General opinions about feeder items wanted.

[Scales Zoo]

To make a long story longer....

This weekend we had our 3rd fall Hiss in the Hills - where the reptile club and invited guests get to come out herping.

This weekend we had people who have all been here before, some many times. We found 80 snakes on Saturday, so on Sunday, we decided to go check out some other things.

This afternoon we found ourselves out by the river, at a rocky shore bank. 2 very mature, and very knowledgeable 10 and 12 year old brothers were interested in the crayfish I found.

We found 11 of them, built a rock coral, and eventually put 4 in a bucket.

The kids were going to take them home, but they heard me tell about how monitors will grab the live crawfish, separate it from it's pinchers by shaking it's head when aholld of said pincher, doing that twice, eating crawfish, then finishing up with pincers for desert.

So we are in the basement offering the 4.5' 10 or 14 lb water monitor, a large crayfish with only one claw.

The first and best reptile mentor I had was here, saw this, and said "see I would never do that"

I said "what, feed a monitor an appropriate and veried diet"

"No, feed it from the river. What if they get some kind of disease"

Later, driving in the truck, just before we saw a slough and then flock of 2000 sandhill cranes - Sheila told me she agreed with said mentor, and wouldn't feed wild collected food from the river.

I've fed fish I've caught to the caimen. The monitors don't get much fish - as Sheila firmly beleives that feeding thawed baitfish led to the death of a very pretty and very seemingly healthy 4' roughneck monitor which she really liked (the only monitor we've had, that she really liked I would say)

I really like to offer appropriate variety to my captive monitors. I thought crayfish and fish would be great, and fresh would offer all of the vitamins that freezing would not.

I'm now really second guessing myself, as of 6 months ago, I felt oposed to feed any wild collected animal to any of our reptiles.

I look forward to hearing from the many experienced opinions about this on this board.

Ryan

[SHvar]

A wild monitor eating what it has to to survive and your captive monitor getting what is best as far as nutrition etc. In the wild carrion, crayfish, bird eggs, snails, slugs, millipedes, centapedes, etc are what they eat to survive because they are easy to catch, subdue and eat.
In captivity whole rodents, whole birds, crickets, and roaches are all that they need to eat to do in 6-8 months what their wild counterparts take 5 years to do, become sexually mature adults and reproduce. If you are raising snakes and someday wish them to be healthy adults, would you feed them crayfish, dogfood, baitfish, catfood, or hamburger? They are both reptiles they both are carnivores, and a long time ago it was figured out by trial and error that feeding them whole rodents is the best for them.

[V.hb]

Ryan just a suggestion, you could boil the crawfish before feeding.. even the fish.

[Steeve B]

Way to go! Monitor lobster, what a treat!

[mbayless]

Crayfish will not hurt the monitor - you may even notice them remove the pinchers before eating, then go back and eat the pinchers....fun to watch and great for them.

For Shvar: I do not think rodents are great for V. albigularis; Yes, they eat them, yes they digest them, but I do not they prefer them at all - they seem almost '********' eating them - see how eat a snake or snail - and you see their much more enthusiastic and comfortable = less ******** eating them. Their teeth are muscivorous (= eating shellfish) for crushing, than obligate carnivore (i.e. rodents)....

cheers,
markb

[SHvar]

My experience with albigs shows they prefer birds. My current albigs react to them faster than anything else. My large female eats almost anything that resembles or smells similar to food, but my male prefers birds over rodents. They like hissing roaches alot but the male doesnt like them as much as chicken peeps. I believe if fed the same food item all of the time they react to certain other foods changing with relish. Ive let them eat things I wouldnt suggest like slugs, snails, etc but birds seem to get the best reaction from my current and past albigs.

[V.hb]

Iam surprised to hear albigs have a preference.. mine will eat anything offered, chicks, rodents primarly, the odd seafood items too.. I've even offered fruits and they take them, even leafy greens! Which brings me to a question of my own for steve & markb do you recommend any particular fruits as a "treat"are there any that me be considered dangerous to feed??

[Scales Zoo]

Thanks to the replies.

To SHvar:

I wouldn't feed my snakes crayfish, simply because I don't keep any snakes that eat crayfish in the wild (to my knowledge). Also, I don't feed dogfood or ground beef to any of our snakes.

