Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 20in savannah monitor, and I recently ran out of frozen mice. In the process of ordering more, I noticed how much cheaper chicks are than mice. A small chick is about half the cost of the same size mouse or quail.
Why is it so much cheaper?
Would SMALL chicks be appropriate for a 20in sav?
Can his diet consist of MOSTLY chicks?
Or should it be MOSTLY rodents?
Are mice and quail more expensive because they are HEALTHIER?
Just some questions that I would like answered, before I place my order. Thanks!

Se7en,

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They will be a little big for your sav. I got my blackthroat at 25" and she had trouble with them for a while. Not exactly sure how big she was when she was able to take them with no trouble.
As far as I have noticed, my bt seemed to grow faster on chicks. Many people say birds give them runny craps, but I have yet to see it. Also in the wild (if it really even matters) they are more likely to feed on birds then rodents by raiding nests.

Rodents are produced for pet food and for animal research and the young have to be raised by the mother for a couple weeks until they mature. This is more expensive than chicks which are hatched from eggs for human consumption and we eat LOTS of chicken. It is more cost effective to sell culls of the chicks to the pet food industry than to just dispose of them given the numbers potentially available they can be very much cheaper than rodents. On a note of caution I once had a chicken farmer warn me that some type of drug that chicks are routinely treated with could be toxic to reptiles but I cannot remember what it was nor have I ever had a problem feeding chicks to my monitors. However I raise my own rodents so rodents make up my monitors primary diet so if that is in fact true it really isn't an issue for me. I did hear it though so I just thought I would pass it along. You can also get an incubator and get quail eggs really cheap and hatch out your own (for the size factor newstorm mentioned) but that is really a lot of work.

i think it would be a good idea to vary your monitors diet! i give mine as wide of a variety as i can, just dont feed all chicks b/c they are cheap!
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hanging out under heat lights burns up my brain cells!!

I was never planning to feed ONLY chicks.
I said "mostly chicks? or mostly rodents?".
I don't think there is anything wrong with a rodent/chick diet.

Se7en,