whole shrimp

[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.

[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.

[savbill]

Originally Posted by infernalis

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.

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.

Again, I'm trying to exercise some restraint of pen, so a lot of this I can't necessarily respond to without being more pointed than I'd care to be on a forum.

I also don't want to get into anything about my conversations with Daniel so as to respect personal communications. What I will say is that your quote from him is interesting on two levels.

One, he said a number of times publicly, on various forums, that Bok gears toward a specific diet, one that excludes mammals, and is not opportunistic as other species of monitor are. That's not something I'm concocting or making up in my head, it's on numerous forums.

Second, unless I'm reading the quote below incorrectly, as well as every email or forum post we've ever exchanged, he and I have the same intention.

I fully agree it's complicated for a new/young/poor/inexperienced keeper to shy away from feeder rodents as sole nutritional source, and that the focus should more importantly be elsewhere.

Part of the problem is that instead of using the information as an overall direction to aim in to provide better overall care to the animals, a lot of people on forums would latch onto one or two things and use them as ammunition in some grand war against other people on forums. That was never the intention of the site. People took things out of focus and I was accused offline of having an "anti-rodent vendetta" or something, which really perplexed me to no end. It wasn't about the rodents, it was about the dead monitors.

The other problem is the difficulty of the undertaking. There was just too much information out there about the 40 gallon screen topped fish tank and repti-carpet to gain any ground. If presenting the data about the lack of mammals in wild Sav diet would, among many other pieces of info on the site, cause a new/young/poor/inexperienced keeper to stop and think for a moment about what's going on and what they're doing, it could have a positive result for a monitor.

Originally Posted by infernalis

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

There are at least three or four prominent keepers I can think of off the top of my head who loudly condemned the idea of feeding Savs any other items than rodents, who owned lucrative feeder businesses. My only point was to ask if what people are saying has anything to do with their financial gain from the pet industry.

Maybe that's where people incorrectly deduced I have some weird vendetta? I honestly couldn't care less, it's not about conspiracy theory, it's about watching what information you rely on, and where it's coming from.

Hope that helps.
Bill