I think some monitors would benifit from eating shellfish in captivity, as they do in the wild.

To Steve:
Monitor lobster is a great name - I can see myself using it when next catching crayfish with kids.

To Vhb:
I assume cooking should take care of any parasites, and would probably work quite well for crayfish. I think fish would get quite mushy. I may try it, but I wonder how much the vitamins will suffer for it.

To Mark:
I sent you a private email a while back, did you get it by chance?

Thanks for your input everyone.

Ryan

[mbayless]

HI Ryan,
I don't think I got the email....can you resubmit it....my albigularis and exanthematicus would go into my roses and eat only the red petals - they also ate (red) strawberries - do monitors see color?? Maybe so??

Cheers,
markb

[Linds]

Feeding WC prey is can be pretty risky... especially when you get in to aquatic specimens as even in captivity, fish and the like are loaded full of parasites. Freezing does break down the cellular structure and does deplete some of the vitamins, but not significantly. IMHO there is far more health risk in feeding it live crayfish than feeding it a f/t item. I am by no means an expert in monitor husbandry so I won't go in to any of that, but generally speaking, any lizard that naturally feeds on a variety in the wild (and most, if not all, do), will benefit greatly from a variety offered in captivity as well. Also, any animal that has a lot of roughage in their natural diet (crustaceans, invertabrates, etc), their bodies are not designed to effectively process a diet high in fats. They may be more prone to such things as general obesity or fat forming around organs which can lead to a multitude of problems. The latter may not be evident for many years. Ok I think I'm just rambling off topic now so I'll stop. My general 2cp

Mark,
I've been trying to respond to your email for quite some time now, however they keep getting returned... Do you have an alternate address? I sent you a PM a while ago, message tracking says it's still unread though.

[SHvar]

I didnt specify that you did feed any of the other foods to your monitor but the idea was to get across that a group of reliable, inexpensive, nutritional, basic whole food items can be fed without going into the wild and catching something that can transmit a disease or problem your animal, after all millions of years evolving elsewhere means resistance to parasites, and diseases from there not here. This may or may not cause a problem but thats your risk to take. Personally if were my monitor Id buy my crayfish from the grocery store already steamed, but hissers are cheaper and CB.

I stick to large chicken peeps, jumbo mice, hissing roaches, and occaisionally a scrap of meat or bone for my big female albig (the large rats are on the way). My smaller albig (the male) eats jumbo mice, small peeps, and occaisionally hissers. My ackie eats baby hissers, lobster roaches, crickets, and yes once a week or less often I give him some ground turkey thwed out with 'Minerall'. My timor is now my friend and his wifes monitor, they feed him adult mice and crickets, I fed him adult mice. My sandfire cross beardie eats crickets, roaches, romaine, dandelion, carrot. I dont totally support one food item to any monitor but what I do support is to give them something that works to allow them to do what they can do, and is in itself captive or farm raised food. Ive recently switched to feeding alot of hissers to my large female albig, it makes a difference.

[V.hb]

Mark, believe it or not my male albigularus goes crazy If i have an orange.. He seems to smell it and just go crazy in a food response. He runs to the door for rodents etc but not nearly as fast for oranges. Ive only offered it to him once as it sounds completely rediculous as a food item! haha but once he had it he ran around with it like a trophy as if he didnt know what to do with it?? but he did eventually eat it, peel and all. Wierd huh?

[Scales Zoo]

SHvar - I never even thought about asking a store to be able to order in crayfish. I've bought shrimp for the monitors before.

I wasn't going to feed them crayfish because they are cheap, I was going to feed them crayfish because I thought they would really like eating them, and fresh crayfish would be good for them. It takes quite a bit of work to catch them, it would be much easier to just thaw rats and mice.

Sheila asked me if I'd eat them myself. I would, I will. I feel much better about eating crayfish from a cool river, than from a large lake in the summer (and I've eaten crayfish from a terrible lake).

As far as parasites... In the wild, as I understand it, many monitors are scavengers and eat terrible food. I wouldn't feed water monitors garbage, maggoty food, and human faeces - but I've been that some grow quite large, and live along time, eating trash.

Ryan