"Toys"

[reptiguy123]

Hey, that's a good idea. Must they swallow the fish head-first as not to get scales caught halfway down their throat?

[V.hb]

goldfish are filthy! stay away from them!

I only feed frozen seafood to my monitors, you can buy bags of smelts for about 3$ full fish too.

Goldfish can carry many problems that can go right to your monitor! Just a word of caution.

If you must use live feed i believe minnows may be a bit cleaner, but dont quote me

[Sunrunner]

Lol this is one of the best posts I have read here, I have for many years wondered and tried to find things for my monitors to "play" with. There is alot of good suggestions I almost fell off my chair when I read the cockroach in the ball one very creative
Why all seafood? just curious? I have never heard this before but it would be cheaper

[reptiguy123]

When feeding fish, do I have to make sure they go down the monitor's throat head-first?

[mbayless]

The monitors know how to eat them, but if your nervous, behead them and the gills will not harm them then, but fins might! V. salvator has been report not able to feed on live fish underwater, where-as V. niloticus corals them in lakes/rivers and feeds on them underwater. V. mertensi also coral fish and Steve Irwin has seen that. V. griseus do not hunt fish persay, but do juvenile hedgehogs, and swallow them whole (juveniles do not have envenomated spines until a few months old) in and around water systems! I believe Dr. Wulf Haacke, curator of Reptiles of the African Transvaal Museum (Retired), RSA is doing a paper on this very thing of Varanus and fish foraging/diet...

cheers,
markb

[reptiguy123]

Thanks, Mark. I'm not sure which fish a V. exanthematicus would accept or what is not harmful to it, but I will definately consider chopping off the heads.