Reptile & Amphibian Forums

If deciding to give any turkey or beef or chicken should it all be cooked before given to him or give it to it raw? I read in this forum about chicken and samonella and making eggs hardboiled but should cook all meat before feeding?
Thanx again
Tom

> > > If deciding to give any turkey or beef or chicken...

Don't decide to do it.

I don't care how long it's been since the monitor has eaten, I feel that it's far better to wait till the next day and get it what it should be fed, which is whole prey items ONLY (crickets, mice, chicks, roaches, etc...).

Have a good one!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

WHOLE ANIMALS ONLY. They are not people, so no people food.
The comment on salmonella, etc in his post tells me that he does not understand that he is dealing with another species other than humans.
This is something I tell even to others about dogs and cats, they are natural predators, they are designed to live and function with salmonella and ecoli in their digestive systems, theres nothing you can do to get rid of it short of killing your pet, it is a part of what they are, anyone with common sense knows that you either develop an immunity or avoid the infection and be careful as a human. I dont even feed dogfood to my dogs.
Whole animals.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ZfdATMIT0
Biologically Apropriate Raw Food
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRwfEUb-Ovw
Keep in mind their diet is balanced over a period of time with turkey parts, chicken parts, whole ground horse (wolf food), a mixture of green beef tripe, beef meat, beef bones, 6 organs, 6 fruits and veggies, salmon oil, brewers yeast, apple cider vinegar, and a few other additives.

I agree with HappyHillBilly. I never gave my little savy any HUMAN food. At the moment, my savy's diet only consits of WHOLE dusted crickets and WHOLE mice. I tried a hardboiled egg once, but he didn't eat it.
Feeding a dozen crickets and 2 fuzzies daily, gets pretty EXPENSIVE. I looked for an alternate diet which may be cheaper for me(turkey, beef, chicken, chicken hearts, chicken liver, etc.), but only to realized it wouldn't be the BEST for my savy. Now I am more interested in breeding come crickets, roaches, or mice. I would like to get more info on that, and advice from people who've successfully done it. Thanks ahead of time, for any advice.

Se7en,

Ive tried breeding crickets..not much to it.

get a starter batch of medium (1/2" )crickets...let them mature(few weeks) in a ventilated escape proof container. When the males start chirping, keep small dishes of loose soil in with the crickets.. rotate "used" dishs out and replace with new about every week. keep the used dishes moist and in a warm place in a escape proof container. should hatch in 5-10 days.

you can keep batches seperate by date of hatching or keep them all together. Remove large crickets from young....young might become a snack for the adults. after a month or so you should have plenty of pinheads to 1/4" size.

im starting a Hisser breeding colony but no nymphs yet

good luck

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Adrian De Leon
Hissenia Reptiles

Dude, dont bother with the raising of feeders- unless you have a number of animals, its just not really worth it.

Find a good wholesaler online and work out monthly/bimonthly shipments.

I payed about $250 for 450 adult mice and 50 baby chicks; which if you do the math would be ALOT more than $250.

They have people that do live cricket shipments as well, anywhere from 500-10,000; and they are indefinitely cheaper than buying/breeding your own feeders.

Then again, I personally value my time highly and my time is worth money- therefore I personally would rather simply pay a set amount (cheaper than petstores by far) to get a large number of frozen feeders; rather than spending my time going about the motions of taking care of said feeders in the living stage.

If you ARE going to try breeding something though, a few suggestions....

1. Mice stink; dont plan on farming mice unless you have someplace that isnt going to mind a constant stench (and Im talking STENCH, these lil bastards SMELL TERRIBLE)

2. Rats dont stink as much. If you MUST try raising feeders, go with rats. Weanlings are about the same size as adult mice (though they are nutritionally less valueable) and in time adult mice will be on the menu for your monitor.

3. Crickets are a waste of time. Dont bother raising crickets for a monitor- youll need thousands for it to be any use. Instead...

4. Roaches kick ass. Monitors LOVE roaches, and roaches are quite abit easier to maintain than crickets. The only real fear with roaches is escape; and they sell a substance that you can use to make your containers/cages escape proof for roaches.

5. Time IS money. Understand that you have to maintain a feeder population for it to be worthwhile; and that requires time. There is only so much time in the day, and it goes fast.... however, depending on your situation, money may well be in greater supply than time. Purchasing pre-killed, F/T feeders is a far easier way of doing things than attempting to contain, maintain and succeed in breeding your own feeders.

I say these things as someone who was in the same postion you are- my money is limited, as is my time; but $250 for a 3 months supply of food REALLY isnt that bad.

Understand that, no matter how you go about it, its going to be expensive to feed a growing monitor- thats just the way it is.

If you cant reliably provide for said animal, get it to someone who can.

If you can reliably provide for it, do it, and do it well- dont waste time and funds on half-assed projects that you arent SURE are going to work out for the positive.

