Reptile & Amphibian Forums

monitors are very different than snakes. a snake can get hurt by the mouse but can a monitor?monitors to me seem like they would like the hunt and kill. one touch of the monitor to the mouse and the mouse would be dead. can i feed my monitor live mice? why, why not?

alex Oliver

IMO, a mouse can do little damage to a healthy monitor, provided that it is of proper size in relation to the size of the lizard. Like, how much damage is a fuzzy going to do to an ackie; how bad is an adult mouse going to tear into a decent sized Ionides?
Ive never had any incidents of a mouse doing harm to any of my animals. Rats, on the other hand, I give a good bonk on the head to before feeding. I dont just mean a stunning hit, but a deathblow. Ive heard of rats doing major damage. Ive seen adult mice bite the nose of my Indicaus and BT, but they rarely seem to even flinch from the mouse bite, and Ive never seen blood drawn, or even any scales lost. Mouse bite are annoying, if anything. If you think about it, out of all the mouse bite that youve gotten, how many even break your skin? I get bit by the little buggers often, and I gotta say, man its annoying as hell!!

As far as ethics...well dont look at me on that one. I sleep well everynight.

Actually, in this aspect, monitors are not that different from snakes. But that touches onto snake husbandry, which is the wrong subject...so lets stick to monitors.

Monitors are predatorial killing machines.

Does that answer your question?

i had a water that was the meanest sob after i started feeding live mice. i dont recommend feeding live mice for this reason. hey, maybe im just paranoid, but ive got scars from that guy...
ian
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buy the ticket, take the ride...

and that may not mean much since I've only been into monitors for a short time now, allowing them to hunt down live prey would probably qualify as enrichment for them. It gives them activity... excercise.. and the chance to kill their own food. Monitors are exceptionally intelligent when you compare them to some breeds of snake and giving them this opportunity could probably be beneficial to their mental health.. instead of sitting in a square box. being fed dead food from tongs all the time and then doing very little else unless the giant that feeds them decides to pull them out of their burrow and bring them outside their home..
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Lucien

1.0 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)
2.1 Leopard geckos (2 Blizzard and 1 het Blizzard)
0.1 Savannah Monitor
13 rats
12 Gerbils
2 Dogs
3 cats
1 Albino Corey (fish)

While I do feed mostly f/t mice, I do feed live food occasionally. It is a good stimulus for them and I could care less what the PETA types think.

Do not be foolish and think they can't be injured, I think the large cages and many hides lessen the chance of injury, but it is still there. They do get bit on occasion, but typically it is superficial.

It is a risk, but in my opinion well worth it.

--Robert