further discussion on monitor diet & feeding habits
- Thread starter Ophiuchus
- Start date
Indeed....but some don't realize that, and thats the whole point. Just trying to enlighten the masses one noob at a time.
For now, I suppose so. But in another couple weeks, there could be some ignorant rube that arrives and needs to see the light, and the can of worms could opened once again.
well we will just send them back to this thread,lol.i think the best thing for newbies when they get out of hand is the mods to pm them and break it all down.Nicely that is but some ppl just dont see herps the same as cats and dogs as far as caring for them as an animal.We here for the most part try to work together to find whats best for our pets.its hard to not get in battles on here but we dont realy know eachother we could let some deadbeat realy ruin our day if we let them.glad you guys seem cool now.
I feel the need to chime in now. First of all Daniel Bennett is a great Researcher, and he is one of the few people that have dealt with and studied varanids in the wild full time. He has done great research on savannahs and most recently the Butaan monitor, but if you ask him how much experience he has in captive care on monitor lizards hell laugh and say close to none. The whole thing on the gorging issue applies to all animals that live in harsh places on this earth. We can apply this all across the board from reptiles, to mammals, to insects, to birds etc.... its just the reality of it. A tree monitor that lives in the middle of jungle will have much more success in finding prey than a savannah monitor. Thats just obvious due to the places in which they live, hence one being able to store fat and have large periods of inactivity and survive due to that adaptation, dont feed a tree monitor for 2 months and it will be dead in 2 weeks, know what I am saying. I mocked that it was a disease because you called it a disorder when it fact its a survival tactic, I knew that already and I mentioned it in previous posts, you probably didnt catch it. Glad you found that out through your research. I have had conversations with Daniel and his staff, I was there for the book signing of his savannah monitor book, I have spoken to him when he visited other varanophiles homes, and hes stated that he knows little about the captive husbandry of these animals, hes also gone on to note that he has learned many things by visiting some of these facilities, and by learning things such as bonding patterns, clutchmate groups that go on to live peaceful group lives, muliclutching etc.... hes gone on to apply these things to his wild subjects.
You fail to understand that monitors and reptiles in general are very good at adapting, they have lived here for a very long time and have become quite good at dealing with changing conditions. Captivity just happens to be another one. If kept correctly they adjust, they multiclutch, the live longer, they adapt to different foods, they display behaviors they would never display in the wild, such as living in coherent peace in groups, in pairs, etc... , but to see these things, for a long period of time and with consistancy, there must be good conditions in place in order to be able to witness all of these things. All that starts with correct housing, followed by the right tempature gradients, from the hottest spot to the coolest, the right resources to keep the animal from getting fat and keep it from becoming lathargic and overweight, and that will include deep substrate, logs, water bowls, sheets of plywood, branches etc.... All these things need to be kept in mind and then the cage should be built accordingly. This is where reading papers and journals takes into affect, how big does the animal get, how much swimming does it do, how much time does it spend in trees, how about underground? Thats why we read these papers, and then thats why we listen to people such as frank, joe lewis, Bernd Eidenmueller, etc etc etc who have the experience of producing these animals in captivity. They dont look dont look into stomach contents and the indeginous snail that one animals will eat as a large percentage of its diet. Or how one animals specializes in hunting tree frogs in the forests of indonesia. They look at the fact that they eat whole prey items, and inverts, thats the key point. They do so to be able to help with the upkeep of a growing body that uses up alot of calcium, as youngsters they have to eat whole food prety items to support a rapidly growing skeletal system. A young healthy monintor will double in size its first 6 months and will reach sexual maturity in 1 year if conditions and diet are correct. Do you think that by just simply eating inverts and snails a skeletal system will have the right amounts of calcium to support this growth? Cycling females need copius amounts of clacium to support the 8-32 eggs monitors lay. Again whole food prey items are needed.
