whole shrimp

[reptile man]

is that ok to use as a staple along with his worms /dubias and crickets

[infernalis]

Yes, and a mice/rats and baby bunnies / chicks are all awesome foods.

[reptile man]

Originally Posted by infernalis

Yes, and a mice/rats and baby bunnies / chicks are all awesome foods.

ok thanks wayne

[infernalis]

The biggest growth spurt I saw was right after they started eating mice.

[reptile man]

is cray fish good to

[infernalis]

crayfish are excellent...

[jarich]

Just wanted to make you guys aware of a possible issue. If you are going to be feeding shrimp apparently the same rules apply regarding keeping it a part of a varied diet, like feeder fish. Ive been reading up more on thiaminase and apparently a number of species of shrimp commonly sold (Penneus sp.) have incredibly high amounts of it. As you get most of this stuff frozen, it means the enzyme has even longer to work on the thiamine before it gets to you.

Again, if its part of a varied diet it doesn't seem like it should be a problem. (Thiaminase is eventually broken down during digestion, so has no cumulative effects on thiamine levels beyond that in the food it comes in contact with.) There is also a relatively cheap liquid vitamin that you can inject into the shrimp to alleviate the problem. Crayfish seem to not have this issue, especially as you most often get them live.

[fuzzhc]

Originally Posted by infernalis

Yes, and a mice/rats and baby bunnies / chicks are all awesome foods.

I too have been feeding alot of rodents to my bosc and yesterday his first chick which he practically flew for.

Today though I came across this site saying that rodents are a bad idea.

Rodents | The Savannah Monitor, Varanus exanthematicus

[jarich]

*tip toes lightly into the discussion*

That first sentence is definitely the kicker. Its a controversial topic on many forums, the feeding of rodents. Generally though, the consensus seems to be that feeding some rodents is good, but feeding just rodents has the potential to cause problems. There are repeated arguments on every reptile forum Ive ever seen about how much they eat them in the wild or even why thats applicable. In fact, Ive been in more than a few of them I was very much a proponent of the idea that they should not be fed rodents. After researching it so much my eyes started to go buggy, Ive come to the conclusion that some rodents as part of a balanced diet can be good, an all rodent diet is probably not the best thing to do for the long term health of the animal.

For whatever reason, it appears that Boscs do not normally consume many saturated fats, instead consuming a diet high in unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. What we know of comparative biology shows us that animals that consume diets low in saturated fats, that then are fed a lot of saturated fats, end up with chronic health issues later on as a result. Rodents contain a relatively high amount of saturated fats, and a low amount of unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Invertebrates contain mostly unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

Further, the health and metabolism of the monitor is a factor. If kept in good conditions (appropriate heat, humidity, etc) then the processing of some of these saturated fats, especially at a young age, does not seem problematic. However, if the monitor is not kept in these conditions and/or under-metabolized, then the saturated fats are a problem.

And in fact there is much to be gained by the feeding of some rodents. Rodents that are old enough to have their bones calcified have an good Ca:P ratio, which is important to note when many insects do not. They also are very high in Vit A and E, two vitamins that are incredibly important and sometimes overlooked (everybody knows to dust with calcium and Vit D3, but not everybody knows the Vit A and E content of the insects they feed). There are also certain situations where all that fat can be a good thing. Females cycling eggs have to have an incredible amount of food to metabolize to keep up with that production. Rodents contain a lot more calories generally than insects, in one package.

Bottom line is that if your monitor is healthy and able to metabolize properly (ie youve made a good enclosure for it and set it up right), then feeding rodents as part of a complete diet is fine. Though there are still some that may disagree, I would say that feeding Boscs exclusively or mostly rodents is a poor diet choice over the long term.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by fuzzhc

I too have been feeding alot of rodents to my bosc and yesterday his first chick which he practically flew for.

Today though I came across this site saying that rodents are a bad idea.

Rodents | The Savannah Monitor, Varanus exanthematicus

Although that site has some sound information, the rodent debate is one place where Bill and I will not see eye to eye.

[fuzzhc]

Cool thanks for the explanation, it helped me understand the reasoning behind the diet alot more.
Mines is currently taking 2 smalls or 1 medium daily along with the locusts, fruit beetles, worms, shrimp etc. Think I may drop them to every other day then and maybe a chick every couple of weeks. Might try with crickets again also but he never really bothered with them in the past.

In saying that he does prefer his mice over anything but hel just need to do with less lol

[jarich]

Ya, once they hit a certain size they usually stop bothering with crickets and other small bugs.

