feeder lizards/geckos

[Aanayab1]

I am looking in to using small lizards/geckos as feeders for my group of ackies. I have learned that it is part of their natural diet so I would like to find some information and/or first hand experience, opinions and debates on the topic. Please keep in mind I do not wish to read or care for any thing pertaining to morals or ethics of the practice. This is strictly for the health of my monitors. Their diet currently includes crickets, beetles, dubia, orange head and baby hissing roaches, ground fuzzies and grasshoppers/locusts. I would like to add more diversity and prefer it be as close to their natural diet as possible.

Things I'm concerned with are:

1) parasites and parasite control

2) which species

3) breed a supply or wild catch

4) how often to feed

And so on

[poison123]

Try leopard geckos. There are plenty of cbb ones to go around

[infernalis]

I would steer away from any Anoles sold by any sort of dealers. They are full of parasites and disease.

[smy_749]

The prices you could get wholesale CBB leopard geckos for is probably not far off the house gecko/anole prices, if you purchased enough of them. :-P

[monitorlizard]

If it's for their health they are better without them in my opinion.
They cost more then feeder prey items and are more likely to carry disease and parasites that could be spread to your ackies.

[Pirarucu]

Originally Posted by poison123

Try leopard geckos. There are plenty of cbb ones to go around

This. Baby Bearded Dragons too, there's even more of those to go around. Just contact some breeders and ask for any dud eggs, dead babies, or surplus babies if they'll give them to you.

[smy_749]

What about corn snakes? They may be even cheaper than beardies no?

[Pirarucu]

Originally Posted by smy_749

What about corn snakes? They may be even cheaper than beardies no?

Yep. Ask breeders for any dead or deformed babies. Heck, at most reptile shows where venomous animals are sold, there will be large bins of baby corns for King Cobra food.

[Aanayab1]

Thank you infernalis and monitorlizard for the useful information. Should I assume the house geckos option is the same?

[monitorlizard]

Originally Posted by Aanayab1

Thank you infernalis and monitorlizard for the useful information. Should I assume the house geckos option is the same?

That they could have parasites? Yes they are mostly wild-caught so they are more likely to be exposed.

[infernalis]

My feelings are this, a big bag of pinkies is cheaper, cleaner, parasite free, risk free, and goes a long way.

Any lizard eating reptiles that I own are rodent trained.

[Freebody]

Originally Posted by infernalis

My feelings are this, a big bag of pinkies is cheaper, cleaner, parasite free, risk free, and goes a long way.

Any lizard eating reptiles that I own are rodent trained.

this is what I was thinking when I first read the post, if I had some regular morph beardies that had a clutch every year, I could see myself tossing them in just to be rid of the babies, but it would be pretty costly to go buy lizards, and being how I personally don't see either one being more or less nutritious than the other as far as feeders, I would just do pinkies.

[jarich]

The other worry is that the stressed out anoles sold in large cheap quantities like that can also carry mites. I would hate to get mites through my collection for the sake of the feeder prey.

[murrindindi]

Pinky mice are NOT very nutritious for feeding to Varanids, fuzzies are much better (and larger, if the monitor can take them)!

[Aanayab1]

Thank you all for the responses. I will be sticking to the ground fuzzies until they are large enough to change to whole. The parasite risk and nutritional equivalence does not seem to have any pay off is what I have gathered. Again thank you for helping me.