Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased a 2' Savannah, he is eating chicken dusted with vitamans. How often should he be fed? Is this a good Diet?
Any info is appreciated.

Is the "chicken" store bought, or are you talking about chicken peeps? If it is store bought, why?
I feed my savs 3 hoppers every other day. I also feed them dusted crickets, dusted roaches, night crawlers, mealworms, an occasional boiled egg and on rare occasions when I run out of mice, the ground turkey diet. I will soon be feeding them quail peeps as soon as the eggs hatch. All 3 of mine are with in the 2 feet mark and none are obese.
If your husbandry is close to right, they will digest and use the energy they get from these foods.

GoodLuck
Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

My sav is about 2' and eats 2-3 full grown mice every other day, on the average. He gets an all-you can-eat cricket day about once a week. He will occasionally get SDZ diet mixed with fruit that I make for my tegus when the mouse man goofs up. I'd try day old chicks if I could find a local source.

Oh, yes, occasionally he gets a dwarf hamster when one of my babies turns vampire. They only get to bite me once....

Leslie

I have heard from several people that mice are not a good idea for monitors as the fur creates intestinal blockage or something. The chicken I'm feeding is store bought Tyson brand.
What is the San Diego Zoo diet composed of? All I know is the ground turkey part...

to put it nicely,those people you have heard that from are misinformed!!

The fur can block them up but if it does your husbandry is way off. In good conditions you will not have that problem.

If your seeing that in your animals then your monitor is either not warm enough to digest or more then likely is not getting proper hydration.

Hair= roughage and will act as a pipe cleaner on its way out. It will also allow for easier cleanup in the cage over say a runny stool from lack of roughage.

it sounds like you need to start at the beginning, with the basics. check out the caresheet at our site for Blackthroat monitors, it is the exact same care as their close cousins the Savannahs.

temps, setup, diet, it is all important, i am going to guess you have a number of things to fix.

there is no sense in feeding a diet of grocery chicken on a regular basis. rodents and feeder insects do a wonderful job and are proven healthy, reliable, and affordable.

check out the caresheet, and best of luck.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

Is there anything wrong woth grocery chicken...money in this case is not an object and grocery chicken or turkey is more readily available to me than mice and other pet store items. We dont have a petsmart here, just independant businesses.

Less nutrients and lack of roughage. Grocery store chicken has no guts, fur, exoskeleton or bone matter; plus no digestive tract full of half digested misc food sources (plant and animal matter). Think of all the commercials on TV about needing fiber in the human diet, fiber is roughage. I can speak from experience with my past Savannah monitor, something being too easily digestible (no roughage) does not make for a long lived monitor.

You can order roaches, crickets, mice and a million (ok, a few dozen) other things online delivered to your door in bulk. You will be better off overstocking on frozen mice and/or live crickets/roaches, as you will be surprised how quickly that 500 count of whatever disappears.
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-Andrew

store bought chicken etc. will lack alot of the nutrients needed. Whole prey items would offer this lack of nutrients.

You can order frozen feeders online and have them shipped to yourdoor. So there is no excuse of not being able to buy mice, etc. localy.

If you do not feed whole prey you will find yourself having to suppliment, vitamins, calcium, and probly use of a uv light source will also be needed.

It is much simpler to order feeders and have them shipped to you, then it is to prepare a store bought diet.