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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 7:03 pm Post subject: Potential health threat with ground meat diets
There has been lots of talk of what to feed tegus, and I've seen lots of people stress a ground turkey diet with supplementation. I'm not here to say this is bad, I would just like to share my thoughts on this, and tell you of something I encountered today. I've long stressed the value of a balanced diet, and if possible, trying to replicate the animals' natural diet as closely as possible.
Gut content analysis of wild tegus has shown that these animals are quite omnivorous, usually containing a surprising amount of vegetation content and contrary to most people's expectations, not that much vertebrate prey (ie. their natural diet does NOT mainly consist of rodents). Many keepers promote a ground meat staple with supplementation, and occassional fruit offered. In fact, I've often kept tegus on this sort of diet for many years without problems. However, there should be caution when using this protocol. It can be dangerous to just take some ground meat, add an indeterminate amount of supplement, and think this will do.
Today, I necropsied a dead tegu that had an immense bowel obstruction. At first whim, I thought the poor thing had blocked up its GI tract with substrate, a common malady in captive reptiles. Upon opening the abdomen up, I instead found the colon to be completely occluded with a calcareous mass roughly the size (maybe larger) of a golf ball. This wasn't a substrate occlusion, it was brought on by diet. The diet of this animal was primarily ground meat with added supplementation and fruits & veggies. Now, I am not going to say the diet alone was responsible in this case, but it was certainly a significant factor.
Do your pets a favour, don't be lackadaisical with their diets. Do the research, find out what they typically consume in the wild, try to replicate this, and when making ground meat based foods, make sure you have not only the proper proportions of minerals and vitamins, but also the correct content. Adding too much can be just as harmful as adding too little.
Joined: Jul 23, 2005 Posts: 385 Location: North Carolina
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:31 am Post subject:
That is a scary thought. A problem i have been finding though, is that we can't seem to find a list of proper diet that anyone can agree on. We can't even get input on how much of which suppliments need to go into anything that anyone can agree on.
If rodents, or meat, are not the staple, then most of us wouldn't know what to feed them.
Maybe i just don't know where to look, but is there a scientific breakdown of what a tegu should be eating? and if so, could we get it here, so we can either agree on it, or disagree on it, like everything else? _________________ The Jay
Joined: Jul 23, 2005 Posts: 385 Location: North Carolina
Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 8:26 am Post subject:
See? That is a perfect example of the confusion.. 29% rodent, 25% bananas, 10% crickets and 10% Spiders.. That sounds fine, but doesn't go along with what people stick to... I have heard that they eat upwards to 70% vegetable matter, and have read that from scientific postings on the web.. It is just very confusing.. I would like to see someone, more experienced than me, write a book on the 'no fail' diet strategy of the Tegu.
Um, I don't know what link you were reading, but 1 rodent found in 35 animals doesn't equivilate 25%, far from it.
You're clearly missing the message in that list - it isn't spelling out exactly what you should be feeding your tegu. It shows that in the wild, tegus eat an enormously VARIED diet, and the majority of it is NOT vertebrate prey. Now, I'll be the first to say that the list is flawed in that it doesn't take into account what kind of prey was found in what size of tegu, or when the tegu was caught. I have little doubt that large adult tegus incorporate more vertebrate prey than younger ones. Likewise, if you look at the various seasons in South America, during the spring insects swarm in mass cohorts, and at times there are immense numbers of quarter-sized beetles available (you can literally shovel them off the sidewalk). So in spring they are likely gorging on whatever insects are available, but later in the summer probably switch to something else.
Unfortunately, it seems what you are looking for is what I call the "kibble solution", a simple to prepare, unimaginitive food you place in there day after day, which in most animals is a hazard to their health. Imagine what would happen to you if for the rest of your life you were given a Happy Meal for every meal? Once in a while, it's fine, but as a constant staple, it would wind up killing you.
The other problem is a lot of these supplements that are being used are not in the best form. There are some forms of calcium that are not readily absorbable by these animals, or there are other substances that interfere with the proper absorption of calcium. Unfortunately, there has been, as far as I know, no tegu specific research in this field. Instead, veterinary science looks at a few species and extrapolates to others of similar habit.
