V.Gilleni diet questions

[cris]

I recently got some little pygmy mulga monitors and was wondering what food is best for them.

From what i have read their natural diet consists mainly of geckos, is that true? if so what sort of aprrox. percentage of their food intake would they make up?

I have plenty of thawed AHG's available would they be good for food?
Also how much fish can they eat?
Am i better off giving them a diet higher in vertebrates or doesnt it make any differance?

[MrSpike]

Mine love spiders the best buy far. My 2 mainly live off crickets, woodies and spiders. Soon they will be getting meats when they are a bit larger.

Kane

[dragons75]

Pm Sdaji he wrot a great article on them in reps aus mag a while back

[cris]

Currently im feeding mine as much meat(chicken,turkey,rat,fish etc.) as they eat during the day and then giving them a few inverts to eat early in the night(spiders, moths roaches etc.)

I have no knowledge of their wild habits beyong limited reading but i would imagine they would eat a fair amount of geckos(mainly tails) from the start, does that sound right?

[grimbeny]

In rept. Aust. mag. Sdaji wrote that he feeds his on about 80 roaches. I feed my ackies roaches 6 days and on the seventh they get cut up bits of pinkie mice.

[Sdaji]

That's 80% 'roaches, not 80 roaches

I'm not aware of any studies which have been done on the diets of wild Varanus gilleni. I have little doubt that it varies massively across their range and from season to season. They're often found in habitats shared by lots of large spiders and/or lots of geckoes and I have no doubt they are very keen to eat as many of both as they can get hold of. For a variety of reasons I personally like to feed them mostly invertebrates, but it is quite possible that they'd thrive just as well on a diet of mostly geckoes. My results have been nothing short of spectacular, so basing their diet on vertebrates is certainly not necessary.

[richardsc]

go the bugs,feeding gecks is risky and poor geckos,lol,they thrive on invertebrates,maybe give them the odd pinky if there big enough

[cris]

What are the risks of feeding them thawed geckos?

PS. thanks for the repiles guys

[SLACkra]

mine eat mainly roaches but the small ones a bit finicky so he gets spiders and moths when i can find them. they have both eaten chicken on the one ocation i offered it to them(dusted with supplements) and it did them no harm. it was actually left over roast chicken which i was using to scent some roaches as an attempt to get the smaller of the two to like roaches a bit more.

Andrew

[richardsc]

thawed is a different story,but why feed geckos and is that legal,im saying if it was me i wouldnt use geckos to feed them,mine r happy with maily crickets and roaches,with the odd huntsman that happens to find itself in there,lol,and a little meat,how come u want to feed them geckos,r the insects hard to supply up your way,or im guessing that u dont have to fork out for food with the gecko,s