A lot of them do really love mice, and it makes sense. Its a lot of calories in one package, something theyre evolved to seek out like a radar. For that matter so are we. There is a reason butter and bacon taste so very good to humans, for example (no Im not comparing the nutritional value of rodents to bacon, merely the comparative desire to go after these various high calorie/fat items first and why people and monitors find them 'tasty')

[Pirarucu]

Neat, I didn't know sav.org was back up yet.

As for the rodents/no rodents debate, I think it's agreed on that feeding nothing but rodents is a bad idea, but I believe some rodents in the diet are not a problem and are beneficial. I also believe that temps and dirt alone are not enough to keep them thin on a largely rodent diet, unless you are really cutting back on their intake. They need space to run around and work off those calories too, especially once they have stopped growing. Heat does not just make the fats disappear, it just allows the monitor to process them. They are still there though, and need to be burned up somehow. As a juvenile, energy is burned very quickly by the monitor's continually growing body. Once they reach adulthood that stops, and they need to be burned another way. One way would obviously be by breeding, especially in the case of females. But unless they are breeding all the time and/or have space to run and climb and dig and swim, I believe that they will grow fat even with proper temperatures. Someday I would like to set up some trial groups of Savannah Monitors, and see what really works best..

[savbill]

Originally Posted by infernalis

Although that site has some sound information, the rodent debate is one place where Bill and I will not see eye to eye.

Excuse my late reply, I've been out of town.

I pulled the sav.org site 13 months ago due to lack of time available to update it, and having put it back a few weeks ago I feel I should point out some bits of reality.

When I created the site in early 2009, there were zero resources available on the Internet talking about this type of monitor care in an easily digestible format. Daniel's Mampam site had no captive care information, Bob Mendyk's tree monitor site was long gone. Everyone who knew anything about monitors was hiding on varanus.nl except Dave Kirshner, who was singlehandedly making the uphill climb on forums trying to talk sense into people.

The most linked to information about Savs in specific was Melissa Kaplan's idiotic care sheet which recommended feeding "high quality dog food". The forums were full of loads and loads of nearly identical threads: the standard aquarium with that carpet or repti-bark, an 80F basking spot, the keeper pounding thawed rats into some barely-mobile overweight half-dehydrated monitor, and 10-15 people chiming in to say how awesome it all was.

From lurking about the past few weeks, it seems that type of thing has teetered over the half mark so it's becoming the minority rather than the rule. I'd like to be modest but I feel from looking at the insane web traffic still linking to sav.org that the site had a part in that.

I'm very surprised at how things have changed in the year sav.org was gone. It's fascinating to me there is now something called the "rat debate". This is profound because when the sav.org site was created, there was no debate, there were only forums full of dead monitors.

At this point I'll exercise some restraint of pen and refrain from going deeper, but it should suffice to say this is all a long way of saying that any dismissive tone toward the sav.org site as "that site" having "some" sound information is wholly unwarranted.

Thanks,
Bill

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by savbill

At this point I'll exercise some restraint of pen and refrain from going deeper, but it should suffice to say this is all a long way of saying that any dismissive tone toward the sav.org site as "that site" having "some" sound information is wholly unwarranted.

Thanks,
Bill

I am sorry if you feel that "That site" sounded like a dig. It's not...

Isn't "some sound information" far more optimistic that saying "some less than sound information"??

And as far as "dismissive tone" the fact remains that mice alone do NOT kill Savannah monitors.

No one is sure the origins of the idea to feed mammals to an invertebrate feeder, but it’s evident today that the few loud, dominant proponents of an all-rodent feeding regimen actually own lucrative frozen rodent feeder businesses.

I was not aware that anyone I gathered information from breeds or sells mice.

The fact is Mice did not kill Chomper, he was fed mainly inverts. Granted mice would not have saved him either.. A properly sealed cage with burrowing soil would have.

By applying the very same husbandry that I endorse (including rodents in the diet) I now have two Savannah Monitors that are nearly identical in body structure to wild specimens. with energy levels through the roof as well.

Originally Posted by bodiddleyitis

I'm not comfortable with the dietary recommendations on that website, I honestly think giving "invertebrate only" advice to young, poor, novice keepers will cause more harm than good. The emphasis needs to be deep substrate and adequate thermal spectrum and humidity. This "no rodents" stuff is distracting from much more important issues. The owner of the website is aware of my concerns about this and the "selective" references and partial personal communications that are used. It is a great website but, as evidenced here and elsewhere, this rather extreme dietary position distracts from it.