my talk goes unheard. The problem is, you the keeper have to learn to think. Without that, you really should not keep monitors, or any reptile.

Your question is good, its just not aimed in the right place. You should be asking that company if they have results of their monitor food. Then you should ask them if that food has taken monitors. 1. from hatchling to adult.
2. from adult to eggs.
3. from eggs to hatchlings.
Then ask, how many and what species.

As in, not one generation, but many. Surely a large company like that would be able to send you that information. Don't forget to ask, the quality of those achievements. You know,
1. How fast and strong growth was.
2. Size and number of clutches and percent of hatch.
3. incubation time and hatchling health.
You know, the natural results of good health. A diet should produce good health and good health should result in something.

Don't forget to ask what problems were incured with any of the above.

In the past, many companies have manifactured canned montior foods. In the past, those companies had only one question, WILL THE MONITORS eat the stuff. Not if that stuff actually was of BENEFIT to the monitors. Is this company any different?

So now I ask YOU this. Why do you want to take ALL things natural and normal from the monitors????? You have taken their freedom, you have taken away their method of life, you have taken away their ability to make choices(non-stop in nature) AND now you are thinking of taking away the last remaining natural element, to secure, consume live or dead, whole prey items. That have proven to have a history of superior results.

Remember as odd as it seems, all monitors/reptiles, in nature, have daily/weekly/monthly/yearly tasks. The wake up to do these tasks. They reason for living is not to just have a heartbeat, but instead to DO these tasks, THESE TASKS ARE THEIR LIFE.
1. to walk, to run, to swim, to climb
2. to grow, to mature, to reproduce and to keep doing that.
3. to pair up, to successfully maintain the gene pool. To keep doing that.
4. to find food that supports that and to remember how to find it, when its spring, summer, fall, winter or wet or dry season.
5. how to avoid adverse natural conditions to stay in exsistance.

About number 4, the subject of this thread, nature/evolution/god, has seen fit to instill a certain attaction to an animals designed prey type. It was done so that animals consumes what will support the above. It also instill a sense of pleasure and fullfillment if that task was done well.

Simply put, if your really want to take all that away, WHY NOT JUST TAKE A PICTURE OF A MONITOR AND CALL IT A DAY. Ask yourself, what good is a monitor thats does nothing a monitor does.

I guess those who take everything away have a need to have a living museum piece. Hmmmmmmmmm I could start a company that makes artificial monitors that are correct in shape and color. And you will not have to be concerned with the above.

Also, you should investigate what this food is made from. My guess is, scrap from the process of butchering, plus vitamins, mineralls, coloring and JELLO to jell it into something different then paste. They add coloring so that it does not look like puke. So yea, think about it. Cheers

Supposedly that food has supported multiple generations of progeny. But they have a strong financial impulse to use language to subtly skew the real results. And no, I think my monitor actually enjoys popping mice down the hatch, I don't want to take that away from him. Mice mice mice - good good good. I might try that artificial stuff to see if he eats it. That way if I ever run out of mice, I can perhaps hold him over on this other stuff, like emergency food. But I buy mice 500 per shipment, so I don't have a problem with running out.

My blackthroat has some interesting behaviors. He has a 10 X 12 foot room to roam, with a shelf six feet up the wall on two sides. He can lay and look out the window. He uses a ladder to climb up and down. The first warm zone I built for him was over some hiding boxes and over part of his swimming pool full of topsoil. He prefers the shelf, so I set up his heaters for that area. He thumps down and cruises every day. I think he is hunting a WC feral C. similis from S. Florida who lives wild in the room, hiding behind big heavy cages. This one only comes out to eat and drink. IMO he's happier out of the cage. Since he's escaped capture so far, I suspect he is relatively safe. I learned a lesson about C. similis and C. pectinata; *Never* buy a post-eggling WC specimen. They just don't have the will to live in captivity.

Roger

Good on you, for feeding whole food items.

And Your blackthroat has a million interesting behaviors. Always keep in mind, its not a task to surface those behaviors, its a joy to surface them.

Thanks for sharing sharing those behaviors with us. Cheers

I'm thinking of getting a CCTV so I can spy on him. Who knows *what* the is doing in there when it sounds so quiet?

Roger

I got some of that stuff to try it with a friend.
We went half and half on a bag for all of our reptiles about 2 years ago. We found that most of the reptiles wanted nothing to do with it, it stinks bad when you follow the directions, also it falls apart in water and makes a mess, bad idea with water dwelling species like it is designed for.
The best use we found for it is insect food, feeder food.