The larger of the two is probably 20cm long.
We’ve put about 8 medium sized crickets dusted with calcium powder in the enclosure every day, as well as small amounts of minced chicken (pet grade mince, which includes chicken bones). We’ve seen the larger take the chicken mince (actually was willing to be tong-fed), but haven’t seen the smaller eat as it won’t come out of the log when we’re present.
Still too small to be sexually mature at that size but within several months it`s quite possible they will be, hence the need to provide suitable nesting sooner rather than later just in case one/both are female.
I would suggest sticking to whole prey only, no minces, lean meats, woodies are an excellent prey along with other insects (inverts), you can also offer small fuzzy mice on occasion (cut into pieces before defrosting if too big to swallow whole) the occasional fertilised quail egg (raw).
I repeat, supplements for the most part are pure guesswork (a multimillion $ world wide industry) easy to over/under do and in some cases of no benefit (such as dietary D3) which they can certainly absorb, but the concentrations vary so much and it has zero effect on blood serum levels, which makes it of no real benefit whatsoever according to published scientific studies, hence the use of real/artificial UVB exposure which can benefit them greatly, especially as I mentioned, if the species takes a large % of invert prey as this does (and they do very well on that type of diet).
Make sure you provide lots of cover, particularly around the basking site and feeding area, at least until they are fully acclimated to the enclosure...
If you`re interested I can try and get a link (or at least the title) of one of the studies regarding dietary D3.
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I'm not saying they spend 12 hours constantly sitting in the hottest basking spot they can find. Yes, that would obviously kill them, but if you are standing in a place where they naturally live, during the day, you would often say '**** me, it's scorching hot and bone dry'. It's a very different environment from a rainforest or riparian mossy place. They live in rocky outcrops, I've seen them in deserts, you'll never find one in a wet environment.
To say the supplements are of no benefit is ridiculous. I've experimented with UV and supplements (with and without in all combinations) with insectivorous reptiles including small monitors, skinks, etc. With UV and without supplements, there were problems. Without UV and without supplements there was no difference. With supplements there were never any problems, and UV made no difference.
Obviously I don't have comprehensive blood data, you're just being facetious, but many generations of happy healthy lizards including small monitors, as opposed to consistent developmental issues without the supplements (whether or not UV was used) surely says something, right?
And there are cases where UV causes harm to reptiles. Monitors are pretty resilient to it (not surprisingly) but some forms of artificial UV cause eye problems, and in other species skin issues. I'm yet to see any actual empirical evidence that it helps monitors, and I've literally spent many years and multiple generations keeping small monitors side by side with and without UV, it made no difference.
You can say infrared bulbs are 'acceptable' in that the lizards may survive with them, but there are cheaper and better alternatives. To you anything which keeps them alive may be 'acceptable', but if there's a cheaper and better option, why would you not chose it?
I`ll make this response quite short; I am NOT being facetious at all, I asked a perfectly reasonable question, that is please show the blood tests you`ve had done which have convinced you that species which take inverts as the most important (largest %) of prey can maintain their D3 levels without access to natural or artificial UVB, at the same time you suggest supplements should always be offered?
I also asked if you could show some photos of the "generations" of monitors you`ve bred, I think it`s great to have that much success, so many of them have failed miserably under "our" care in captivity....
In the past there have been issues with compact UVB bulbs in particular but those were mainly due to the bulb being too close to the animal, although compacts ar definitely not as effective as some other types, in part because the UVB covers such a small area.
