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Thread: whole prey diet

  1. #11
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    Mine like blueberries, too. Try cherries, mango, and papaya. Papaya is also higher in calcium than other fruits.
    Laura R (FL)
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  2. #12
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    Cherries and papaya I will try that he ignores mango. I need to get more creative hiding it he is funny he can pick all around it. I was wondering what people's thoughts on the fact that Bobby Vanyard who is supposed to be one of the top breeders says fruit is a waste meal. I hope that is OK to ask.
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  3. #13
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    It's OK to ask that question. I have a lot of respect for Bobby as a breeder. My beautiful B/W that I love so much came from Bobby as a free gift/prize and I'm so grateful. I've asked him for breeding advice and he has generously shared info with me over the phone. I have talked about feeding fruit over here and over there. It's something that I happen to disgaree with, but it's not a personal thing about Bobby. People disagree about many aspects of animal husbandry.

    Anyway, I think fruit and veggies have valuable properties. The water content keeps tegus hydrated which prevents kidney damage. Since tegus have been kept in captivity on a wide scale for a short period of time, no one knows what is going on in the area of kidney disease. Plant matter has soluble fiber which keeps cholesterol and blood sugar levels healthy, and insoluble fiber which helps with gut motility and removing toxins from the system. Besides the obvious vitamins and minerals, fruits/veggies are widely known for being a source of phytonutrients. These are the antioxidants, etc that we hear so much about. They are not reproduced in powdered reptile supplements and are responsible for cell damage repair, preventing cancer, nervous system health and all sorts of daily functions. There is no daily requirement or standard of how much of these are needed by people or animals. However, even carnivores obtain these plant products by eating whole prey or digestive contents of their prey.

    Another reason I choose to feed fruits is based on a study (is it British?) showing a mixture of stomach contents of tegus. I can't quote it exactly, but I recall that invertebrates and fruits were a good portion of the diet. Some people say that it is because that was all that was available for tegus to eat. However, snakes do not resort to eat veggies in the wild when food is scarce. I don't think this group of tegus suddenly began eating fruit because of a lack of meat. We've also had members from S America post that wild tegus were eating fruit. I wish I could remember what is was called.
    Laura R (FL)
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  4. #14
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    Bobby does indeed produce excellent tegus and is a respectable breeder. But his understanding of physiology and nutrition is atrocious. But ignorance can be bliss.
    laurafl provides some excellent reasons for why tegus utilize fruits and other plant matter, and I can provide a few others. I once came across a study (admittedly not in tegus specifically) that showed in omnivores that a diet higher in plant matter, compared to a more carnivorous diet, promotes greater uptake of biotin, a necessary nutrient. The study indicated that the increase in biotin uptake was not directly related to increase in biotin content from the vegetative matter, but was more like there was something to the greater vegetative diet that facilitated greater biotin uptake (you could supplement the more carnivorous diet with greater biotin but you still wouldn't get an increased biotin uptake).
    As was stated earlier, a strict carnivorous diet is a higher caloric intake diet, and higher caloric intake diets are tightly correlated with shorter lifespans. A more omnivorous diet is going to be a lower caloric intake diet.
    I can't say anything definitive with the following, and it may not have much to do with health, but within wild tegus there is certainly a strong trend: those that hibernate the most/longest are those that have the greatest vegetative matter content in their diet. A friend of mine in Brasil was looking at the metabolic substrates utilized during hibernation and says that there is definitely a high utilization of carbohydrates (the primary nutrient from vegetative matter) during this period. Now, a healthy body should be able to convert a lipid to a protein and either to carbohydrate and vice versa, but it seems there's some significance between this fact and the diet. Bobby Hill appears to not care what happens in nature, what he does works for him and therefore in his eyes he's right. Me, I prefer to look at what the species do naturally and understand why. Rarely do animals do things in nature for no reason whatsoever, but this is what Bobby Hill is suggesting.
    Last edited by tupinambis; 06-25-2011 at 04:49 AM. Reason: grammar

  5. #15
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    I figured that fruit should be an important part of the diet because of the vitamins/minerals. I think the less supplementing through dusting the better getting it from natural sources is much better . Also the fact that fruit has so much water to keep them nice and hydrated.
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  6. #16
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    I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I've also read a conversation recently about hibernation prolonging life span. I think it was in relation to box turtles, but I would think it applies to tegus as well. So if the diet, and adding vegetation to the diet, assists in hibernation then that would be a good thing.
    Laura R (FL)
    1.0.0 Colombian Tegu
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    7 other lizards
    1 little gator
    3 FL box turtle
    1 Sulcata tortoise
    16 snakes
    5 fuzzy pets
    4 little frogs
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    and a partridge in a pear tree

