I feed my little yellows a fairly varied diet. Every other day they get a batch of roughly 10-15 crickets which are the main portion of their diet. Occasionally I toss in some smaller dubia, wax worms, and earthworm/nightcrawler. My ackies won't touch meal worms. I have been considering smallish fish but want to do a bit more research into this first. They can also eat lizards...anoles and house geckos come to mind, but they're pricey and not super practical. I have not fed mine mice, not sure if I plan to either. I will eventually incorporate quail/smallish eggs into their diet after seeing a few videos of wild ackies digging up eggs. I think as Murrindindi is actually in Australia he/she (? sorry) would be able to offer good advice on how frequently spiny tails will consume mammalian prey and perhaps how crucial it is to their diet, if at all.
If you can't feed insects I think you will have an issue with most lizard type species, it's sort of their bread and butter diet, especially when they're young. Can I ask what circumstance keep you from the insect route? The reason I ask is there are a couple options out there besides crickets. I really hate keeping crickets around as I think they stink to high hell and make and awful ruckus when they're warm, fat and happy. So I keep them out in the garage...to be by themselves where they belong
Dubia is a pretty decent option as well. They're quiet and have little to no smell if you're maintaining the colony well. They're a little pricey but I spent about $50 a year ago on about 200 roaches and they're now a self sustaining colony, costing me only roach feed and water crystals. Setup for breeding the roaches is as simple as a rubbermaid container and temps around 90-95, feed them and they'll do the rest.
Some folks feed superworms as well. I have only fed mine supers 3 times. The interesting thing is that the supers will try to burrow in the substrate providing some hunting pleasure for the monitor. I've watched one of my monitors furiously digging and then dunk his head in and pop up with a wiggling super. My little ones are extremely movement driven. I can generally hand feed them wax worms, but they seem to like chasing down the crickets the most, they go freakin berserk matter of fact.
You may also consider a bearded dragon. They're pretty interactive as well, perhaps more so than spiny tails....maybe I should say tame. You can also feed beardies greens as they grow older which would offset your need for so many insects but they will still need them overall, especially as babies.
Whatever direction you go I wish you the best of luck. Keeping ackies has been my best reptile experience. They're intelligent, inquisitive, and just a hoot to observe. I'm more hands off with my monitors but they will occasionally crawl in my hand to get some food...many times when I enter the room they run up and start pawing at the glass to get their batch'o'bugs
. All the best
Semper Fi,
Derek G
Hybrid Mode
