A Puzzling Question

if_i_were_u · 10-20-03, 01:14 AM

I heard of an experiment that a friend of mine is doing and i would like to know everybody's opinion. My friend is gutloading crickets with colour enhancing fish flakes and feeding them to his savanna monitor and some other cricket eating lizards. And for his larger monitors he is splittling the backs of the rats he's feeding them and filling them with this fish food. I've seen some pics and some results up close and they look absolutely amazing. The main question i have is that, does anybody feel that this could have harmful side effects. Also does anybody think it would work? Thanks for reading.

Beejay · 10-20-03, 03:36 AM

So you're saying your friend's savanna monitor is eating the crix and changing colour before his eyes?

This post would have a lot more impact with photos of said colour-enhanced-fishflake-fed-cricket monitors.

Let us see the goods!

Bj

bob_thesnowman · 10-20-03, 03:42 AM

that'd be something i'd be interested in seeing!

Yness · 10-20-03, 07:33 AM

Beejay...its all about the proof with you...tho in this instance pics would be quite helpful...preferably before and after

10-20-03, 08:42 AM

I remember serpwidget did and experiement gutloading mice with I think carrots/ betacatotine and then feeding to corns to enhance to orange coloring. My thought is that it would be slow to build up levels to to point of noticible change and I would think fairly quick to lose the effect as well.

Lisa · 10-20-03, 09:23 AM

The chemicals in the fish flakes could be harmful to the monitor,but it's hard to say, you would have to have a couple test groups set up along with a control group that's not getting any fish flakes plus a second control group with fish flakes that don't enhance the colour of the animal. you should start with a small group of 10 in each group for the initial test and then for the second test you should have a large number of animals (like 100 in each group). other then the fishflakes the diets and enviroments should be exactly the same. Photos should be taken every day so you can see the changes and also show them to an unbiased group of people.

sounds expensive doesn't it?