Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My water is about 2 feet long now... He/she is slaying mice and roaches (death heads)... I don't really want to deal with a roach colony anymore. Would it be alright to give them up and just stick with the mice? Any help is greatly appreciated, Thanks.

Yes, you could ditch the roaches if you want. Mice should be just fine. Cheers

hey Neal i know u've had much success w/ your monitors, but do you think that just a mice diet would be okay for the water monitor. i was always told to vary the diet w/ wholefoods...wouldnt just mice make the monitor too fat?
i feed my nile and waters mice all the time but i also vary it up w/ chicks and large insects,ect.

i was just wondering.

i feed mine the most mice then some small rats then chicks then a hard boiled egg once a month or so, some turky or chicken strips from time to time as well just to mix it up.

just my opinion, but I think that with any monitor the key to a good diet is variety. I've always steered away from chicken though because it's incredibly high in phosphorus compared to the calcium it contains. I have a young water monitor as well and I feed him bugs, mice, turkey, bits of steak every so often, boneless whitefish, oysters jarred in water, shrimp, frozen/thawed anoles (to kill parasites) and I think that about covers it. I pretty much give my blackthroat the same diet.

I understand that some monitors, primarily large ones, do okay on a strict rodent diet but....... Think of it this way, if you ate steak, a potato, salad, and a glass of milk for every meal it would seemingly be an "okay" diet. But after a while your health would begin to show otherwise. I know it's not exactly the same thing but if you give a monitor mice for it's entire life what would make a reasonable person think that it wouldn't be bad for their health? A mouse or a rat cannot possibly contain everything a monitor needs for a long healthy life even if they do have most of what's needed. Sometimes negative affects from diet can take years to show up so just because what I do or what someone else does is working right now doesn't make it right. I say go with what makes sense to you since it is your animal and your responsibility. Personally I see nothing wrong with using rodents for the bulk of the diet but I think at least some variety is neccessary for the best results. And remember to use your vitamin supplements as well, especially if you choose to feed the same thing all the time. I would be interested, since someone else brought it up, to know what instances a varied diet proved to not be the best thing and why it was thought that diet caused whatever problem occurred?

This topic is covered quite often. There seems to be some consensus on this forum that a diet consisting only of mice is fine and variety is not always such a great thing.

To be honest, I have only raised up one water monitor from a hatchling. That was enough for me!

I fed mice, birds & roaches when she was young. I can’t recall offhand when I stopped feeding roaches. She stopped showing interest, so I stopped offering them. Then I fed only mice after running out of birds. And she does fine on mice as an adult.

I really do think that for a young water monitor, a diet consisting only of mice will work well.

Awesome, thats what I wanted to hear... Thanks everyone for your help.