Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone ever heard of savanna's eating grapes? My 2 ft long savan has been eatin up red seedless grapes by the dozen. Hes very well fed, but also increadibly greedy of course. Is this good for him? Any one know?

I am constantly amazed by the things people do. I knew a guy that would give his beardies candy. That taffey stuff, just to see it chew....like giving your pooch peanut butter. Yeah, they will eat all kinds of stuff. Youre not the first to see a monitor eat something other than the normal diet.
Give it mice. Not grapes. You realise how much sucrose is in grapes right?

Feeding a grape shouldn't be compared to feeding candy. Grapes are natural candy is man made product. it is like comparing a cricket to a rock which is better for the monitor??

As for giving it grapes on occasion it is fine but do not think it will work for a staple diet. There is more to look into with diet then just simply saying well this mouse is perfect feed it. or to say everything else is like a rock, candy or some other junk food is silly.

Grapes are rich in anthocyanins, flavones, geraniol, linalol, nerol and tannins. Red grapes contain resveratrol which helps reduce cholesterol and protect the heart. Grapes also contain some potassium and cleans and detoxify the system.

Monitors have been known to eat just about anything they are opertunistic.

Wow, you know much more about grapes than I do! I thought they were mostly sugar and water! Good food for me if not the lizards.
As for their nutritional value as far as monitors go, varanids with an exception or two, don't have the enzymes necessary to process plant matter. However maybe those other substances might do them some good! Who knows.
As far as being opportunistic, yes. However they are for the most part, obligate carnivores. Any plant matter injested is incidental, and passes through the system undigested.
V. olivaceus being a notable exception.
Cheers
Jim

The intestines, by bacteria digesting the vegetable matter and producing nutrients through their waste products thereby allowing the carrier to make use of those nutrients. A monitor such as an albig or a nile etc has 5 inches of intestine full grown, which does not allow fermentation in the hind gut, a water monitor has 2 inches of intestine (definitely none there), so vegetable matter produces little to nothing for them. There are a few species that have more intestine that can partially digest vegetable matter and benefit from it. Just because they will eat it doesnt mean it does anything helpful. My BTs and boscs have always tried to eat lilac leaves, flowers,rocks, sticks, etc along with junk that belongs in a trash can like styrofoam pieces and cigarette butts (I always stop this from happening). Feed them as you wish but their anatomy shows what they can eat or not.

Your right the benefits they get are very little from these foods. It is best to allow them to recieve this ssecond hand i.e. feed it to the mouse then let the monitor eat the mouse. If you only fed your mice paper and then fed the monitor the mouse would give it very little benefits either. So you could go back and forth that way too.

Thats why instead of saying don't feed the grape or banana why not say you can but explain what it actually does? But maybe it is only me thinking in this respect. I just feel if the monitor is lacking in something maybe thats why it is eating these other things. I have never seen my monitors try to eat any of the garbage you mention. If I threw a stick or rock at them it would only bounce off them not be eaten. They won't even eat there mice if it is covered in the substrate they shake it until most of it if not all falls off first.

I was bringing up the point that people feed things to thier animals with little or no thought. I wasnt comparing the nutritional value of a grape compared to taffey. -But the act of feeding things that arent normally fed just to see the animal eat them. This is irresponsible.

If that is indeed the purpose then no it is not right but I wasn't aware he asked that I thought he had asked if he could or if there were any ill effects of doing it.

The thing is, he should have found out FIRST. Its the concept of doing things with lack of forethought.
Know what I mean?
Michelle

n/p