Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok im with the feeding monitors insects when there young cause its healthy. But what would be a healthy adult diet for a monitor and would put some weight on him as well???

What kind of monitor?

If medium to large (savannah), then rodents. If small monitor (ackie), then insects or even chopped rodent. HOw bout this... mix it up?

I feed my sav primarily on rodents.

The all rodent diet is proven and works great. There are some monitors that do great on insects only (ackies, etc). The idea is that feeding WHOLE animals as foods is the trick to a healthy diet. Mice and rats for medium to large monitors from birth through their whole life is an inexpensive diet that is full of everything they need. Most of us feed insects to monitors when small and hissers also to larger monitors that have lost interest in crickets etc. My ackie lives almost exclusively on lobster roaches. With my small colony the ackie and my fiancees beardie cant eat them close to fast enough. It didnt take long at all to go from around 100 to 6000 lobster roaches, I take some to a friends place to use them up sometimes.

hay there,
thanks shvar i wasnt totally understading why monitors got impactions and nobody has been very helpful about it till now thanks for the info man

hay there,
the all rodent diet is proven to work good but to mutch will cause fur impactions and all kinds of good stuff like that. insect's for young monitors are good and for there hole life if a small breed. large breed is a diferent story i feed mine a mixture of hard boiled egg with shell,and uncooked meats sutchas chicken, beef heart, freshwater shell fish, and freshwater fish hole and any other lean meat except pork, i give them a treat of hissing cockroachs every once and awile and maybe a few rats every few weeks it is good to have a well rounded diet in your monitor.

There are some small species such as Odatria that can be fed dusted crickets and insects their whole life, they can also be fed appropriately sized mice (when hatchlings most cant eat them yet). When they eat raw meats, they loose the biggest benefit of whole animals (the guts, bones, hair , feathers, nails, claws, skin, eyes, the brain, etc etc)in other words the nutritional part.
Hair impactions, fur, feathers, substrate, etc etc DO NOT occur from eating these items, they ARE caused by IMPROPER husbandry (ie; temperatures too low). Never blame a symtom as a cause, a disease is a cause, a symptom is side affect of the disease. Remember medication treats a symptom, fix the root of the problem and the symptom goes away.