The Savannah Monitor Diet thread..

[StudentoReptile]

Originally Posted by BarelyBreathing

Exactly, it's impossible to recreate the wild, so why even try, right? By that logic we step back about ten years and keep them in rabbit cages and 20 gallon fish tanks.

My point was only that just because something in the husbandry IS unnatural, does not necessarily make it incorrect. We just have to use trial-and-error and fine-tune our care methods to get things right.

As mentioned by many, feeding rodents to a savannah monitor isn't necessarily incorrect. As you implied, poor housing is.

Diet is not what is killing savs in captivity. A sav fed an invert-only diet will die just as quickly in a improper habitat as it would if it had the occasional rodent thrown into the menu. Dead is dead.

[BarelyBreathing]

Originally Posted by StudentoReptile

My point was only that just because something in the husbandry IS unnatural, does not necessarily make it incorrect. We just have to use trial-and-error and fine-tune our care methods to get things right.

As mentioned by many, feeding rodents to a savannah monitor isn't necessarily incorrect. As you implied, poor housing is.

Diet is not what is killing savs in captivity. A sav fed an invert-only diet will die just as quickly in a improper habitat as it would if it had the occasional rodent thrown into the menu. Dead is dead.

You are absolutely correct, and nobody's arguing that point. The reason that type of husbandry works so well, though, is because we are doing our best to provide a bit of their natural environment.

[StudentoReptile]

Originally Posted by BarelyBreathing

You are absolutely correct, and nobody's arguing that point. The reason that type of husbandry works so well, though, is because we are doing our best to provide a bit of their natural environment.

Indeed. For decades (and of course, it still goes on), the collective herp community has been debating monitor diet "natural vs unnatural" but not taking into account other aspects of husbandry: proper temps, humidity, substrate, terrain/layout/decorations. "We" have been so focused on trying to offer the right/natural diet, but until recently, we haven't bothered worrying about getting the environment correct, so no one has had any real success either way, which is why the debate continues.

Obviously, this is old hat to most of us, and a lot of this is preaching to the choir.

The key that while we can never replicate their diet, we can do decent bit in replicating their natural habitat and bringing out their natural foraging/hunting behaviors. When we've gotten the habitat nailed down, and the foundation for a healthy monitor, the diet is IMHO a little flexible.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by StudentoReptile

Indeed. For decades (and of course, it still goes on), the collective herp community has been debating monitor diet "natural vs unnatural" but not taking into account other aspects of husbandry: proper temps, humidity, substrate, terrain/layout/decorations. "We" have been so focused on trying to offer the right/natural diet, but until recently, we haven't bothered worrying about getting the environment correct, so no one has had any real success either way, which is why the debate continues.

Obviously, this is old hat to most of us, and a lot of this is preaching to the choir.

The key that while we can never replicate their diet, we can do decent bit in replicating their natural habitat and bringing out their natural foraging/hunting behaviors. When we've gotten the habitat nailed down, and the foundation for a healthy monitor, the diet is IMHO a little flexible.

As much as I hate to compare Varanids with snakes, I have to say this..

In the wild the genus Thamnophis (Garter snakes) do not eat mice, by nature they eat mostly toads, frogs, newts, earthworms, fish and tadpoles.

This is not impossible, or really even all that difficult to replicate in captivity.. However since most amphibians are loaded with parasites, as they are the intermediate host to several species of multi cell parasites (worms) it is unwise to offer this "natural" diet.

So myself and virtually all of the dedicated Thamnophis keepers & breeders have turned to mice as the prey of choice to feed their garter snakes.

We have all had great success breeding for generations and have had nice long lifespans with our captive animals on a rodent diet.

I do not own one obese garter snake in my entire collection, and the only unnatural deaths I can attest to (aside from mistakes) occurred when I tried to offer fish that I bought from the store that was treated with phosphates or fish species that contained thiaminase.

The point behind what I just said is this.. we often do more harm than good trying to deviate from methods that work, in other words if everyone else is producing robust healthy animals on mice, and I killed snakes offering fish, then what is the logical course of action???

Feed them mice and be happy that may animals are healthy.

[KORBIN5895]

I personally will be feeding my sav hot dogs as they have everything in them; meat , gristle, organs, cartilage, bone, worms and rodents. What more could you ask for?

[BarelyBreathing]

Originally Posted by KORBIN5895

I personally will be feeding my sav hot dogs as they have everything in them; meat , gristle, organs, cartilage, bone, worms and rodents. What more could you ask for?

Uhhhhh..................

[Toronto1977]

Originally Posted by KORBIN5895

I personally will be feeding my sav hot dogs as they have everything in them; meat , gristle, organs, cartilage, bone, worms and rodents. What more could you ask for?

That seriously made me laugh out loud LOL.

[CDN_Blood]

Ha! Laugh all you want but one of my Savannah's absolute favourite foods was chicken wieners and I bought them just for him. I believe in as much variety as possible in an adult's diet, but man-o-man he sure loved those chicken wieners and he could smell them comin'

Of course, I had a Gold Tegu who's favourite food was cheese. I discovered that one fine day while *trying* to prepare myself a grilled cheese while he was perched on my shoulder. He was on that stuff like stink on an Adam Sandler movie. He just went gaga for it, but it's not something you can give them often at all, for obvious reasons.