With a varied diet, you tend to avoid a lot of these problems. However, five items (lets say crickets, ground turkey, bananas, black berries, and mealworms) is still not variety, its the same things over and over. A varied diet needs to incorporate a LOT of different things, and not necessarily as a routine but instead in random. Yes, I'll fully admit, in captivity, they certainly go for specific foods over others, but that's because they are being offered a constant supply of rich tasty foods and will certainly pick that which they enjoy the most. Offer a growing child a chocolate bar and brussel sprouts at every meal, and I'm pretty sure we'll know which direction the kid's diet will lean to.
In Brazil, my associates mainly fed their tegus ground poultry. However, that ground poultry was not what people on this forum particularly used. That ground poultry was the whole bird, bones and all, put through the meat grinder, a much better and more readily available source of minerals. When I went down there for my study, I incorporated the use of vegetables, fruit, insects, etc. into the diet, and it soon became noticeable that my animals were larger and healthier than the rest of the colony. Variety is certainly the key in this species. They can subsist on a steady monodiet, but it isn't particularly healthy in the long run.
Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 328 Location: Chesterfield, UK
Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:42 am Post subject:
Surely thought the idea behind feeding verts, is that they have the required amount of calcium in their bodies already, hence you feed adult mice, not pinkies, and adult rats not babies, and reduce the need to supplement the diet, especially in adult Tegu's. Chicks for example do not contain an awefull lot of calcium at all.
I think the key here has already been mentioned. Variety. I'm not sure about everyone else's Tegu diets, but mine cosist of variety all week, variation on feeding times, different combinations of food, and he always seem's happy, alert and show's no signs of illness or ailment.
I think people read a bit too much into the whole diet thing to be honest. As long as there is variety, and the Tegu is fed quite regulalry, I don't see what the fuss is about.
I know loads of Tegu keepers who have successfully kept Tegu's for years, and they have lived long happy lives, and not one of them feeds the same diet as another.
Joined: Jul 23, 2005 Posts: 385 Location: North Carolina
Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:50 am Post subject:
I fully admit that i prolly misread the pdf that i was looking at, but at the same time, you misread me in what i was asking for. I am not looking for a dog food solution, or anything like a SDZ diet.. But a generalized healthy eating schedule that could give an idea of exactly what a good diet would look like.. I know that we cannot give our tegus the variety of a wild diet, while keeping them in captivity, but even if we wanted to, we don't know what varied things might kill them either...
It is hard to branch out and say today, i will try to give my Tegu Cheese, if no one knows if cheese will harm them.. How about flowers.. Might be tasty, but don't know which will kill them.. People say over and over to give a wide variety of foods and the right amounts of suppliments, but never offer a wide listing of what that variety consists of, or an exact amount of the suppliments to use.. Even if someone does specific mix amounts, it gets beat to death by everyone else's opinions..
I am not crying out for help in feeding my tegu, just asking anyone who knows enough, to describe, in some detail, what a good varied diet would look like, so the rest of us can take from that... _________________ The Jay
Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 328 Location: Chesterfield, UK
Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 11:07 am Post subject:
Ok, here's my general diet. Not saying this is the best diet in the world, or correct ro anything, but it seem's to work for me, and more importantly, works for Dobbie.
Verts - Staple
Chopped Rat
Mice
Chicks
Insects
None
Fruit
Tomato
Kiwi
Cherries
Strawberry
Banana
Apple
Orange
Treats
Egg, scrambled, boiled, raw
Chicken fillets
Chicken leg's/wings
This is by no means a weekly, daily or any other scheduled diet. These are just the variety of diet I feed my tegu. Feel free to correct anything that anyone thinks is wrong, but as yet, he has eaten every single item above, and never showed any ill effect from it.
