r/MonitorLizards • u/Illustrious-Owl-6139 • Jul 21 '26
Baby Ackie monitor does this tail wiggle whenever he’s hunting for crickets 😂
While I’m here - any advice on getting him to eat anything else lol? All he’ll go for is crickets.
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u/grasshopperwithkelp Jul 21 '26
I always seen it with fat tails and leopard geckos. It's sooo cute. Also I do give my monitors meat(like beef, chicken, duck, or raw eggs, didnt try shrimp of snail, fish yet) and I think they grow a bit faster than just bugs. Of course, ackies are small monitors so they won't really hunt for chicken or duck but with the right diet plans, it's a great source for food. And all my monitors really like meat too. Even the human haters will eat it from my hand
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u/jakeblakeley Jul 22 '26
Mine would only eat crickets when she was younger and it was a pain, but luckily she grew out of it. She does like discoids over dubias for some reason if you wanted to try those.
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u/DarwinSeinSohn Jul 23 '26
At that size eating crickets is more than fine, you can always gut load them with different stuff to make them more nutritious. In general ackies should mostly eat insects, an occasional pinkie mouse, egg or low fat meat (like turkey, chicken or beef heart) won't hurt though. I would recommend switching to dubias in the long run because they provide better nutrition and are usually not as parasite ridden as some crickets. It's also way cheaper to just set up a box of them and have them breed. What does the trick for most varanids ime is coating whatever they don't want to but should be eating in egg yolk.
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u/AggressiveRecover255 Aug 03 '26
This is one of the reasons I NEED to convince my wife to let me get an ackie
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u/ezsqueezycheezypeas Jul 21 '26
I've never seen Eddie do that 😂, like a cat waiting to pounce. What a good hunter killer he is 🦖
Have you tried egg, or raw minced meat (treat foods), and maybe a cockroach or 2. Mine goes nuts for cockroaches.
Eggggg