Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Not new to reptiles tho....I have assorted Dragons and Geckos; plus assorted frogs.
THis is my first time with a monitor tho.
He is a 6in Savannah. I have had him for 3 days now.
He is alert, and ajusting well to his new home. To start out with how much food(crickets) should he be eating daily?
When will he be big enough to eat supers?
And when can he go on to pinkies?
I don't want to push the little guy....but I don't want to hold him back either.
Diana

Any whole animal foods they can eat (crickets, roaches, superworms, pinkies, fuzzies, day old quail, etc) per day, as it helps to not only adjust them but to keep them growing. Monitors use high basking temps (surface temps or 130 ) but they also use a good ambient temp gradient that ranges from 86f-68f. They need a place to hide to lower stress, they love to dig so when once you know hes eating and doing normal monitor things get him into a cage with a deep enough substrate (dirt works by far the best) to make his own hiding place and so he can conserve moisture. Dont use open top or screen top cages, as they act like a dehydrator and all heat as well moisture goes right out the top.

If he's six inches he should be able to eat smaller pinkies by now. That's the same size mine started out at and he was eating pinkies the first day I got him.

I started all mine on pinkies locusts crickets and chopped up mice.
mat