My Girlfriend and have a Southern Alligator Lizard that we caught a few weeks ago. I think He's about a year old because I saw hatchlings running around about a year ago and hes rather small. Anyways, we have intermittently fed him 10-15 small crickets from petco and they all disappeared. We assume he ate them. Also, we put in a bowl and put in about 4 mealworms. The first couple weeks he didn't touch them. Then, about 4 days ago, he seemed to discover them and now he eats them whenever we put them in and hangs out by the bowl frequently As if he's waiting to be fed. He's getting pretty plump and we are wondering if Alligator Lizards will eat until they get sick or if he knows what hes doing. Should we just keep giving him worms until he's done or should we ration the mealworms in some way? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Reptile & Amphibian Forums
Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.
Feeding help
Replies (2)
They can overeat - make sure you properly dust his food with vitamins/calcium every so often, and that he has a UVB light.
Go easy on the mealworms - mealworms/waxworms should only be used occasionally as a treat, they are fattening. Or so I've read anyway.
-----
11.14 L. getula californiae (Cal. King)
2.3 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 L. getula floridana (Brooksi)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
4.2.14 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - (Cal. Alligator Lizard)
From my experience, they don't over eat.
I usually go to Petco every Tuesday and Friday and buy 10 crickets for 2 Alligator Lizards. Sometime, they give me 15-17 instead of 10 when they are too lazy to count.
Each lizard would chomp down about 7 easily and when they get full, they leave the crickets alone. The only problem is that sometime, they like to bite the crickets and leave them there to die. They won't eat dead crickets.
When I use to have one Alligator Lizard, the remaining crickets would sometime attack the lizard if there is no melon or cricket food. Ever since there are two lizards in the same aquarium, the remaining crickets stay on the other side of the tank.
I only feed mealworms if they are too weak to run after the crickets. I would not be surprise if they can gobble up 20 mealworms easily.
-----
I will be back!
