Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My juvi ackie (20 mo.) male monitor went missing when a friend of mine accidentally left his cage lid open after a feeding. I searched for him and even rearranged my house looking for him and as any monitor owner knows, these are tricky little devils. He went three months missing until I found him now. He is not emaciated and eagerly drank the water in his tank after he heated up under the spot for a bit. My question is, should I resume feeding him as he was before (gut loaded or dusted crickets and occasional pinky) or do I need to add extra supplementaion via additives to his water and both gut loading and dusting or is that too much. I appreciate your patience reading this long post.

Thanks again,
Sera

I really do not understand why your asking this. Your ackie got away, you found it, he looks fine. Was he doing well before he excaped? If he was, why change?

I have had the very same happen, with a number of monitors. It does really bother me when they are gone for months and look absolutely great. Makes we wonder where they found the gut loaded crickets and extreme vitamin and mineral suppliments.

As the grand father of your ackie, I still wonder what the gut loading thing is all about. I didn't gut load that ones, grand parents or their parents or theirs either, hmmmmmmmm I do admit, crickets do need a little dusting with vitamins and calicum. But to gut load and then add more(water)?????????? Are you thinking they will become superackies or something. I think too much vitamins are not a good thing. just give them food, they know how to do the rest.

Even without gut loading, we raised them faster, grew them larger and had them produce far more then people said they should(good thing I don't listen to people) Without the benefit of gut loading.

So my answer is, no, they don't need more, in fact, they didn't need gut loading before. FR

Thank you, I just tend to overreact, I was just so happy to find the guy. oh yeah, I think my ackie's grandparents are from Proexotics and his parents are from a wholesale breeder friend of mine in Brazoria, Tx. However the point remains the same, you have beautiful monitors and you don't go to all of these extremes, I will go and feed him as I did before. I appreciate the help and I will update you as needed.

Thanks again,
Sera