Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This spring, my female layed for the first time. Her eggs were infertile.Lately, I have been feeding more Mazuri than I use to. I have birds in their enclosure, and found a dead bird in a nest box, and threw it out. She ran about 20' across the enclosure and gulped it down. My question is, should I feed her rodents and chicks regularly? By the way, she is about 12 years old and my male is 14 years old.
Joe

No you shouldnt need to do that. Some guys do it since it seems Cyclura need more protein then green iguanas, however such a heavy meal on the protein side can stress her kidneys and lead to a shortened life span. You dont want to mess with reptile kidney problems and excess protein issues. Hardened vein walls, kidney failure, kidney and bladder stones,etc. "Good stuff"so to speak. Stick to 100% vegetarian diet. Dont forget there are plenty of vegetable based sorces such as green beans, peas, alfafa,etc. If you want to suplement with a litle animal protein go with a insect sorce wich is way safer. Grasshopers and superworms for example. Even thouse use only once a week at maximum.

I agree, a veggie diet is best. Funny how little we know about cyclura, cubans documented eating birds out of mist nests, a lewisi swallowing a bird and cubans cannibalizing. Cyclura on Andros with crab parts in its feces. Thats just a few examples. I am sure there are many more. They do eat animal protein in the wild but no one knows why, when and how much.

jf

It will NOT hurt to occasionally give your Cyclura a mouse. One thing I do regularly is after egg deposition I give the females a few mice or sometimes chopped chicken necks with the skin removed. This helps them to recover after calcium depletion and WILL NOT HARM THEIR KIDNEYS unless continued over a LONG period of time.A little protein not more than once a week will not hurt them and since I've studied these lizards for years and realize they actually seek it out I believe it can't be harmful to them. I've had lizards for over 20 years and have fed them mice occasionaly with NO ill effects that I can see of any kind. DO NOT GIVE THEM PROTEIN EVERY DAY but occaisonally is fine...
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Thanks guys for the help.I will only feed rodents occasionly.The thing I have always noticed on Rhinos and even green Iguanas, is that given a rodent, they always seem to know to shake it to death before eating it.To me that would mean that they do eat some in the wild.
Joe

One thing to note and no one really knows if it matters or not, is that Tom's husbandry is not like most of ours. As far south in FLA as Tom is and his cyclura are always outside it doesnt get much more like home for cyclura. I think husbandry as to be spot on for them to digest protein and pass it through their system. So many variables, light, temp. humidity, seasons to name just a few. Its hard to meet all of them with a cyclura indoors. I would and do play very conservative on the animal protein issue. Actually, I dont bother with it. Now, If I lived where Tom does...

jf

Well Tom your top dog here and Im not going to argue with that and you know how much I respect you and your experience, specialy considering that even to Ive been keeping green iguanas for more then 16 years, I only have a bit of experience with Cyclura, I was invited to work with them one in one of our zoos and it was a really rewarding experience. I too had the chance to chat about them with the curators and we both shared tips and learned a bit. Back to topic my view on this particular aspect is similar to JFs by your situation your able to do things that most of us cant. Many people that tried to do the same you did had very diferent results. Actualy one of the major steps foard in modern iguana husbandry and that was not realized by zoos or private keepers back in the day was how litle or none animal protein iguanas needed. As a result many used mice, dog food and bugs regularily. Result: at the very least iguanas full of articular and visceral gout. In the wild iguanas live with limited resorces, if they dont grab every possible chance to feed themselfes, they wont survive. However in captivity we have unlimited food resorces and given that we should strive for long term well being and longevity with the correct items so none of the sistems are compromised. Its like only giving a litle bit of food to your golfish every day, wille if they were given food at their will they would gorje themselfes to death.
Cyclura are often already very plump and well fed animals, I dont see the need to take the chances on something that if it starts to engaje its really hard to fix, specialy considering there are so many other opcions. Also if your going to use it, you should really avoid feeding chicken necks because of Salmonella it may harbor.

Salmonella is NOT even a real threat on lizards kept outside. I've been doing this occasionally with chicken necks after egg deposition for over 25 years with NO problems. I'm guessing some of you are thinking I'm routinely feeding my Cyclura animal protein and nothing could be further from the truth. If a female seems seriously depleted after laying I always give her some high proteincalcium food such as chicken necks. I rarely give the adults anything other than greens and commercial foods. My reply was that to do this on occasion does not hurt them. As far as salmonella goes you could culture salmonella in any lizard enclosure anywhere. Shoot you could likely culture it in anybody's kitchen for that matter...LOL
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

The Salmonella thing basis is this: chickens and iguanas have diferent comensal Salmonella species in their gut and tissues and if one kind ended up in a diferent host it could cause some damage like it does to us. Ive seen toises and lizards coming to the practise I give advice to, with really bad gastroenteritis caused often as it turns out by Salmonella. And they often die, really nasty. However Salmonella is a opurtunistic injection and on thouse herps it deponds on a down in bodys defences, often caused by stress, low temps, overcrowding,etc to invade. Heck probably your iguanas are so happy that they will live to a ripe old age without any kind of trobble. Like I said your situation is diferent, unfornatly for us then the one of the average hobbist. I wish we all could have our iguanas permanently under allmost none stop sun ligth... By the way just made a visit to your web site. Man that blue iguana is...BLUE. Now excusse me, I have to go catch my drool lol

The only animal protein my guys ever get is a rare stillborn snake or boneless fish I don't eat. Some like to see a live animal eaten but I see no reason to feed them any mammal protein. Bugs are fine too. Bubba looked and tasted that snake for a long time before he ate it yesterday. In my past experience I found my rhinos are more carnivorous than my nubila although they all eat fish pretty readily.

Monkey chow? I have one baby rhino, and I recently went to my feed store to purchase some of the mazuri tortoise food. They only had them in massive bags (which doesn't really make sense for one baby). He said that he could order the mazuri in smaller 1 pound bags, but for the price of two of these I could get one of the massive bags! He suggested trying monkey chow. I hadn't heard of feeding it to the rhinos or if it was good or not, but I knew that I could ask here and get everyone's opinion in it.

In the meantime, I will stick with the fresh greens..

I think Monkey Chow might be a tad too high in protein to use it as a regular food item. Mazuri Tortoise Chow however is great. If you feed Monkey Chow I would only do it occasionally...I feed it as a treat sometimes but rarely..They do love to eat it however...
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Thanks so much for your help! I am definately going to get some of the mazuri for Mo, he is hungry on a constant basis! He is only about 200 or so grams and eats more than my adult beardies. I was thinking that some other food such as the mazuri would be a good idea to give him in addition to the greens to help with his full factor. He constantly searches the cage for more food.

I think I might have to get another rhino to justify the massive bag of the mazuri! Lol.

I live in south florida also and feed animal protien from time to time as well. In In the wild most of these lizards consume a very large amount of very low to almost undigestable plant matter so when the opertunity arises they eat animal protien redily. I try to also give mine as much low quality food (dried leaves, ficus leaves, grass, sea grapes with more seed then fruit) as they will eat. They often don't go for it if higher quality food is availabe so I will sometimes food process it and feed as balls. I also try to cycle there food with higher quality food available in the summer and lower in the winter. I have some great weeds in my yard that work great for a natural food. I do understand the problems in cooler climates and the fact that most people feed higher quality food then then they would get in the wild with alot less fiber. So the log and short of it do they need animal protien probobly not mainly do to the more diverse diet they get in captivity but they all eat some in the wild.

I also feed a LOT of weeds. I know what to pick by letting a big male out to walk around and then I observe what he picks out to eat and feed it to the others when I'm in the mood...LOL
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com