One of my Tokays ate a thawed mouse I left in the cage, is this uncommon?

[getula72]

Guys, Has anyone else here tried this? I felt like the first caveman who created the wheel did this morning when I went into my snake room and looked into my two cages that house my two adult pairs of Tokays.

Last night I put one thawed hopper on a perch in one cage and another thawed hopper kind of posed upright in a potted plant in the other cage.

The already dead and thawed hopper in the potted plant was eaten.

Wow... (that's what I thought).

I know some other guys have done this... Please, can you share your experience with this?

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Tokays are eating machine and true survivalists. They'll eat most anything they can if they're hungry.
It's not something that I would recommend doing. That's a pretty large prey item and could cause impaction, etc. Also, mammals have a lot more fat content than insect prey. Remember, just because you can do something, doesn't mean it should be done.

 

[getula72]

Ethan, They will eat anything they can cram in their mouths: birds, mice, lizards, snakes, insects, frogs, probably bats also...

I wasn't asking for your commentary regarding that... or your usual patronizing tone.

Thanks.

 

[CrestedRick]

I believe he answered your question by giving his experience on what they will eat including thawed mice. Your question was pretty vague and Ethan was simply giving the advice that just because they eat certain things doesn't mean they should and their diets should replicate that of their diet in the wild such as insects.

 

[getula72]

I think they do eat mice in the wild, probably a lot.

I just think it is unusual for them to eat thawed mice that are not moving.
Also, I can't imagine that eating mice or other vertebrates from time to time is unhealthy.

Eating a non-moving food item is what I think is notable.

 

[Aimless]

I fed a very few f/t rat pinks to a rescue Tokay I had once that was thin. He ate them without any trouble. I had some for baby carpets and thought I'd try them before picking up a live one. I may have done it more as he really liked them, but he made such a mess "killing" them against the glass of his viv. He did the same with hornworms. Cleanup was so gross I only fed those items occasionally, but he was totally fine with dead food.

 

[Liddle]

He Should Be Fine. But Just Remember If Your tokay does not have adequate eating he will have problems digesting large prey. i give mine one for his ''birthday'' and one for christmas and hes had optimal rain forest heat .Just A Couple Small pinky though. Its Fun lol

 

[Liddle]

Ethan, They will eat anything they can cram in their mouths: birds, mice, lizards, snakes, insects, frogs, probably bats also...

I wasn't asking for your commentary regarding that... or your usual patronizing tone.

Thanks.

Ethan is a good guy and is willing to help anybody. he was just putting his point of view on things i mean you did ask a question on a forum. with all that said. when you are as well informed as he is in the gekko gecko world you have a right to ****yness IMO lol.

 

[getula72]

I have a lot of experience keeping chondros and have bred them a few times --- and learned from other chondro keepers and breeders that rats can contain a lot of fat and less bone (as a percentage of body weight) than mice so I do not feed rats to anything. I noticed that the fecal matter produced after feeding rats was much different than after feeding mice. As a consequence I have not fed rats to any of my reptiles in about two years.

I am going to offer small mice to these Tokays weekly and will see how it goes. I expect them to put on weight with these large meals - but as far as I know only one of the four has taken a mouse. I wish they all would.

I got the idea to do this when reading some add for some repashy food that advertised it was accepted by some Tokay Geckos. The lightbulb in my head went off and said that if some would eat some type of mixed up mash from repashy maybe they would eat a dead mouse + a friend of mine in the Tampa Bay area has caught one wild Tokay repeatedly in the act of raiding his open mouse breeding containers in a shed. That Tokay, in the picture, looked awesome and I believe it was primarily eating adult mice.

I am going to attempt this again and hope that more mice are eaten.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[getula72]

Ethan is a good guy and is willing to help anybody. he was just putting his point of view on things i mean you did ask a question on a forum. with all that said. when you are as well informed as he is in the gekko gecko world you have a right to ****yness IMO lol.

Liddle, that's fine. Anybody can say anything they want. Doing something the same way everyone else does is not always the best route.

For instance, almost every label on every reptile at the National Zoo says "Zoo diet: rats" but hobbyists trying something different have determined that feeding rats to snakes as their main diet may not be the healthiest thing.

Thanks and I will try to play nice.

 

[Liddle]

Liddle, that's fine. Anybody can say anything they want. Doing something the same way everyone else does is not always the best route.

For instance, almost every label on every reptile at the National Zoo says "Zoo diet: rats" but hobbyists trying something different have determined that feeding rats to snakes as their main diet may not be the healthiest thing.

Thanks and I will try to play nice.

Also Its In The quality of the rat if you know what i mean. its like gutloading insects. it can and will make all the diffrence in the world

 

[Liddle]

Feed Baby Rabbits Haha

 

[billewicz]

Hello Peter,

The first thing I would like to note is that we have a lot of new Tokay keepers visit this forum on a regular basis. It's not uncommon for the same good advice to be repeated in thread after thread to assist a new keeper. This forum is the most read and referred to in regards to the husbandry, care and genetics of Tokay.

