Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i just got a black throat nand im feeding him 10-20 dusted crikets n tryin to get him on some cat food, but he wont touch the cat food. how can i get him eatin the cat food? i was also wondering if goldfish is good food source for him? thanks in advance burmguy

Hi there, contrary to what you may have heard from a petshop salesman, a catfood diet is not a healthy diet at all. He should be eating whole prey items, so that he gets all the nutrition needed for a growing monitor. Simple put catfood as a staple food source cannot accomplish that. They need the calcium and other nutrients of whole prey items such as mice, chicks, and rats, to grow to be healthy adults. I am not saying that feeding catfood every once in a while would be detrimental to his health, but it is certainly not good for a monitor to live on all the time. Good luck

thanks for the help. i am going to try and use the cat food as a extra treat for his diet. i also got him from the hamburg, pa reptile show thanks again

hi i feed my bt mice,rats, hissers ,smelts, crickets,chicks. but dont feed dog or catfood. i am a new bt owner too. iwent to a pet store and seen a bt about a foot long and ask the store owner how big would it get thay told me it was full grown and it was 1/2 off or $40. so i baught it. they told me to get it out of the cage becaus they were afraid of it. i should have known something was off but anyway i picked it up and put it in a box that they supplied big of them wasn't it took him home and did the research found out he will get 5 to 7 feet long after about a week i went back to the store but thay were no longer there. well i have had him for 5 weeks he has grown to 2 feet 4 inchs i like him or her .

If you take nothing else from this post, please DO NOT feed him goldfish. Have you seen the conditions that they are kept in in a petstore? It is brutal, but nothing like what they are kept in at the importer's facility.

Also, they are full of thiaminise. Without a doubt, this is the worst thing that you could give your monitor. Never, ever give him goldfish.

Crickets, snails (unsalted escargot and African giant land-as babies, of course), waxies, silkies, butters, pinkies....

best wishes

thanks for the information