Lizards - is it worth having such a pet at home? Common lizard at home Where do lizards live at home.

Herbivorous lizards eat various varieties of fruits, vegetables and berries. Reptiles that live near vegetable gardens, fruit and vegetable plantations readily feast on carrots, cabbage, lettuce, apples and even strawberries.

Some species of lizards consider pollen and plant nectar to be their favorite food. However, if at the time of examining the flower they come across a small fly or fly, then it will be a good addition to lunch. There are very few lizards that feed only on plant foods in nature. There are only a few species of such reptiles.

Sometimes there are lizards with two tails. This feature is not a genetic disorder. When a reptile's tail is damaged, a new one begins to grow at the site of the break.

Diet of predator lizards

Carnivorous lizards are primarily animal feeders. However, in the absence of suitable food, they do not refuse vegetation. Lizards don't large sizes They eat worms, many varieties of insects, and hunt vertebrates. More large reptiles attack small birds and eat their eggs. There are lizards that hunt not only amphibians, snakes and small mammals, but also hunt their smaller brethren and even catch fish.

The most large lizards, for example monitor lizards, can eat carrion. Moreover, the type of animal does not matter to them. It could be a reptile or a bird.

It is widely believed that the most predatory lizards are monitor lizards. However, there is a species of these reptiles that is absolutely indifferent to hunting animals and feeds exclusively on ants.

Lizards at home

The nutrition of lizards kept in food must be treated with great responsibility. Vegetables and fruits are common food for herbivorous reptiles. When choosing, you should give preference to clean plants that have grown away from roadways and have not been treated with fertilizers or chemicals. Contaminated food will cause serious harm to your reptile's health.

If it is a predator, then its main diet should be mice, rats, insects and their larvae, worms, snails and fish. It is recommended to give boiled meat very rarely, only as an exception if there is no other food.

For normal development, lizards need vitamins. Reptiles are given special food with the addition of powdered fortified mixtures. It is recommended to give herbivorous lizards boiled rice, and insects and larvae are sprinkled with vitamin “seasonings” for predators.

It is worth noting that many rodents that are commercially available for feeding to lizards are given special vitamin injections. That is why such food not only satisfies the reptile’s hunger, but also enriches the body with the necessary amount of nutrients.

Many of us have pets at home. These are not always the already traditional cats and dogs. Very often there are quite exotic specimens, for example, lizards. Someone, coming to visit friends and seeing this extraordinary creature, may want to have the exact same one at home. But he will immediately ask the question: “How to care for her and, most importantly, What should you feed your lizard at home?».

In the wild, the lizard can be found in fairly dry and warm places. The same conditions must be created for her at home by purchasing a terrarium, which should become the reptile’s habitat. At the bottom there should be soil without fertilizer, which can be replaced with sand, a special mat or coconut shavings.

Now regarding nutrition. First, you need to know what type of lizard lives in your home: carnivorous, herbivorous or omnivorous.

For herbivorous lizards you need to buy various vegetables and fruits. Cabbage, apples, carrots, lettuce and other vegetables are suitable for these reptiles. Before feeding your lizard, rinse all foods thoroughly. Try to ensure that vegetables, fruits and herbs come to the lizard’s table only from ecologically clean areas. Plants and fruits grown near highways or treated with chemicals should not be given to your pet as food. You can periodically feed this type of lizard with boiled rice or potatoes. Mix all vegetables and fruits thoroughly before placing them in the terrarium. This will allow you to diversify your diet. Pay attention to how actively your pet eats the vegetable mixture. Perhaps some vegetable is not to your pet's taste. Then you will have to abandon this product.

If your lizard is a carnivorous species, then insects will be suitable food for it: crickets, grasshoppers, locusts and others. Your pet will not refuse snails, earthworms and fish. Mice and small rats are also suitable. But raw meat should be given to him extremely rarely, only in exceptional case, if there is nothing else to feed. In this case, it is recommended to completely remove the bones from the meat.

