Adult Savannah Pick Up
- Thread starter black_sun
- Start date
Quick correction, ground turkey is reported by reputable folks to be one of the absolute worst things you can feed a sav. San Diego Zoo diet prepared EXACTLY to these specs, 2.5 lbs ground turkey, 22.5 g bone meal, .5 crushed regular centrum tablet, is an acceptable food. If you're going to feed SDZ diet, don't try to add anything (like eggs, beef liver/heart, oatmeal) and don't try to substitute (calcium powder for the bone meal, reptivite for the centrum). The original SDZ diet was designed to mimic whole prey nutritionally as-is, anything else gets the percentages off in a bad way.
The best diet for savs is said to be invertebrate prey, but keeping a couple pounds of SDZ diet in ice-cube trays in the deep freezer is never a bad idea in the event that your regular food supply gets interrupted. I have a sav that gets fed SDZ, but it is much harder to feed than insects. My monitor can eat pretty much all the insects he wants with no problems. When I'm feeding the SDZ I really have to watch his back/tail base to make sure he isn't starting to gain or lose weight.
The best diet for savs is said to be invertebrate prey, but keeping a couple pounds of SDZ diet in ice-cube trays in the deep freezer is never a bad idea in the event that your regular food supply gets interrupted. I have a sav that gets fed SDZ, but it is much harder to feed than insects. My monitor can eat pretty much all the insects he wants with no problems. When I'm feeding the SDZ I really have to watch his back/tail base to make sure he isn't starting to gain or lose weight.
Agreed, it just rips my heart apart knowing that all those savs are doomed to live short lives. On a similar note, I LOVE seeing good videos of well cared for savs.
This is true for young specimens but not for adults. Of course varied diet also but not mice..
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Inverts are the best food for any sized Sav.. Unlike most other monitors, they are strict insectivores in the wild, and just looking at the design of their skull makes it obvious it's meant for crushing through shells, not ripping and tearing meat.
Tell that to my hoodie sleeve that he just shredded...
No, but he's starting to act hungry so I think we're going to try a crayfish shortly, and some roaches that I picked up. This will be the first test to see if Albert will take other foods easily or if he's going to be a pain.
LOL, I never said they couldn't shred things up, just that they aren't designed to be as good at it as other monitors. Imagine what a Nile would have done, LOL!
Sounds good, let us know how it goes! If you haven't tried feeding yet, take a video!
I'll have to upload a photo of my hoodie, he decided my sleeve irritated him 0_o;; And oh dear, no. I saw someone have their hand chomped by one at the first reptile expo I went to in Hamburg. It was preceded by "Do you want to pet him, he's perfectly tame."
He's having a go at the crayfish now... he tore after it when it started walking around and now he's just dragging it around by one claw (or was, rather, last I checked). He kept watching me, so I've left him alone. I'll try for a video on the next feeding, least then I know if I spook him he's already had at least one meal before. ...not that it'd hurt him to miss a meal or two, hah.
LOL do it, it'd be funny to see that. It's funny how smarter animals decide that they just don't like some things.
Yeah, some of them can want to be alone when they eat, but they generally overcome that very quickly.
Here's my sleeve:
I was actually kind of impressed that he left holes/tears in it, it's not a thin hoodie. But he's welcome to hate it for whatever reason he has, better the hoodie than my hand.
And he got another small crayfish today, got some video of that. He crunched it up pretty quick, and looked around the tub for more. And yes, I feed him in the tub... I don't have an spare empty tank that's big enough to be a feeding tank for him and I don't feed my monitors or tegu in their own cages. Don't need them looking at my hands everytime thinking "oo, food!" lol. I actually wanted to try something with Albert and Jayne (my tegu), I saw a special on a Komodo Dragon in a zoo where the keeper only fed him in one area and only with orange gloves on. He associated those two things with food, and was rarely aggressive or food seeking any other time than when he saw orange gloves or was in that feeding area. I want to see if I can train my two flesh-eaters the same way, haha.
[video=youtube;aZrsTRpwlU8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrsTRpwlU8[/video]
