Like all monitor lizards, Argus monitors are strict carnivores and don’t eat any kind of vegetation. They readily feed on carrion and take living prey as well. It’s best to feed your Argus monitor a varied diet consisting of insects, rodents, fish, snails, raw eggs, and raw poultry.
Don’t overdo it on the rodents as they can cause overweight, unhealthy, and shorter-life spans for these types of exotic animals.
While your Argus monitor readily takes mouse after mouse never appearing full, such feeding habits lead to obesity. Remember, variation is good. There are different ways of looking at adding certain supplements to the diet of your monitor lizard. If you offer a multi-vitamin specifically meant for reptiles, avoid beta-carotene.
You can make the crickets, roaches, and super worms you feed to your monitor lizard more nutritious if you “gut load” them. We feed mostly vegetables from our garden to the insects and rodents with only occasional protein to prevent uric acid.
Gout is excess amounts of uric acid in the blood. This excess can be the result of either overproduction of uric acid or the body’s failure to get rid of it.
This excess uric acid gets deposited in tissues (visceral gout) or into joints (articular gout), causing a great amount of inflammation and pain.
Pseudogout is similar to true gout, but is caused by deposits of calcium crystals other than sodium urate crystals.
Articular gout is often looked at as a separate condition from visceral gout but is likely to be an earlier presentation that precedes more widespread visceral gout (as is the case in humans).
Argus monitors are opportunistic hunters and are known to eat almost anything. Ideal foods are; mice, rats, crickets, superworms, beef heart, and hard boiled eggs. A mixed diet of these food items four to five times per week is ideal and will ensure proper growth and health.
Click to see Fluffy eat her protein diet of eggs, fish, and Mazuri Croc Diet.
You might be shocked to see that we feed the same meal to the tortoises in the Orange Area. But it is very important to provide the proper protein to certain species such as the Redfoot Tortoises. Click to read more about their needs.
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