Reptile & Amphibian Forums

curious how good super meal worms are as a say 30-50% diet for ackie .im considering getting a ackie and im looking into feeding .would these need to be feed with a calsium sup ? any comments would be appreciated .what is a good feeding schedual for these little critters? and what other kinds of food besides crickets are people feeding these . thanks

in my experience, i believe excessive superworms cause runny stool. my pet store was out of crickets and pinkies so i bought some superworms and fed my ackies and timor as i would have feed them crickets. All of my monitors then had stools with more than usual amounts of fluid. I stopped feeding them superworms, and the runny stools stopped. My ackies now refuse to take them at all while my timor will take one every now and then(after that experience, i don't present one but every once in awhile). I dont know if this is common, but i wouldnt feed them large amounts of superworms, personally. Keep in mind, this is based on my obersvation and is in no way based on any kind of factual evidence.

My ackie doesn't seem to care for them at all. He took the first one I ever offered him enthusiastically, but after wrestling around with the thing, trying to swallow it, he refused to take another. He's refused them ever since. Maybe he's just lazy! He does like the regular mealworms, though.

with superworms its the problem that they are sometimes
still alive when the (small) monitor swalows it, and they could damage there insides.
I gave 'm to my timor ones and after eating 3 she spit'm out again.
for me thats a no no.

gr

hugo

i was suspecting the same thing. I imagine it might take an animal by suprise when a superworm is still crawling around in their gut. For the record, i have always cut the heads off of superworms before feeding. I never knew if the old wives tale was true(about superworms eating their way through stomach lining) but i wasnt about to find out.

with superworms its the problem that they are sometimes
still alive when the (small) monitor swalows it, and they could damage there insides.
I gave 'm to my timor ones and after eating 3 she spit'm out again.
for me thats a no no.

gr

hugo

with superworms its the problem that they are sometimes
still alive when the (small) monitor swalows it, and they could damage there insides.
I gave 'm to my timor ones and after eating 3 she spit'm out again.
for me thats a no no.

gr

hugo

with superworms its the problem that they are sometimes
still alive when the (small) monitor swalows it, and they could damage there insides.
I gave 'm to my timor ones and after eating 3 she spit'm out again.
for me thats a no no.

gr

hugo

It is frustrating to constantly hear people say that zophobias can chew through an animals stomach, or chew on an animal's innerds. There is absolutely no supportive evidence of this ever occurring in any herp, even the frailest stomachs of leopard geckos. The digestive acids in any animal's stomach is going to be deadly to anything that it comes in contact with. Very few organisms(sometimes endoparasitic eggs) can survive the low pH of the stomach. Even if a superworm were to survive inside the stomach, mechanical digestion(chewing) would have already taken its toll on the prey; not to mention ackies' tendencies to "smash" their prey on the nearest structure. The only thing that I would be concerned with feeding superworms to certain herps is the fact that zophobias have a rather tough chitin exoskeleton, which may be difficult for some animals to properly digest. Just my .02.

Bob Mendyk

hopfully you see this . what would be a good schedule for feeding supermeals worms ? not alot or aRE they as good as crickets, of coarse i would dust with a sup. . i just would like to spread the diet around , meaning i dont want to keep a trash can of crickets. im only going with a single ackie so a trip to the pet store once a week would be nice . im thinking few crickets a day and few meal worms every other day and mayby every other week or three , a pink/fuzzie . whatcha think? i had a 12 inch ackie a while back and mainly fed crickets but once a month a few supers . any way. thnaks for your reply

Ackies, as well as other odatriad monitors should eat everyday, given the proper temperature levels are met in order to allow them to properly metabolize their meals.

LOW TEMPS = OBESE MONITOR

Just look at all the sav's and salvators that are kept at room temp, they become morbidly obese.

I prefer to feed my monitors some variety in their diet. With the expensive costs of feeding monitors, I decided to start with a clean slate and breed my own feeders. It is fairly simple, inexpensive, and easily accessible(no frequent trips to the pet store). I raise superworms, mealworms, waxworms,and cockroaches, and am trying to find a supply of trevo worms(butterworms), however there is absolutely no info on their care and breeding.

I usually try to feed a different prey everyday, with waxworms being only a snack once every other week. Mealworms and Crickets are fed most frequently, followed by supers and cockroaches. I dust my feeders every three days with supplementation.

Hope this helps, let me know if there's anything else I can help with.

bob mendyk

well, it's just something I read in like every reptile book I got.

Unfortunately, these books also tells you to keep your monitors at a 92 degree basking site, and we all know that is not accurate, unless you want a fat, lethargic lizard.
I wouldn't trust the majority of those books, they are a bit outdated...
bob