Chemo therapy over at last. Bosc question please

[Marion]

Hi all'
Long time no post. I have finally finished my chemotherapy sessions and am looking forward to a cancer free 2014. I hope the ladies on the forum have all had their mammograms?

I still have my two giant bosc monitors and am wondering how much I should be feeding them.

I feed them twice a week now but they are two little piggies!! Especially Lily, my female. She is a real pig when it comes to food and she weighs a ton! She has always been a big girl but I think she needs to slim down a bit.

They eat chicken hearts, necks, gizzards and feet plus the odd parktown prawn and now and again some rat pups. I also give them boiled eggs on occasion, leaving the shells on the eggs pieces. They have extremely good appetites and can eat a whole punnet of hearts between them per meal. This is about 20+ hearts each. I am now limiting the food a bit but they are always hungry.

They are in an outside enclosure with plenty of space to move around in and sometimes drag their big butts up the side of the enclosure fence. This terrifies me in case they fall - but they never do.

I am going to redo the whole enclosure in the next month or so and make a portion of it into a deep soil pit. I have a feeling Lily may be ovulating but I know they won't lay eggs unless the soil is ideal and deep enough. She has a distinct triangular shape which Louis doesn't have.

Any hints regarding food portions would be much appreciated.

Oh..... Happy New year to all. May 2014 bring you everything you wish for.

Marion

[Bushbaby]

Welcome back!! Wishing you a good 2014 as well.

I unfortunately cannot give you advise on the Bosc Monitors though, but maybe try day old chicks? They might be a bit more filling and you can give less, but more often? Good luck!

[slayer]

First and foremost feed them LOTS of bugs. Savs are naturally insectivores that DO NOT naturally prey on vertebrates in the wild and this should be replicated as much as possible in captivity. Common feeder invertebrates include:Crickets, Super Worms, Roaches, Locust ,Silk worms, Crabs, Shrimp, Crayfish, Mussels, Snails, The list can go on and on.....
With invertebrates as the base/bulk of your Savs healthy diet you can also feed on occasion:Snakes, Lizards, Fertile reptile/bird eggs, rodents, birds, etc...etc....
The main thing to remember here is feed WHOLE PREY. No cuts of beef or chicken. No canned diets. Just feed whole animals with guts, exoskeletons, feathers, fur, teeth and bones and you can't go wrong. Juveniles should be fed as much as they want everyday while adults should be fed according to their weight. You should always be able to see your Savs lateral fold.

Heres a cool fied study on Savannah monitor dietary choices
LISSE,M. Bulletin de L'insitute Fondamental d'Afrique Noire. 1972 34 (2): 503-515. The diet of Varanids in Senegal. Translated by Daniel Bennetton page 21. Is a translated to english field study on the diet of Savannah and Nile monitors that proves how specialized an invert feeder Savannahs are.http://www.kingsnake.com/aho/pdf/men...tt_undated.pdf
Heres an excerpt that cuts to the meat of it all:
"In total we analysed the stomach contents of 28 animals. The results are presented by monitorand by month in table I. The identified prey was made up exclusively of invertebrates exceptfor the eggs of Agama agama and V. exanthematicus. The following were found;1. Insects.a. Coleopera:- Carabids: Ctenosta senegalense, Megacephala megacephela, Scarites sp.- Curculionids: Episus sp.- Dytiscids: Cybister sp.- Meloids: Psalydolytta fusca.- Scaribids: Adoretus sp. Anomala sp. Oryctes sp. Schizonycha africana.- Tenebrionids: Pimelia senegalensis, Phrynocolus dentatus, Vieta senegalensis.b. Dictyoptera: Mantes: Epitenodera gambiensisc. Hymenoptera: Aphids: Xylocopa sp.d. Lepidotera: chiefly Chenilles and Sphingids.e. Orthoptera:- Acridids: Acanthacris ruficornis citrina, Anacridium sp., Kraussaria angulifera, Cataloipus sp.,Oedaleus nigeriensis, Humbe tenuicornis.- Gryllids: Gryllus bimaculatus- Pyrgomorphids: Zonocerus variegatus- Tettigonids: Homorocoryphus nitidulus vicinus.2. Arachnids: a scorpion of the family Buthidae.3. Myriapods: Diplopodes (Iules) and Chilipods (Scolopendra).4. Molluscs: Gasteropods pulmones Helicarionines.5. The eggs of Varanus exanthematicus and Agama agama.In order of number, prey was distributed as follows;Myriapods 48.32%Insects 45.49% of which 21.22% were Coleopterids, 15.21% Lepidoterans (Chenilles) and8.84% Orthopterans.Eggs of Agama and V. exanthematicus 3.75%.Gasteropod molluscs 2.35%.Arachnid scorpions 0.11%.These results interpret the respective percentages of prey items, but they do not giveinformation on their distribution in the predators. This we have indicated by the degrees ofprescence (LESCURE). The number of animals containing each prey is given. In other words,it shows the percentage of animals containing each prey.Table II shows the different prey with their percentages and frequency of prescence. The preymost frequently consumed by V. exanthematicus in the area where our research was basedwas the Coleopterids (64.28%), the Myriapods (53.57%), larvae of Lepidopterans (46.42%)and the Orthopterans (35.71%).If we consider this diet by month we need to establish whether it reflects the availability of thelarge invertebrates of that period. In fact, the Coleopterans, larvae of Sphingides and theMyriopods, which are abundant during the first half of the winter constitute the main items ofprey during this season, whilst they are absent from the intestines towards the end of theseason, replaced at that time by the Orthopterans which become more numerous. Otherwise,except for the reptile eggs (Agama and Varanus) we did not find any trace of vertebrates in thediet of V.exanthematicus. This species feeds exclusively on invertebrates and eggs (including those of its own species). Towards the end of December all feeding ceases until favourableconditions return.Is this diet different from that of Varanus nilocticus? This is what we are going to find byexamining the stomach contents of the second species......................"