Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am thinking about getting some of this to try with my spectacled caiman. My reasoning is that my spectacled caiman is a very secretive eater which makes feeding time a pain in my but lol. When I give him feeder fish he will swim around and eat them off the surface which gives me hope he will eat it. What are peoples opinions on it? I have read all good things exept it can make a mess in the pond. My other question is where is the best place to get a couple pounds to try? I know the main mazuri site cells big bags but I want to make sure it will eat it. One other question is that he is about 2.5 feet long do I get the smaller pellets for hatchling to 3 feet or get the bigger ones for crocs 3 feet and bigger? All opinions welcome.....
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Tom
1.2.0 Leopard Gecko (dot, spot, casper)
0.0.1 California King Snake (booboo)
0.2.1 Sulcata Tortoise (tank, sahara and skittles)
0.0.2 Russian Tortoise (tito and lulu)
0.0.2 Red Ear Sliders (bernie and ernie)
0.0.1 Painted Turtles (moe)
0.0.1 Western Soft shell (Squirt)
1.1.0 Bearded Dragon (marshmellow and Sparkles )
0.0.1 Sumatran Water Monitor (Tiny)
1.0.0 Peachfront Conure (kermit)
0.1.0 Love Bird ( KIKI )
1.2.0 Dog (layla, Roxy and Rosco)
2.1.0 Crazy Cats (babe, sabastian, tinkerbell)
0.1.0 Lion Head Rabbit (daisy)
0.1.2 Ferret (jordan RIP, Cosmo and Izzy)
0.0.1 White Tree Frog (dumpy jr.)
0.0.1 Fire Belly Toad (ferdinan)
0.0.1 Spectacled caiman (wilbert)
0.0.3 Green Anoles
1.0.0 Bahama Anole
0.0.1 Giant Millipede
0.0.1 Aligator Snapping turtle
0.0.1 Mexican Red Knee Tarantula
0.0.1 Emporor Scorpion
1.0.0 Veiled Chameleon
0.0.1 Argentina Black and White Tegu
2.1.0 Columbian Red Tail Boas
Lots Of Fish

Hello.. Here's my experience with the Mazuri. My spectacled caimans absolutely go nuts for it, so do my alligators and dwarf crocodiles. My palpebrosus will not even look at it, and occasionally the trigs will go for a piece or two of the adult chow. I'm keeping a spectacled caiman around the size of yours with 2 alligators that are slightly larger and feeding them the adult food. They don't seem to have a problem with getting it down. I give them the juvenile food as well, but partially because there are also a couple of turtles living with them that aren't able to eat the adult chow whole. This was my first time buying this food and it has done an excellent job of quickly growing some of my smaller animals (which isn't necessarily a great thing, not that I have any intent of slowing any animals growth, but Mazuri seems to speed it up). Once I have finished off the 2 bags I have, I don't intend to buy it again because it is extremely messy and regardless of the size of the pellets, the crocodilians crunch it up and there is a lot of waste and it quickly pollutes the water and gives off a foul stench throughout my house, even with pretty good filtration. The filters also smell very bad when I clean them out. Filter cleaning and water changes are also more frequent because of it. I should also say that I do not feed them excessive amounts of the food. My female dwarf crocodile is a little longer than 4 feet and 4 of the adult pellets makes a mess of her water area. I'm sure others will have different things to say and I'm not saying this food is complete garbage, I really like the idea of it as an additional food source, but at nearly $100 per bag (in Ontario anyways) and the mess that goes along with it, it's not worth a second chance to me.

Its all I use. But it is messy. My enclosure have drains. After they have had their fill, I wash the mess down the drain. There is no way I would feed this stuff in some kind of fancy enclosure that had filtration.
There was someone here, I cant remember who, that sold it in little 5lb bags. If you do decide to go with Mazuri, dont buy it direct from them. The shipping charge is almost as much as the feed. Go to a farm feed store that carries the Purina brand. You will have to go into detail about what you want, but they can order it and have it arrive with their next shipment. The last bag I bought cost $55.
I would stick with the small pellets for 3-4 ft animals and the large pellets for anything bigger than that.
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old

