Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got a adult male in today from a wholesaler . can anyone tell me how to cut his nails ? and other than pre-killed rats what else can they eat and where to get it?

ive got a 4ft male and a 3ft female, vary their diet of course, ground turkey or chicken and all natural canned dog foods are much cheaper than an all rat diet as well as keeping them a bit less agressive, just remeber to take out the plate lol

I would not feed two much canned dog or cat food it is very high in fat. And ground turkey is ok to feed sometimes. Really you should feed them a mixture of different invertebrates like snails and cockroachs but a good thing to feed them is rodents to fill up their belly. It takes alot of invertebrates to do that when they are bigger. I also give my savannah some horned worms and things like that. But your monitor really needs the whole prey to get the nutriticon they really need. I mean i have heard of feeding turkey and chicken and they are not horrible but anyone you talk to or i have talked to that is very knowledgable about monitors says no canned cat or dog food. Nothing against the post above but dont listen to it i mean they will seem fine in the beginning but for a healthy monitor in the long run need whole prey.

Tom

There used to be a roadside zoo south of Orlando. That supposedly (I did get this info second hand but it was from a source I consider VERY reliable) fed dog food to the nile monitors that they kept there. The results were quite horrible. Even before the whole melamine thing I personally considered about 80% of the dog food unfit even for dogs. Since that whole thing I put that figure at about 95% myself. A good majority of dog foods including canned dog food contain grains and vegetables with grains sometimes being the main ingredient neither of these ingredients is a suitable food item for monitors. Furthermore a lot of times they do not contain actual meat but poor quality meat byproducts and then there's the whole vitamin thing. It's just a bad idea for monitors period.

I apologize for not being more specific in my previous post, when i said dog food i was reffering to brands such as Nutro, not purina, they carry 100% chicken and beef premium food that is low on fat and depending on your monitors weight the non low fat vaiety can be helpful for light weight imports. With the recant scare it is probably a good idea to stay away from these for awhile though. These are not usually found in grocery stores, and should not be the main source of thier diet. If im not mistaken the San Diego zoo uses a ground turkey based diet supplemented with vitamins and bone meal for some their of African monitors. Monitors are opportunistic feeders. Insects are very useful because provide exercise to a monitor who is not out hunting. Eggs(im not 100% on which are ok), some fish(stay away from gold fish), and certain crustaseans(check on the preperations necessary before feeding) are also part of a wild monitors diet particlarly nile and water monitors. However, rodents and chicks are the safest to provide adequate nutrition full time, but even they should be dusted with a vitamin supplement. i am quite happy with the constuctive critism around here

I found a few web sites with google that might be helpful:
1. under "feeding monitors" check out
-Savannah monitors as pets:care, housing, and feeding
-Nile Monitors:everything about care history and nutrition
(contians the San Diego Zoo recipe)
2. under "feeding monitor lizards"
-Varanus sp.
-Notes on feeding of monitor lizards
(by lllreptile contains varitation of recipe, i found
this quite helpful)
*3. under "monitor diets"
- Michael Balsai on the Savannah monitor diet
(I found this quite interesting ** a must read)

I feed my white throat cat food, the one that has the chunks of turkey not the ground up stuff. I also feed him 1 rodent per week. I also throw in random bug when i get them, superworms, crickets (he is small) and sometimes i buy some freeze dried snails to mix into some ground turkey.
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Russ
1.0 Basset Hound (Goofy)
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Apollo)
1.0 Columbian Rainbow Boa (Odin)
1.0 Guyana Red-Tail Boa (Ares)
0.1 Pastel Salmon Boa (Minerva)
0.1 Rosy Boa (Athena)
0.1 Dumeril (Puzzle)
1.4 leopard Geckos (the breeders)
0.1 Sandfire Beardy (breeder)
Melbourne, Fl