Having said that, the 'Tokay will eat almost anything' topic has been well covered so far. Using pinks or fuzzies, dead or alive to pull a rescue or fresh import from the brink is not uncommon either.

And just because they'll eat something does not make it a good staple in their diet. This different from providing a varied diet. Captive animals do not have to hunt and protect a large territory and expend energy in their enclosure like they do in the wild so feeding them a high fat diet will certainly put extra weight on them fast.

I think we can agree that eating fast/junk food for every meal will result in several health related issues and shorten your life. Because huge Tokay still have great value in Indonesia, China and other parts of the world, Tokay are feed chicken liver to fatten them up. Tokay will eat it and they are akin to a 500lb human in a very short time.

The idea of Tokay eating a fruit & sugar based diet is also just as bad. Actually it's worse because the Tokay become 'addicted' to the sugar and will not go back to hunting insects. Again, I think you can agree that eating candy 24/7 is not healthy for any person. Repashy is designed for nectar and fruit eating gecko.

So again, what you do with your Tokay is your business. U-tube is full of misinformation on the light side and naive and down right abusive behavior in the more serious side.

This forum has taken on the responsibility of presenting tried and true experience to help educate and provide as much good information as possible. You asked if anybody has any experience with feeding dead rodents to Tokay. Yes, and we responded by sharing our time and our experience to help you, and everyone else reading this post,with the best information we have to date.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Typical ASKhole response.
"I fed my tokay a mouse and he ate it. What do you guys think? Oh BTW, I'm going to go ahead and do whatever I want regardless of your advice and get offended when I don't get the answers that I wanted".

 

[getula72]

Hello Peter,

The first thing I would like to note is that we have a lot of new Tokay keepers visit this forum on a regular basis. It's not uncommon for the same good advice to be repeated in thread after thread to assist a new keeper. This forum is the most read and referred to in regards to the husbandry, care and genetics of Tokay.

Having said that, the 'Tokay will eat almost anything' topic has been well covered so far. Using pinks or fuzzies, dead or alive to pull a rescue or fresh import from the brink is not uncommon either.

And just because they'll eat something does not make it a good staple in their diet. This different from providing a varied diet. Captive animals do not have to hunt and protect a large territory and expend energy in their enclosure like they do in the wild so feeding them a high fat diet will certainly put extra weight on them fast.

I think we can agree that eating fast/junk food for every meal will result in several health related issues and shorten your life. Because huge Tokay still have great value in Indonesia, China and other parts of the world, Tokay are feed chicken liver to fatten them up. Tokay will eat it and they are akin to a 500lb human in a very short time.

The idea of Tokay eating a fruit & sugar based diet is also just as bad. Actually it's worse because the Tokay become 'addicted' to the sugar and will not go back to hunting insects. Again, I think you can agree that eating candy 24/7 is not healthy for any person. Repashy is designed for nectar and fruit eating gecko.

So again, what you do with your Tokay is your business. U-tube is full of misinformation on the light side and naive and down right abusive behavior in the more serious side.

This forum has taken on the responsibility of presenting tried and true experience to help educate and provide as much good information as possible. You asked if anybody has any experience with feeding dead rodents to Tokay. Yes, and we responded by sharing our time and our experience to help you, and everyone else reading this post,with the best information we have to date.

Mike - I wasn't referring to the regular repashy stuff. I saw somewhere that this was being advertised as a possible Tokay diet: Repashy Meat Pie Reptile (16 oz) - Carnivore/Omnivore Meal Replacement Powders | Josh's Frogs

 

[billewicz]

Mike - I wasn't referring to the regular repashy stuff. I saw somewhere that this was being advertised as a possible Tokay diet: Repashy Meat Pie Reptile (16 oz) - Carnivore/Omnivore Meal Replacement Powders | Josh's Frogs

Thanks for the update. I beleive this product is meant for true carnivores, like monitors, and not really formulated for insectivores like Tokay.

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Not to belabor one of the previous points too much, but this is a great example of how a reader can easily get the wrong information from a thread and run with it. And yes we do take the information we post in this tread a lot more seriously than most forum fodder found out there.

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So, a quick review of the Meat Pie product suggests that its formulated for monitors and Tegus which may not be good for a consistent diet for Tokay.

In Douglas Mader’s Reptile Medicine and Surgery, the Nutrition section reports generalized reptile nutrition statistics as follows: Carnivores should consume 25-60% protein, 30-60% fat and <10% carbohydrate.

This 2 to 3 times the amount of fat of the average feeder insect and other proportions are off too.

View attachment Feeder-Nutrition-Common-Reptile-Feeders-v1.0.pdf

This product may have it's short term uses. I'd like to compare it to the Ox Bow insectivore vet product and some of the zoo diets.