Free monitor food!?

[julespython]

Everyday birds fly into my window and die, rats and mice turn up in my traps, small birds fall from nests in trees and die, my dog will take down a rabbit or a possum. Its seems like a waste of a good food source but all I do with these bodies is dispose of them. I would like to feed them to my lace monitors but iv been strayed away from this idea because they may contain parasites and diseases etc. but it has recently been brought to my attention that they can be put in a freezer for 30 days to destroy the life cycle of the parasites. Is this true? Once they have been heated up after the Freezing period are they okay to feed to my monitors or is there still potential problems with it? If not I I would save heaps in monitor food haha.Thanks,

 

[joelysmoley]

I would store them in the freezer for a bit longer if you wanted to use them as food, just to be sure. But i personally wouldnt risk it

 

[damian83]

I have heard of plenty of people that freeze things like pigeons etc for a few months then feed them to snakes why not monitors....

 

[Pilbarensis]

Monitors are incredibly adaptable animals, Varanus varius is no exception. They will eat anything from scraps out of a rubbish bin to road kill. In order not to risk parasites and such, yeah - freeze the food items for roughly 60+ days I'd say and you'd be good to go. Diet diversity is key with monitors, new food items every now and again will not only feed them but also stimulate them. As long as the food supplied is suitable (recently killed animals not killed through use of toxins and such) then have a go.

 

[TheReptileben]

just out of curiosity do monitors need veggies?

 

[Pilbarensis]

No, and monitors shouldn't be fed greens. All Australian varanids are strictly carnivores.

 

[GeckoJosh]

Parasites can be killed from freezing but it wont do a thing about poisons that they may have ingested.

 

[sd1981]

Noooooooooo, don't do it!!!!

 

[Chris]

Personally i think that you shouldn't be keeping lace monitors if you need to look for ways of reducing their food bill. There's enough of a variety of frozen, quality bred food available to us that the need to freeze road kill just isn't there.

 

[sd1981]

Chri5 hit the nail right on the head.... And he put it much more eloquently than I did before I self edited my comment....