This is obviously a hot topic by the amount of hits after the initial ?. I agree with 'tupinambis' about variety and not giving the same ground turkey meal with vitamin powder. As a rule, getting nutrition/vitamins out of natural foods is always better than a powder. My tegu gets turkey burger once a week, some boiled egg, insects (mealworms, crickets, waxworms, locusts i find in fields that dont have pesticide risk), pinkies, fuzzies, mango, apples, strawberries, i offer veggies but he rarely touches them except some yellow squash occasionally, oh and he likes raw fish. I pretty much put different things in with them and he eats some, some he doesnt. But the variety prevents a vitamin deficiency in the long run. The vitamin deficiency over time causes the other health problems. But people are quick to blame diet only on a fatality or health problem. There are many other factors: small space and lack of exercise, lack of temperature gradients, lack of proper humidity, sunlight vs UV exposure vs no UV, brumation/hibernation in wild vs constant temps. There is a huge list of factors!!! Dont pigeon hole the diet as only problem if you lose a lizard. I lost a 2.5 yr old 4 foot Nile monitor last week. It was in south florida sun with dark,cool cave retreat, ate varied diet of rodents,eggs, insects,etc, was not obese, rarely used vitamin supplements. Guess what it died of ( i did necropsy). A huge lower bowel obstruction full of ? gouty or cacific powder and pus. It was enormous. No debris to explain it (ie rocks, mulch, bones). Explain that. It had a large cage, good humidity (ornate nile is tropical, not common nile) full water tub to swim in....everything the books tell you. You cant always pin problems on one factor....but chronic obesity from an all rodent or egg diet definitely predisposes a lizard to health problems in the long run.
To drfish: In your vegetable list, I have a few cautionary notes. Lettuce is so-so, it's mostly water, but I doubt you offer it in huge masses (plus, the tegu probably doesn't go after it that much). Iceberg lettuce is a no-no, pure junkfood in respect to reptiles. Broccoli and brussel sprouts are high in oxalates which bind calcium and trace minerals, which can lead to trace mineral deficiencies if diets contain a lot of these oxalate containing foods. You can use them, but sparingly.
To jb: If you still have those crystals, it would be good to get them analyzed to determine if they are calcareous based or uric acid based.
Well, to add to the list of things that I offer my tegus:
Vegetables:
arugula
mustard greens
kale
dandelion
collard greens
squash
pumpkin
zucchini
pea shoots
alfalfa
water cress
endive
escarole
edible flowers
oat shoots
fresh beans
peas
snow peas
peppers
opuntia pads
clover
Some of the above are safe to offer frequently, others sparingly. As stated before, do not offer vegetation high in oxalates frequently (spinach, rhubarb, cabbage family, peas, potatoes, beet greens, chard). Likewise, vegetation high in goitrogens can lead to hypothyroidism if there is large consumption of these plants (cabbage family, kale, mustard, and other cruciferous plants) with marginal iodine intake.
Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:24 pm Post subject: NILE DEATH
THANKS ABOUT MY NILE. YEAH, IT WAS MY SECOND LIZARD SINCE I STARTED KEEPING AGAIN. I'M SO BUMMED OUT. THE CRYSTALS SMELLED LIKE URATE BUT THE BLADDER LOOKED FINE AND WAS EMPTY SO PROBABLY WOULD BE GOOD TO SEE WHAT THE CRYSTAL STUFF WAS. YES, I HAVE IT IN A ZIPLOCK IN MY FREEZER.
OH YEAH, MY TEGU EATS GRAPES AND CRANBERRIES TOO ....ADDING TO LIST OF STUFF HE EATS. HE REALLY LIKES OVERRIPE MANGOS, PUTS HIS FACE COMPLETELY INTO IT. I'M TRYING TO MOVE HIM TO EAT MORE VEGGIES/FRUIT AS MOST OMNIVORES BECOME MORE VEGGIE ORIENTED WITH AGE. HE IS 1.5 YR OLD COLUMBIAN BLACK AND ABOUT 36" TL
I'm curious about the fruit and veg. Do you just chop a selection up and put it in a bowl, or do you mix it with egg/meat or something?
With my blue tongues I very finely chop up dandelions or chicory and mix this with other food, so that little bits are stuck to it. At least then I'm increasing the fibre content of the other food. Is that what you do with tegs?
I have offered some fruit and veg, but they are not too interested in it 'straight'.
Kind of depends on the situation. In our rearing pens in Brazil, where there are several hundred yearlings/juveniles in a pen, all you need to do is toss in anything and the high level of competition makes them eager to try anything. However, in more "civilized" situations, where the animal is usually (too) well fed, I find it much better to chop the fruits&veggies up and mix them with meat.
Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 328 Location: Chesterfield, UK
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:45 am Post subject:
Cheers for the veggie advice. I know about the iceberg lettuce, been told about that before. The vet recommended broccoli and sprouts, but did suggest as sparingly.
Other than that, most of the veg is offered daily, or every other day, and soemtimes he won't touch it at all.
I'll give a few more things on your list a whirl, although some aren't readily available in the UK.
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