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