Its common sense we cant recreate what the wilds of western africa can offer a savannah monitor, but mice work as a full prey item rather than guinea fowl, african field mice, smaller agamids etc..... but you need to look at your argument too, the invert contents of savannah monitors there deal with snails etc.... you cant recreate that either with domestic crickets and mealworms, that by the way are fed man made products such as the mice themselves. How much more of a difference is there? Young monitors need to be fed daily, thats a given, what they eat can vary, it doesnt have to be a mouse every day or crickets every day, I never argued that. I in fact stated that I only feed mice 2-3 X a week given the species I might feed more, others I feed more crickets. I have other species here that specialize in different prey items in their native habitats, and they have adjusted quite well to the diet that is given to them in captivity mice, chicks, and crickets. Have a look at all my pictures and check for yourself to see if any or my animals would be deemed overweight. I cant stress enough how important conditions are to the health of your animal, conditions again are provided by you. If your animal is fat its because you dropped the ball, its sneezing you again are the only one to blame, its claws grow crooked because of a lack of digging and deep substrate, your fault again, its hip bones start showing, hydrate, how simple is all of this really, its just about listening to what your animals are telling you through body language and lack of or amounts full of one behavior or another.
Cheers
You fail to understand that monitors and reptiles in general are very good at adapting, they have lived here for a very long time and have become quite good at dealing with changing conditions. Captivity just happens to be another one. If kept correctly they adjust, they multiclutch, the live longer, they adapt to different foods, they display behaviors they would never display in the wild, such as living in coherent peace in groups, in pairs, etc... , but to see these things, for a long period of time and with consistancy, there must be good conditions in place in order to be able to witness all of these things. All that starts with correct housing, followed by the right tempature gradients, from the hottest spot to the coolest, the right resources to keep the animal from getting fat and keep it from becoming lathargic and overweight, and that will include deep substrate, logs, water bowls, sheets of plywood, branches etc.... All these things need to be kept in mind and then the cage should be built accordingly. This is where reading papers and journals takes into affect, how big does the animal get, how much swimming does it do, how much time does it spend in trees, how about underground? Thats why we read these papers, and then thats why we listen to people such as frank, joe lewis, Bernd Eidenmueller, etc etc etc who have the experience of producing these animals in captivity. They dont look dont look into stomach contents and the indeginous snail that one animals will eat as a large percentage of its diet. Or how one animals specializes in hunting tree frogs in the forests of indonesia. They look at the fact that they eat whole prey items, and inverts, thats the key point. They do so to be able to help with the upkeep of a growing body that uses up alot of calcium, as youngsters they have to eat whole food prety items to support a rapidly growing skeletal system. A young healthy monintor will double in size its first 6 months and will reach sexual maturity in 1 year if conditions and diet are correct. Do you think that by just simply eating inverts and snails a skeletal system will have the right amounts of calcium to support this growth? Cycling females need copius amounts of clacium to support the 8-32 eggs monitors lay. Again whole food prey items are needed.
Its common sense we cant recreate what the wilds of western africa can offer a savannah monitor, but mice work as a full prey item rather than guinea fowl, african field mice, smaller agamids etc..... but you need to look at your argument too, the invert contents of savannah monitors there deal with snails etc.... you cant recreate that either with domestic crickets and mealworms, that by the way are fed man made products such as the mice themselves. How much more of a difference is there? Young monitors need to be fed daily, thats a given, what they eat can vary, it doesnt have to be a mouse every day or crickets every day, I never argued that. I in fact stated that I only feed mice 2-3 X a week given the species I might feed more, others I feed more crickets. I have other species here that specialize in different prey items in their native habitats, and they have adjusted quite well to the diet that is given to them in captivity mice, chicks, and crickets. Have a look at all my pictures and check for yourself to see if any or my animals would be deemed overweight. I cant stress enough how important conditions are to the health of your animal, conditions again are provided by you. If your animal is fat its because you dropped the ball, its sneezing you again are the only one to blame, its claws grow crooked because of a lack of digging and deep substrate, your fault again, its hip bones start showing, hydrate, how simple is all of this really, its just about listening to what your animals are telling you through body language and lack of or amounts full of one behavior or another.
Cheers
hey v i get picked on when i type like that!You forgot to ad some of my trade mark run on sentences.One time i thought long and hard and typed the longest post ever and hit the back page thinking i could go forward again right back to wher i was.Nope,it deleted the entire thing before i could post it.
jason longboard;1269441; said:
Thanks for the correction on how to type a paragraph. Ill fix it for you, so its not so hard on the eyes. Thats a great observation to make in hindsight of all the information that was given. Maybe it would be best to focus on what was written, rather than the way it was done, I think there is more info in there about reptiles than 10th grade english composition skills.