  7. #17
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    Interestingly, while engaged in another discussion on a rather different subject, I had put forward an idea that I have stated here before, but which I feel not only ties in with the subject at hand in this thread but perhaps presents an idea that should be brought up again considering the prevalent attitude amongst hobbyists in growth rates. I have stated before that I felt one of the contributors to the high frequency we see in nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism (what most people somewhat incorrectly call MBD) is due to people's strive to get their tegus to grow as big as possible as fast as possible, and in order to do this, overfeed their animals. In a growing animal, people often think this is necessary, but I have stated that rapid growth without concurrent high calcium intake puts the bones at risk of becoming low density and thereby depleting proper calcium stores. The knee jerk response from some people at that time was that I was advocating starvation of animals, of which I was not. Just that a high caloric diet, excess protein (such as we are talking here) can have unsuspected consequences. A diet rich in low caloric food (such as one incorporating a good amount of vegetative diet - or what human nutritionists are now calling a volumetric diet) would not only promote good health and meet the nutritional needs of the tegu, but not promote unhealthily rapid growth.
    In looking for some articles to support the debate I was having (on pyramiding in tortoises) I came across this article which supports these claims:
    Ritz, J., Hammer, C., & Clauss, M., 2010. Body size development of captive and free-ranging Leopard tortoises (Geochelone pardalis). Zoo Biology 29(4): 517-525.
    Abstract:
    The growth and weight development of Leopard tortoise hatchings (Geochelone pardalis) kept at the Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation (AWWP), Qatar, was observed for more than four years, and compared to data in literature for free-ranging animals on body weight or carapace measurements. The results document a distinctively faster growth in the captive animals. Indications for the same phenomenon in other tortoise species (Galapagos giant tortoises, G. nigra; Spur-thighed tortoises, Testudo graeca; Desert tortoises, Gopherus agassizi) were found in the literature. The cause of the high growth rate most likely is the constant provision with highly digestible food of low fiber content. Increased growth rates are suspected to have negative consequences such as obesity, high mortality, gastrointestinal illnesses, renal diseases, “pyramiding,” fibrous osteodystrophy or metabolic bone disease. The apparently widespread occurrence of high growth rates in intensively managed tortoises underlines how easily ectothermic animals can be oversupplemented with nutrients.

  8. #18
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    That makes alot of sense. I also wonder if the fact that most tegus are in encosures for a very large part of their lives so they are fed these high calorie meals and do not have any chance to get any exercise. I always see alot of post of people wanting their tegus to get as big as possible as quickly as possible. I feed Tonka on the days hat he has after he has gone to the bathroom and has a few folds of skin if he is looking plump I would not feed him. It seems like after he goes to the bathroom his little sides start to wrinkle and his tummy on the side goes in.If you look at america many people do not know how to provide themselves with a decent diet it is whatever is easiest and quicker obesity, heart disease, high cholesterol is an epidemic. Check out the obesity rate problem people's dogs and cats. If you do not really know yourself what is healthy for your own body it is ertainly going to know what food options are best for your reptiles. The mice I offer to tonka and chevy 1-2 times a week are very young they are not fat little mice.
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  9. #19
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    Actually, the younger the mouse, the higher the fat content that they tend to have. Say, a pinkie or a fuzzy vs. an adult mouse. Granted, if you have a young tegu, they're not going to be able to eat a whole adult mouse on their own... it's why I used to cut them up into smaller pieces until the tegus could safely eat them whole. However, feeding them once or twice a week seems perfect to me.
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  10. #20
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    That's not necessarily true, Nordica. Mice, similar to other captive animals, particularly mice bred for feeders, typically do not get exercise, are kept in small enclosures, and constantly fed to satiation, and therefore they are frequently obese and therefore have a greater fat content than neonates.

    Your quite right, lisa, the lack of exercise and small size of the typical enclosure are also huge contributors to poor health. In the wild, not only are meals not as frequent, but the tegu typically has to hunt for it, which is a big exercise. While they may have a favourite place to abide the nights, they are typically huge roamers during the day.

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