At our facility, we feed a whole animal diet - I just can't see there being a better alternative. Our water stays crystal clear with minimal work (water changes and good filtration go a long way). But, with that being said, for large facilities, a croc chow type of diet is advantageous and probably necessary and some of bigger names manufature a pretty well rounded diet. For our crocs (right now, we are raising two american alligators, dwarf caiman, saltie, siamese and, soon, an american croc), they get a varied diet of mice, rats, quail, chicken and fish.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>I am thinking about getting some of this to try with my spectacled caiman. My reasoning is that my spectacled caiman is a very secretive eater which makes feeding time a pain in my but lol. When I give him feeder fish he will swim around and eat them off the surface which gives me hope he will eat it. What are peoples opinions on it? I have read all good things exept it can make a mess in the pond. My other question is where is the best place to get a couple pounds to try? I know the main mazuri site cells big bags but I want to make sure it will eat it. One other question is that he is about 2.5 feet long do I get the smaller pellets for hatchling to 3 feet or get the bigger ones for crocs 3 feet and bigger? All opinions welcome.....
>>-----
>>Tom
>>1.2.0 Leopard Gecko (dot, spot, casper)
>>0.0.1 California King Snake (booboo)
>>0.2.1 Sulcata Tortoise (tank, sahara and skittles)
>>0.0.2 Russian Tortoise (tito and lulu)
>>0.0.2 Red Ear Sliders (bernie and ernie)
>>0.0.1 Painted Turtles (moe)
>>0.0.1 Western Soft shell (Squirt)
>>1.1.0 Bearded Dragon (marshmellow and Sparkles )
>>0.0.1 Sumatran Water Monitor (Tiny)
>>1.0.0 Peachfront Conure (kermit)
>>0.1.0 Love Bird ( KIKI )
>>1.2.0 Dog (layla, Roxy and Rosco)
>>2.1.0 Crazy Cats (babe, sabastian, tinkerbell)
>>0.1.0 Lion Head Rabbit (daisy)
>>0.1.2 Ferret (jordan RIP, Cosmo and Izzy)
>>0.0.1 White Tree Frog (dumpy jr.)
>>0.0.1 Fire Belly Toad (ferdinan)
>>0.0.1 Spectacled caiman (wilbert)
>>0.0.3 Green Anoles
>>1.0.0 Bahama Anole
>>0.0.1 Giant Millipede
>>0.0.1 Aligator Snapping turtle
>>0.0.1 Mexican Red Knee Tarantula
>>0.0.1 Emporor Scorpion
>>1.0.0 Veiled Chameleon
>>0.0.1 Argentina Black and White Tegu
>>2.1.0 Columbian Red Tail Boas
>>Lots Of Fish
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

We use allot of the diet. We used to order the small pellet for younger animals but now we just use the large pellet for everything and break it into pieces for smaller crocs.

We use it as the backbone of our diet and use a variety of food items in addition. The Mazuri is very well balanced and does a great job on a crocs teeth.

All that being said it is very messy and the smell is horrible. In our large natural ponds it's a non issue but in tanks and waterlands it is really unacceptable which is why we do total changes virtually daily.

If I had a few animals and they where indoors I would feed rodents nearly 100% of the time.

We usually pay about $40 per bag of Mazuri.
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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

Have you ever bred Nile Crocs feeding them Mazuru? Has anyone here ever bred any species of Croc feeding just Mazuri? I'm just curious as I've bred 11 species of crocodilians and have found only ONE THING that makes a difference whether you get fertile eggs or not and thats the diet. The interesting part is that different species require different diets. If Mazuri has been used successfully with several species that's interesting and I wish I had done it back in the day as an experiment. When I say breed successfully I don't mean hatching 2-4 babies out of a 40 egg clutch. I mean consistent 70-80 % hatch rates over several years. I would be interested in hearing about results etc. Thank you in advance....

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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

We have bred Niles a couple of times here. We don't use Mazuri exclusively for any of our crocs but it is a primary staple. One of the breedings was another older group that belonged to another individual. They where not Mazuri feeders although we did sneak some into their diet. Hatch rate was 60-70% if memory serves.

