Varanus99
12-09-2008, 08:02 AM
We have lots of tricks for getting snakes to eat. Here's one for getting lizards to eat. Particularly baby monitors but it could work on other species as well. Ive touched on this before briefly but thought Id give it a post of its own since it may have gotten lost in my ramblings. :)
Baby lizards or newly aquired wild caught lizards can sometimes be reluctant to feed. They may not want to feed in front of you. They may be too scared to come out of hiding to eat. Monitors as well as many other lizard species are programmed to hide when something bigger than they are comes along. Thats how they survive. So sometimes the hide instinct overcomes the feed instinct.
Often when an animal doesnt eat for a certain length of time we resort to assist feeding or even force feeding techniques. I hate this. I despise it. I really do. Ill do everything in my power not to ram food down a lizard's throat. Ill stand on my head and juggle oranges with my feet if thats what they want.
What I do is so simple it is to laugh. I put food under a hide. Thats it. And it works surprisingly often. I usually start baby monitors on fresh ground turkey. Reason being these little guys sometimes seem terrified of crickets. At least at first. Or, they follow the cricket around and dont quite know what to do with it. Its almost as if something in their brain hasnt quite clicked yet. They are interested in it but not sure what to do. So I start'em on turkey under a hide. And it doesnt take long before I have them on insects. Just gotta get a few meals in them get the machine going.
Giving them the choice to eat while still under cover can make all the difference. I mean think about it. Where do baby monitors get their food in the wild? Id bet anything not by wandering around out in the open. They would be dead in about a second. I bet they forage under fallen trees, in rock crevices, underground, under SOMETHING! At least until they are a bit larger. Its just too dangerous. They know that.
I recently got a runt flavi/argus and a pair of normal hatchlings. The norms fed right away. Ten minutes into their new cage they assaulted roaches. God, I love that. But Shorty (as I have named him) no go. So, I did my turkey trick under a hide. Stuck a petri dish (Thanks Larry!) with small pieces of turkey into his Retes Stack (All Hail) and left it overnight. The next day he had eaten a little bit. Gave him more, he ate a little more. Once again and this time he killed the plate and I found him flopped on top of the stack basking with a fat belly. Bingo. Offered him some roaches and he ate one with a little help from me. I had to crush the roaches head hes not strong enough to kill them himself just yet. He bashed it around for a half hour and was wearing himself out. Kept closing his eyes. I didnt want him to drop in so I reached in and pinched the head. Then he finally swallowed it. The next day he managed to catch and kill a small roach on his own. He's coming along.
But I still give him the turkey every day since he's a special case. I want that food available whenever he's hungry. And I dont like leaving live food in the cage with a weak lizard so turkey it is. Soon I will start with some chopped pinkies.
Oh, side note. When feeding hatchling monitors I wouldnt just dump a dozen crickets in there. It can freak them out. I mean one second all is quiet on the western front and then WHAMMO cricket mosh pit. I prefer to put in just a few, let them eat, a few more etc. Ive even been known to pinch the rear legs off. It keeps them from jumping makes them easier to catch.
Of course with some lizards you dont need to do any of this stuff. But for the shy guys or the weak guys it often works like a charm.
:yessir:
Baby lizards or newly aquired wild caught lizards can sometimes be reluctant to feed. They may not want to feed in front of you. They may be too scared to come out of hiding to eat. Monitors as well as many other lizard species are programmed to hide when something bigger than they are comes along. Thats how they survive. So sometimes the hide instinct overcomes the feed instinct.
Often when an animal doesnt eat for a certain length of time we resort to assist feeding or even force feeding techniques. I hate this. I despise it. I really do. Ill do everything in my power not to ram food down a lizard's throat. Ill stand on my head and juggle oranges with my feet if thats what they want.
What I do is so simple it is to laugh. I put food under a hide. Thats it. And it works surprisingly often. I usually start baby monitors on fresh ground turkey. Reason being these little guys sometimes seem terrified of crickets. At least at first. Or, they follow the cricket around and dont quite know what to do with it. Its almost as if something in their brain hasnt quite clicked yet. They are interested in it but not sure what to do. So I start'em on turkey under a hide. And it doesnt take long before I have them on insects. Just gotta get a few meals in them get the machine going.
Giving them the choice to eat while still under cover can make all the difference. I mean think about it. Where do baby monitors get their food in the wild? Id bet anything not by wandering around out in the open. They would be dead in about a second. I bet they forage under fallen trees, in rock crevices, underground, under SOMETHING! At least until they are a bit larger. Its just too dangerous. They know that.
I recently got a runt flavi/argus and a pair of normal hatchlings. The norms fed right away. Ten minutes into their new cage they assaulted roaches. God, I love that. But Shorty (as I have named him) no go. So, I did my turkey trick under a hide. Stuck a petri dish (Thanks Larry!) with small pieces of turkey into his Retes Stack (All Hail) and left it overnight. The next day he had eaten a little bit. Gave him more, he ate a little more. Once again and this time he killed the plate and I found him flopped on top of the stack basking with a fat belly. Bingo. Offered him some roaches and he ate one with a little help from me. I had to crush the roaches head hes not strong enough to kill them himself just yet. He bashed it around for a half hour and was wearing himself out. Kept closing his eyes. I didnt want him to drop in so I reached in and pinched the head. Then he finally swallowed it. The next day he managed to catch and kill a small roach on his own. He's coming along.
But I still give him the turkey every day since he's a special case. I want that food available whenever he's hungry. And I dont like leaving live food in the cage with a weak lizard so turkey it is. Soon I will start with some chopped pinkies.
Oh, side note. When feeding hatchling monitors I wouldnt just dump a dozen crickets in there. It can freak them out. I mean one second all is quiet on the western front and then WHAMMO cricket mosh pit. I prefer to put in just a few, let them eat, a few more etc. Ive even been known to pinch the rear legs off. It keeps them from jumping makes them easier to catch.
Of course with some lizards you dont need to do any of this stuff. But for the shy guys or the weak guys it often works like a charm.
:yessir: