Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I saw an add from varanus creations that said that their Black/Whitethroat crosses eat "almost" as much as their Argus.I've seen hyper adult Argus,but thought there was no creature that out did a Blackthroat at dinner time.Even my water monitor's couldn't out-eat my Blackthroat(quantity or speed)Just curious.Thanks.

J/K, that was me.

nah bud, argus out do everybody, and i mean it. We feed our argus half of what they want and check out how we feed them. every other day (our adult breeders) we throw a bag of 25 thawed adult mice in their cage, it is gone within about 5 minutes. during this time (we used to take the male out)we use a stick to keep the male away half of the time (no, we do not beat him, just push the stick against his belly lightly, holding him back)and let the female get more than the male. argus pretty much outdo other monitors in every department: activity, eating, breeding (well, not odatria), and if you ask their dad, looks .

cheers all
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Varanus Creations

'just push the stick against his belly lightly, holding him back'

You must be good, I can't for the life of me figure out how you could hold back an argus with a stick when food was involved. hahahahahahaha

They amaze me with the amount of food they can pound down respective to their size, and (at least when young) will use it ALL for growth in 24 hours. It is no overstatement that you can watch them grow.

I shudder to think what an adult male would look like, if it were offered all the food it wanted. I do not doubt that they could attain a very scary size.

--Robert

yes, it is not as if i do not have to move the stick when the punk tries to elude it, hahaha. do you have argus robert? i will say this a thousand times, the gouldi complex is hands down my favorite and they have been since i was old enough to remember.

did anybody on the forum buy argus from terry lilley a month or two ago? if so, i would like to know how they are. cheers
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Varanus Creations

I have two argus, but they are very young.

I find it hard to pick favorites, no doubt it's obvious I have a thing for jobiensis. Gouldii complex is cool too.

Take Care,

--Robert

I just recently saw an Argus fed for the first time. A local pet store has a nearly full grown male who has taken to sliding his cage doors open. We asked if we could see him fed. They killed one mouse (not quite full grown, i'd say about half grown) and held it out on tongs to the argus. There was no chewing. No tearing. No chomping. It just pulled it off the tongs and swallowed it. If I had blinked, I would have missed it. Incredible, you'd have thought that mouse was a piece of popcorn.

I think it has a lot to do with adaptions. While Argus under proper temps may indeed have the fastest jerk reaction, their heads are too small to actually compete. Something like this may out eat them.

Or something like this.

Both of these are wolfing down full grown rabbits, although the croc is a bit better at it.

is posting pics different now?

i guess its working

np

Your making me hungry!

isn't it wierd frank that argus are so similar but so different from their oz cousins. i have been observing this firsthand with my cross and my argus i am raising up. the flavi/goulds cross has a much smaller mouth than the argus and cannot open its mouth as wide as an argus even though they are the same size. also, it seems that the goulds cross likes to dig more and deeper than the argus.

on a side note, i was talking about how much food pound for pound (size of monitor) an argus will eat. it seems to be much different. then again i have never worked with crocs or lacies.

cheers
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Varanus Creations

I hatched my first ones in 91, and my last ones this last week. In fact, we hatched all the complex this year and all possible crosses between them(in the states)

I'm going to try to give it a shot at breeding my Savannahs. Not sure what is going to happen though. This whole breeding thing is going to be all new to me. But it will be fun.
Great Picture Frank as normal.
Christine

P.S. Sorry I know this has nothing to do with the topic of disscusion.

n/p

i really cannot get enough of this complex. i was thinking i was going to be hitting you up for varius next year, but it may be more of these guys. cheers
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Varanus Creations

My BT/WT Crosses can out eat(at least the male)my Argus, but it isn't even close when you consider the weight of the Argus vs the BT/WT(Argus being half the weight yet can almost keep up in the chowing down department)
Bawaa Herps

I've had a large blackthroat and a pretty good sized argus. In my opinion, a healthy blackthroat can out do the argus in a single setting...just my experience.

PS. At one time, I wanted to see how much my BT could eat so I thawed 5 lbs of ground deer meat and bone thinking that would be enough (He weighed 9lbs at the time)...I guess I'll never know because he ate all of it. Over half his bodyweight! He grew to about 18lbs before I had to get rid of him due to me changing location...that bites.

Tim

np

No, just normal weight after a defecation and small meal (a couple rats).