Now, dont get me wrong, trying new things is how innovation occurs; but in this case, I dont think you are going to innovate the techniques of raising feeders and you will almost undoubtably spend alot of time/funds on gathering, containing and maintaining live feeder populations- remember, you have to FEED the feeders, not to mention house them, contain them, clean up after them, seperate them in time (as many male mammals will eat their young), etc.

Its basically a matter of time vs money... which do you have more of?

Thanks for your advice. That was exsactly what I wanted to hear. Send me a link to the site you order your feeders from. My savy is only 12in but growing and eating MORE AND MORE everyday.

Se7en,

I just started breeding mice. I have Ackie hatchlings and I needed the smallest pickies I could get so I gave it a shot. Only problem is that its fricken nasty. Mice are dirty, stinky and unpredictable. They need attention and my small project is tuning into a bigger one. I have 3 sweater box's and 3 big females. I have 1 stud male and I rotate him in and out of the box's when i know the females are holding. This method has worked. I have had a consistant source of pinkies and my Ackis are growing like weeds. After this third batch I dont know if the first female will be ready to roll. If not, One more sweater box one more female and more work. One more thing, I used the wrong kind of watering system and one of my females ate through the tubing. I was out of town. I came home from vacation to find her box filled to the brim with water and a bloated, stinky dead mouse floating in the water. My wife was horrified. She looked at me like a monster. Safe to say I didn't get any action that night.

For crickets I took Franks suggestions and started keeping them like monitors. I retrofitted a heat source an a rubber tub and put 6 inches of dirt and egg crates. I have to many crickets now. My problem is that they are all different sizes. Feeding pin heads to my Guildi crosses was not what I intended. I still order my crickets from American cricket ranch. They deliver them strait to my door and i am always happy with them.

Good luck and be prepared for a dirty job.

Mice are the most consistant animals around. Thats why people commerically breed them. But then, like everything else, you do have to learn a few things.

Mice should NOT be rotated, that without question makes them unreliable. You do know that female mice, copulate for their next clutch the day they have their babies. So if you want to be consistant, the male must be in the cage, the day the babies are born. A female can have babies every 23 days. If you allow it. Cheers

Ive never even attempted the breeding of rodents (have no desire to, find them disgusting) but from my experience dealing with mice purchased live as feeders; the lil bastards attack and eat each other if you arent careful.

It wasnt something that happened every time; but every so often one of the mice was a nut job and Id open the bag to find a dead mouse with half its face/its organs/its tail/its entire head chewed off.

To me, its just nasty stuff; have no real desire to get mixed up in it- mice are readily available to the point where farming them really just isnt something required unless you have lots of time, little money or a whole friggin load of animals.

No offense, but only sick, straving, dehydrated and totally stressed out mice do that.

What's offensive is, you do not understand that petshop mice, bagged up, moved all over(no home), not watered or fed properly, and stressed to their limits do that. Even more offensive is, monitors do that too. I think it helps to understand animals before you box them up. Cheers

"No offense, but only sick, straving, dehydrated and totally stressed out mice do that.

What's offensive is, you do not understand that petshop mice, bagged up, moved all over(no home), not watered or fed properly, and stressed to their limits do that. Even more offensive is, monitors do that too."

I didnt realize I hadnt stated that those were pet shop mice.

Sick, starving, dehydrated and stressed- yeah, that about describes most of the animals I encounter in pet shops, and most of the mice that I witnessed the 'chewing' behavior from.

Ive encountered mice in the past that werent like that; and typically it was something that would occur between my buying the mice and getting them home- sometimes as little as 15 minutes.

Believe me, I understand that the animals you see in such conditions are not a standard for their kind- but it happens, and warrants a warning to those who may not have encountered it- once the damage is done (stress, starvation, dehydration) the results can easily manifest before you have the chance to alter them (if you plan to at all in terms of feeders).

My mice were bought and fed to the animal almost always within 15-20 minutes, so starvation and dehydration werent really things I was in control of- and thats a prime example of why one should be careful about where they get their feeder stock from (if starting a colony).

I personally just hate the smell of mice- thats why I find them nasty. The occasional pet shop mouse stessing out was just a negative addition to buying petshop feeder mice- something I no longer do.

As Ive said in other posts; I find the condition of generally every monitor I see in a pet shop to be utter crap- theres no reason for petco to be selling monitors; let alone keeping them in the conditions I witness. Its not small surprise that they exhibit stress/starvation induced cannibalism.

Myself, Im content to work with F/T mice- its convenient(time saving), its probably healthier for the monitor and I dont have to perpetuate the sale of animals in crap conditions.

That, and frozen mice dont stink.

Good to know. So let them pair up and keep them togather. Do you keep more then one female with your males? Thanks

>>Good to know. So let them pair up and keep them togather. Do you keep more then one female with your males? Thanks

I set up mice in 1.5 or so groups. That will fit in the equivalent of a ten gallon tank. Set them up and leave them the heck alone. Give them a month or two and you should start getting pups. Moving them around or changing stuff just throws a kibash in the whole thing.
I tend to set up that size group because a smaller group means more groups and more males and males are a chief reason mice stink. I have gone with bigger groups but the male doesn't seem to keep up.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny