feeder lizards/geckos

[Aanayab1]

I am looking in to using small lizards/geckos as feeders for my group of ackies. I have learned that it is part of their natural diet so I would like to find some information and/or first hand experience, opinions and debates on the topic. Please keep in mind I do not wish to read or care for any thing pertaining to morals or ethics of the practice. This is strictly for the health of my monitors. Their diet currently includes crickets, beetles, dubia, orange head and baby hissing roaches, ground fuzzies and grasshoppers/locusts. I would like to add more diversity and prefer it be as close to their natural diet as possible.

Things I'm concerned with are:

1) parasites and parasite control

2) which species

3) breed a supply or wild catch

4) how often to feed

And so on

[poison123]

Try leopard geckos. There are plenty of cbb ones to go around :p

[infernalis]

I would steer away from any Anoles sold by any sort of dealers. They are full of parasites and disease.

[smy_749]

The prices you could get wholesale CBB leopard geckos for is probably not far off the house gecko/anole prices, if you purchased enough of them. :-P

[monitorlizard]

If it's for their health they are better without them in my opinion.
They cost more then feeder prey items and are more likely to carry disease and parasites that could be spread to your ackies.

[Pirarucu]

Try leopard geckos. There are plenty of cbb ones to go around :pThis. Baby Bearded Dragons too, there's even more of those to go around. Just contact some breeders and ask for any dud eggs, dead babies, or surplus babies if they'll give them to you.

[smy_749]

What about corn snakes? They may be even cheaper than beardies no?

[Pirarucu]

What about corn snakes? They may be even cheaper than beardies no?Yep. Ask breeders for any dead or deformed babies. Heck, at most reptile shows where venomous animals are sold, there will be large bins of baby corns for King Cobra food.

[Aanayab1]

Thank you infernalis and monitorlizard for the useful information. Should I assume the house geckos option is the same?

[monitorlizard]

Thank you infernalis and monitorlizard for the useful information. Should I assume the house geckos option is the same?
That they could have parasites? Yes they are mostly wild-caught so they are more likely to be exposed.

[infernalis]

My feelings are this, a big bag of pinkies is cheaper, cleaner, parasite free, risk free, and goes a long way.

Any lizard eating reptiles that I own are rodent trained.

[Freebody]

My feelings are this, a big bag of pinkies is cheaper, cleaner, parasite free, risk free, and goes a long way.

Any lizard eating reptiles that I own are rodent trained.
this is what I was thinking when I first read the post, if I had some regular morph beardies that had a clutch every year, I could see myself tossing them in just to be rid of the babies, but it would be pretty costly to go buy lizards, and being how I personally don't see either one being more or less nutritious than the other as far as feeders, I would just do pinkies.

[jarich]

The other worry is that the stressed out anoles sold in large cheap quantities like that can also carry mites. I would hate to get mites through my collection for the sake of the feeder prey.

[murrindindi]

Pinky mice are NOT very nutritious for feeding to Varanids, fuzzies are much better (and larger, if the monitor can take them)!

[Aanayab1]

Thank you all for the responses. I will be sticking to the ground fuzzies until they are large enough to change to whole. The parasite risk and nutritional equivalence does not seem to have any pay off is what I have gathered. Again thank you for helping me.

[infernalis]

The other worry is that the stressed out anoles sold in large cheap quantities like that can also carry mites. I would hate to get mites through my collection for the sake of the feeder prey.

The ONLY time I ever had mites in my house was a batch of feeder Anoles.

I fed a couple to one of my Black Racers, (I had two at the beginning) and about 3 days later I found my black racer dead and swarming with mites. They were in it's nostrils, the vent was a black stripe of mites, they were everywhere. I carried the whole cage outside and hosed it out in my driveway.

Thankfully Toby did not feed from those Anoles.

Never again, ever..... Rodents are safer. hands down.

[Aanayab1]

Dang that's nuts! Yea not even something I want to deal with.

[smy_749]

Dang that's nuts! Yea not even something I want to deal with.

Why not try silverside fish in the same fridge that sells mice/rats @ petco? They are narrow (like 1cm width) and very long. You can chopem up into pieces. Or get shrimp/crawdads from your local supermarket are also good if your just looking to mix it up. But really you should just get a dubia roach colony going ;). I've had mine in my closet secretly for a few months, no escapees and no smell/noise. I can't wait till someone decides to snoop around in my stuff hahaha

[Gregg M]

What about corn snakes? They may be even cheaper than beardies no?

Ackies are not snake eaters. I have tried numerous times to feed ackies snakes. They donot go for them.

[poison123]

Ackies are not snake eaters. I have tried numerous times to feed ackies snakes. They donot go for them.

I know a member on another forum who feeds his colubrids.

[Aanayab1]

Their diet currently includes crickets, beetles, dubia, orange head and baby hissing roaches, ground fuzzies and grasshoppers/locusts. I actually already have silversides as well, I have a fimbriated moray eel (Grendel) who gets them as treats between his salmon and sea bass meals. Would they really be ok to give to the ackies? I had considered trying feeder freshwater fish just never even thought of using the saltwater feeders I have.

[murrindindi]

Their diet currently includes crickets, beetles, dubia, orange head and baby hissing roaches, ground fuzzies and grasshoppers/locusts. I actually already have silversides as well, I have a fimbriated moray eel (Grendel) who gets them as treats between his salmon and sea bass meals. Would they really be ok to give to the ackies? I had considered trying feeder freshwater fish just never even thought of using the saltwater feeders I have.

Hi, if you feed saltwater fish you should rinse them under water to get rid of excess salt. I wouldn`t use them as a staple, but if the monitor/s will take them o.k now and again (I think the current diet is fine).

[smy_749]

petstore feeder goldfish are just swimming bags of garbage so stay away from those. snails are good I think and you can breed your own, dunno if ackies will takem though

where do you guys get locusts?

[Aanayab1]

Thanks, I'll just stay clear of the fish for now. About the locusts, I meet a girl that has a savannah at the pet shop a few weeks back when I was picking up fuzzies. just so happened she was trying to get rid of excess baby hissing roaches n locusts so I gave her my number and told her I'll take them any time she needs :) She told me she goes hiking the Appalachian trail a few miles and there are large meadows/clearings where she catches the locusts/grasshoppers by the thousands in butterfly nets. Keeps them in 55gal trash cans like crickets and they just start breeding... I haven't seen her setup yet cause she always just meets me at the pet shop.

[jarich]

Nice, thats a great connection to fall into.

Id add crayfish to that list if they will take them. Also a pretty easy feeder to breed and they are very high in calcium and other minerals.

[Aanayab1]

jarich, I thought for sure she would be B.S.ing me but it worked out. About the crayfish, store bought or go catch some?

[jarich]

Personally, I would recommend store bought from a reliable store. Wild caught you have the higher probability of parasites again. The only issue with the store bought ones is to make sure that the store isnt treating for something called Ich (an external parasite on fish). They normally use a pesticide that could be harmful to your lizard if it ingested enough of it. If you trust your pet store, simply ask them if they are using any treatments. The pet store I buy mine from keeps the crayfish in their own tank, so I know its not treated. Like I said, crayfish breed quite readily too. If you dont mind having a fish tank set up, you can breed them yourself and then there are no worries.

[monitorlizard]

Store bought or wild caught, it doesn't matter. Crayfish are scavengers they are always likely to have parasites.

[jarich]

Yes, and no. There are different types of parasites, some of which require external hosts in order to propagate. (Frogs are a common host, turtles, fish, etc.) So a store bought crayfish can breed and be free of those types of parasites. If you decided to breed them, you could also then treat the parents fairly easily and get rid of the parasite load altogether.

[Pirarucu]

Ackies are not snake eaters. I have tried numerous times to feed ackies snakes. They donot go for them.
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[jarich]

Not sure I see the point of feeding it a live snake.

[Pirarucu]

Not sure I see the point of feeding it a live snake.Perhaps it wouldn't go for dead ones? I don't see it either, but I was just showing that they do eat snakes.

[Gregg M]

2xv8zG5ycCc

My point exactly... Watching that vid, you can tell they are not snake eaters.

[smy_749]

My point exactly... Watching that vid, you can tell they are not snake eaters.

I disagree, because he ate the snake. It could just be from 'inexperience', maybe he has never eaten one before. However, if its small enough to fit in its mouth and it moves, generally they will eat it. And in Australia, if an ackie happen to stumble across a snake of this size, and was hungry, I believe we'd see the same result. I'm sure they do not 'typically' eat them, or they don't make up the majority of the diet, and maybe thats what you meant. Saying they aren't shrimp eaters or crab eaters may make more sense, becaues although I'm sure they would eat that as well, there is no land shrimp roaming the outback

[Gregg M]

Put a snake infront of a baby black throat and you will see what a snake eater does even when they have never seen one before.

[murrindindi]

We have freshwater crustaceans in Oz called "yabbies", they often appear on the surface of the ground after rain, maybe they take those, also, they do take smaller lizards, so perhaps they would take a small snake if they came across one.

[smy_749]

We have freshwater crustaceans in Oz called "yabbies", they often appear on the surface of the ground after rain, maybe they take those, also, they do take smaller lizards, so perhaps they would take a small snake if they came across one.

So I googled them, they are basically the equivalent to our crawdads/crayfish, although they aren't terrestrial around here I don't think. Do they live in underground burrows during the dry season or something?

[Lickeypie]

We have freshwater crustaceans in Oz called "yabbies", they often appear on the surface of the ground after rain, maybe they take those, also, they do take smaller lizards, so perhaps they would take a small snake if they came across one.

Your description reminded me of Sand Fleas :p

http://www.striperonline.com/pictures/surf_fishing/snad_fleas.jpg

[poison123]

Your description reminded me of Sand Fleas :p

http://www.striperonline.com/pictures/surf_fishing/snad_fleas.jpg

Are those a type of isopod?

[monitorlizard]

Sand Fleas are crustaceans.
Yabbies are crayfish/crawfish.

[KORBIN5895]

Sand Fleas are crustaceans.
Yabbies are crayfish/crawfish.

And crayfish are crustaceans.

[jarich]

As are isopods ;)

[KORBIN5895]

As are isopods ;)

I be stoopid! ( Where's the drooling emoticon? )

[murrindindi]

So I googled them, they are basically the equivalent to our crawdads/crayfish, although they aren't terrestrial around here I don't think. Do they live in underground burrows during the dry season or something?


They live underground and come to the surface when it rains, you can see little raised mounds on the surface, I`ve never tried, but I expect they might be quite delicious..... (Or maybe not)..... ;)

[Aanayab1]

Ok so when I was about 15 I went on a fishing trip with my dad and his friends and this one guy bet me $50 I wouldn't eat a sand flea.... yea, not so good but the $50 bucks was awesome!