Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I measured my largest savannah tonight and she is about 22 inches long. I have pretty much worked out a feeding program she likes but am wondering if maybe I am over feeding her.

Four nights a week she gets a whole prey meal. Typically this means two adult mice or about month old chick. One night a week I give her two scrambled eggs. I make them into a big pattie and she LOVES that. One night a week she gets just some form of meat, either beef strips or ground turkey. Everyday she gets about 5-10 super worms and a bunch of crickets. One night a week I just give her bugs.

Does this sound like too much? She doesn't seem to be over weight, although I am not sure I would know if she was. She was so thin when I got her and I was so happy she ate for me, that I just never slowed down the food, in fact, it seems it has increased. I will say that by the time she is done everynight (except the nights I feed the mice and the night I feed bugs only) there is something left over she didn't eat, such as a couple crickets.

Does this diet sound ok? Do I need to change anything? I am thinking though, about going to small rats because she acts like the mice are just "snacks" and is always still hungry on those nights.

Thanks!
Nina

Sounds fine to me. I feed my 15 inch Sav as much as s/he'll eat whenever s/he'll eat it. During their growth period, large amounts of food are good....though once they stop growing so rapidly, food intake should decrease dramatically...they'd still eat it but you shouldn't offer it. I have a friend with 2 Savs. His male hit 8 months old and 40 inches and slowed his growth.. he gets fed twice a week as far as I know now. My little one will take (this is every day) half grown gerbils or 2 or 3 week old rat pups, (usually 1) strips of beef or turkey (won't touch chicken anymore) and about a dozen or so crickets..though he ignores superworms now. I also supplement 2 or 3 times a week with calcium powder and vitamins sparingly (the vitamins anyway, the calcium less so). I'm no expert, I've only had my little one since May.. he was a birthday present after extensive research but so far how I do things hasn't steared me wrong.

My big female BT/WT cross (almost 6ft)eats week old chicks (about a foot long and half almost a 1/2lb each) and has to push hard to get them through her jaws.
I try to stick to chicken peeps, rodents, roaches, and crickets for my monitors except on a very rare occaision (once a month maybe),Ill give some whole scrambled egg (shell scrambled also).
My timor eats adult mice and hes a 4+ year old 27in hermit. My ackie eats crickets and lobster roaches (wont eat mice of any size?) and hes 22in at a year old. My male albig eats jumbo mice and day old peeps at 3.5ft (have to measure him) hes almost 3 years old (Rob Faust had problems with him). My female albig eats peeps, hissing roaches, and jumbo mice. I found out she is actually 21 months old now not 22 months, she was 2 months old when I got her. They all eat at different rates and amounts which keeps me busy thinking hard. I feed them as long as they are hungry but not overweight.

ROFL.......if your week old chicks are weighing 1/2 pound then they are some GIANT CHICKS! We do not raise meat chickens so our 4 week old birds are not even 1/2 pound. What type of chicks DO you have? I would get some to raise for ME to eat, if they put on weight that fast!

Nina

I dont trust live birds as they are very dirty, Id rather freeze them for a while first. My day olds are the size of adult mice (about an ounce and a half). My experience with savannahs the largest they can eat at 4.5 ft is about a 3 ounce 3 day old rodentpro peep (thats alot of pushing and shoving to get it down). I get my day olds from a place through a business I work with very very cheap (cant say on here). My week olds are just the right size for Sobek here to swallow at almost 6 ft.

LOL my male blackthroat, crocs, and waters eat chickens. I feed the little chicks to my smaller monitors and still go through 50 a feeding I couldn't imagine feeding those little chicks to all of my monitors. They also get rats and mice but mice are like popcorn shrimp to them LOL.

NP

The chickens I use are much bigger. The chicks I use are smaller though they are day old chicks size of a mouse at about 40 grams.
The chickens I use are between 1-6 lbs.

Unless you cut them up in pieces to feed, or have some adult komodos,haha. I did that at one time with these but Sobek has swallowed them whole for a while now. She also eats jumbo mice (I like rodentpros quality on feeders, when they say jumbo they are big, when they say 5 ounce peeps they are 5-8 ounces each).

If you have seen any of the pictures I posted in the past.
The bigger chickens get fed to my big water monitors and my croc monitors. The smaller chickens upto 2 lbs. are fed to my blackthroats and younger water monitors and croc.

The day old chicks are fed to my Brn's, dumerils, cumingi's, niles, argus, black trees, mangroves, and tegu's.

I also feed them to my snakes.

Trolling, name calling, argueing, etc. A BT that eats 2 lb chickens would be neat to see, as well as a water and croc that eat 6 pounders. I figure if nothing else put some pics up and thats constructive.

I'll shoot some pictures of them eating and post them.
Glad to see sobek is doing good after her surgery.
I got my male BT back from dan awhile back and he so misses Elly. Actually Elly could take down a 2lbs. chicken herself I am sure. She is still a little bigger then my male Beary.

She is only 21 months old now I thought I was told she was born in Nov. 2001, but she was born Dec 2001 which has me changing her growth chart, oh well. None the less she is huge at her age and still growing in 2 inch spurts. Cant wait to see your pics I love seeing other Albigs that are taken good care of.

You've got quite the collection!
I envy you, rsg and FR...

D.

Not having as many monitors as I do means you are still reasonably sane. I'm thinking of padding the walls in the monitor room.

n/p

I live in a one bedroom apartment, 75% of which is taken up by the monitors and their 'accessories'... in my fleeting moments of lucidity, I wonder what ever came over me...
D.