Did I have weird lizards? Perhaps

[BarelyBreathing]

Dairy is very very very very very bad for reptiles.....

[CDN_Blood]

Originally Posted by BarelyBreathing

Dairy is very very very very very bad for reptiles.....

You stick *your* hand in front of a big Gold Tegu and try to pry it out of his mouth

[BarelyBreathing]

Oh, I have done worse.

[mo9e64]

humans are the best example of going against nature,being self contained with the ability to have a diet which isn't natural in all areas of the world but has the ability to give us longer lives.We can go back to having just nature provide for us but wasn't our lifespans considerably shorter then.Duplicating nature isn't a good argument,duplicating the good things in nature is.And since nature can't provide the best conditions all the time everywhere,is it possible that giving rodents to an animal that doesn't normally eat them,just creating an environment nature could create if condition were optimal?

[jarich]

Ok I think we can now safely say that the analogy part of this thread is breaking down. (Good grief Moe, you dont think our present diet is what makes us live longer, do you? Maybe Im reading that wrong) Also, I think we need to be careful of any individual experiences being 'proof', especially without understanding the parameters of the example. For instance, the fact that one person fed a foolish food to a monitor and it didnt die (surprisingly) isnt proof of anything except getting lucky and dodging a bullet.

I also think we should stop pointing to the extremes of the other sides of the argument. No one is suggesting in this thread feeding all mice (I hope) and no one is suggesting in this thread just feeding one single species of invert (again, I hope not). What we are discussing is the relatively small difference between feeding a varied invert diet and feeding a mix of inverts and mice. So lets get back to the science of nutrition.

I think it can pretty conclusively be shown that the vitamin and mineral differences between a varied invert diet and a mix of inverts and rodents is inconsequential. Both also provide plenty of water content and more than enough protein content. Which essentially leaves us with a difference in lipids, both in quantity and quality. Mice are mostly saturated fats and inverts are mostly unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

What we know is that fat is an easy and plentiful source of energy for monitors and a highly prized food source for that reason. Not surprising given the competition for food in the wild, and how much energy has to be expended to get it normally. This is something that obviously is a positive increase in caloric availability to captive monitors with either diet (they expend no energy getting it), but most especially with mice that are high in fat. I would argue that this isnt required necessarily, but I cant see it being problematic at a young age either. The only incident where this could become problematic, in my opinion, is when discussing the long term effects to older monitors of a diet high in saturated fats. Again, I dont think that feeding a mouse a week means you are feeding a diet high in saturated fats, and so far no one has studied what levels of saturated fats may or may not be problematic to monitors. There does seem to be increasing conjectural evidence though that a high saturated fat diet is a problem when their metabolism drops (ie poor husbandry and old age).

What I think this means is simple. Whenever possible, breed your own feed. Breed your roaches, crickets, worms, crayfish, etc with the right nutritious food for each and they become much more nutritious food sources for your monitors. The same is true for mice. Feed them lower fat rodent diets (not dog food) and they will be a lower fat, healthier food source. Food doesnt need to be available for mice 24/7 either, like other mammals they can be fed once a day. Heck, give them one of those stupid little wheel things in their cage for exercise; it cant hurt. My hope is that this continual discussion will increase our awareness of the feeders themselves (and what we feed them), and thus increase nutritional content no matter the diet chosen.

[mo9e64]

Jarich, i have gotten good results from feeding my baby monitors crickets fed crushed dog food and dusting them,they developed properly with no problems.I respect your opinion but personally believe husbandry first then diet.Diet to me means feeding the appropriate type of whole prey at proper quantities dependent of conditions.Vertebrates to larger monitors with a bit of inverts,and for smaller monitors mostly invert with the occasional vertebrate.Dust inverts for margin for error.Too me this is as complicated as it needs to be for newbies till they get their conditions right and an understanding of their monitors.

[jarich]

I, and I hope everybody else, understands that obviously habitat conditions come first. This is a thread about diet however, so lets stick to the diet and stop using the husbandry cop out. Im confused as to why we are so willing to be so specific with people about their husbandry and then just go with whats simplest for food. Its not hard to feed the feeders properly, and its obvious that makes for a healthier feeder. Why go through all the effort of setting them up properly in their habitat but then not bother with the minimal extra effort to give them the best food source, Moe? These animals can survive on garbage, but that doesnt mean we should feed it to them. Instead, we want to provide whats best for them nutritionally. Its not difficult to feed your crickets the fresh vegetable scraps from your kitchen, or even buy them some green beans, squash, kale, etc. Nor is it hard to grow crickets and roaches and worms instead of just crickets. So if you are such a proponent of meeting their best habitat needs (and we should be) then why not be a proponent of meeting their best nutritional needs too?

Again, I have no problem with your mix of inverts and mice, the issue I see here is the use of only one type of invert and an improper food source given to those inverts.