I will be able to tell more over the next 2-5 years as our group is very young and we have quite a few primarily Mazuri raised animals coming upon breeding size this year and next. I will say that animals raised on the diet look very good and I don't anticipate any problems. But we'll see.
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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

That is excellent. With Niles I found that they and Cubans needed a fair amount of whole mammals or birds to produce a high percentage of fertile eggs. Once I fed almost exclusively horse meat without fur or organs and only had about a 5-10% egg fertility rate. I was constantly looking for cheap food and more importantly available food sources. My life would have been much simpler had I been aware of Mazuri at the time. Actually I'm not sure it was even available then. At the end I was feeding Purina Alligator Chow to the neonates and they ate it readily. Thanks Chris. Even though I'm not working with crocs now I've always really liked them a lot. Congrats on the great job you're doing with one of my favorites, the Niles. All my large ones became very calm and almost tame especially a big male. I used to have to step over him or around him as he had NO fear of most people and he had NO desire to eat people either. He was one of the best reptiles I'ver ever kept and it was an honour to have had him. Today he lives a life of leisure at Gatorland with a small harem of females....
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

I share your observation on the Nile diet. They look allot better when they have a higher percentage of whole mammals in their diet as opposed to say fish. Thats one thing I like about the Mazuri you get the same 'look' as a whole mammal diet without nearly as much trouble. Like I said we'll see if reproductive performance works with it.

Its funny you mention your big calm male. It seems all of ours mellow with size and age as well. At first I thought it was just one animal but they all seem to do it. They are rough until about 7ft though, we have one enclosure with 5 4 footers that is more difficult to enter and move in that the enclosure next door with 11 and 12ft animals.

It is very possible I have a few of your Niles descendents onsite here. Maybe a little like father/like son?
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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

Actually my females were calm to but I didn't trust them like the male. Somewhere I have a pic sitting beside his HUGE head with my hand on his neck. He just went back to sleep after opening his eye to look at me. One interesting observation in my lg enclosure was at nesting season. I had 1.6 living together in about a quarter acre pen. When the females nested [communal] both the male and the females would defend the nest area. I've never seen this in any other species. At that time ONLY were they aggressive toward people or anything for that matter....
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

I'm just wondering what you mean by different species require different diets?
Are you saying whole prey items (be it rodent or aviary items) will not necessarily properly feed your crocodilian depending on what species it is?
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Real time Rogue, a captive Palp

Different whole animals have different nutrient profiles all the way down to amino acid variation. Whole prey items will properly feed your croc(virtually any species) but their may be variations in the diet to ensure that subtle nutritional needs are met. Being a little rounded helps ensure a complete nutritional profile.

>>I'm just wondering what you mean by different species require different diets?
>>Are you saying whole prey items (be it rodent or aviary items) will not necessarily properly feed your crocodilian depending on what species it is?
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>>Real time Rogue, a captive Palp
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CDieter
'Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.'

This sounds more logical - I really didn't think anyone was serving zebra or wildebeest to their niles... Thanks.

mr. F
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Real time Rogue, a captive Palp

I'm saying IF you want to hatch LOTS of baby crocs different species require different diets. All crocs can be kept healthy with raw chicken etc BUT when they lay eggs your fertility rate will be low depending on your food choices. It has litle to do with them being healthy albeit I suppose over a long period of time it might be affect the overall health as well.
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

Chris answered this better than I did and he is 100 % correct...I didn't read his post until after I answered yours...thanks
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Tom Crutchfield
www.tomcrutchfield.com

The gentlemen that have previously posted have far more experience then I, but I have fed Mazuri crocodilian diet to broad snout caiman, adult and juvenile alligators, and adult Siamese crocodiles and they all accepted it quite well. I did feed the smaller size to the juvies and the larger size to the adults. I didn't feed it exclusively and it was part of a diet that included crickets, kingworms, fish, mice, rats, and horse meat for the juveniles and rabbits, chickens, rats, and horse meat for the adults. As part of those diets it was great, and the juvenile gators grew very nicely with it as part of their diet although it did, as the others have stated, lead to daily water changes in the juvenile stock tanks. The adults had large filtration systems so that wasn't a concern with them.
Shane