Whatever species your lizard belongs to, you must provide it with balanced diet. In addition, your pet simply needs regular intake of vitamins and minerals. For herbivores, add to your vitamin and mineral complex in rice and fruits. Carnivores – Powdered vitamins and minerals can be mixed with insects. If you plan to feed your pet a small rodent for dinner, then shortly before feeding the rodent you can give a vitamin-mineral injection or administer vitamins that come in a gelatin capsule. To ensure your lizard gets the required amount of calcium, give it crushed eggshells.

If your pet refuses food and begins to lose weight, immediately start force-feeding it every 3 days.

This general principles, allowing you to understand what to feed your lizard at home. But it’s best, before you go for any specific type of lizard, try to find out in more detail about its astronomical preferences, so as not to acquire a reptile that prefers one single product that is difficult to purchase in your city. In addition, it is useful to find out about the peculiarities of life of a given species in natural conditions. You might have to let your carnivorous lizard small insects Feed whole, and serve large ones in crushed form.

In any case, no matter what type you choose, remember: “We are responsible for those we have tamed.”

Lizards eat mostly live food. They usually hunt invertebrates. But this is not suitable for all reptiles. Some species are vegetarians, others change their preferences during development: from animal foods to plant foods. Therefore, when choosing a diet for your new pet, you should consider some features.

Before answering the question of what lizards eat at home, you need to talk about what they eat in the wild. Most species are not very picky about their food. They eat almost all invertebrates and arthropods that may be caught. Like snakes, there are lizards that are foodies that are not suitable for living in a terrarium. For example, species that feed on ants in natural conditions. But vegetarians and snail lovers, on the contrary, exist well in a limited space.

Most lizards use a combination of the tongue and Jacobson's organ to forage, which often exceeds the olfactory capabilities of the nose. Individuals that feed on animal food also find their prey through eye contact, especially by the movement of the future meal (fly, spider). For example, when caring for a gecko lizard, you can observe the following picture: in the terrarium there is a gecko sitting just a few cm from a motionless insect.

If the insect moves, it is immediately eaten, if remains motionless, then the reptile will move away and look for food elsewhere. This hunting behavior, of course, is not characteristic of all reptiles. Some perceive immobile arthropods as food and capture them.

The actual capture and processing of food is also different. Chameleons shoot their tongues at their prey over a long distance, capture it, and then swallow it. Tokehi, as well as some of the monitor lizards, attack large objects with their mouths to stun the animal, soften it or break it.

Types of feed

Depending on the type and especially the size of the reptile, food may be offered anywhere from once a day to twice a week. Young pets need to be fed more often. Feeding times should coincide with the animal's active period.

Most reptile species eat:

Much of the above can be purchased at pet stores. But breeding some of these invertebrates quite simple and profitable at home. Then your pet will have enough suitable food at hand.

What do large lizards eat? The meat of rodents, mice, and bird eggs is suitable for such reptiles.

Vegetarian food

For those who have a vegetarian pet, finding and serving food is easier. Food can be placed on a dish that placed in a terrarium or into the dishes already there. The frequency of feeding vegetarians, as well as the timing, depends on the type of animal, its size and activity.

But you should not think that keeping a lizard that eats plant foods is very simple. Leaves one green salad can't get by here. Even vegetarian reptiles need nutrients. Therefore, you should diversify your pet’s diet whenever possible.

Wild herbs are well suited for feeding vegetarian lizards: leaves and flowers of dandelion, nettle, clover, alfalfa, thistle, wheat germ.
Vegetables: zucchini, pumpkin, cucumbers, carrots. Don't forget that durum varieties are served grated.

Monitor the quality of what your pet eats. It is best to use native or organic products that do not contain various chemicals. The greens offered must be thoroughly washed.

Although some species of lizards readily eat dried vegetables, they need to be fed fresh, green foods. So reptiles get required amount of liquid.

As for water, the lizard's body has good supply liquids. Therefore, you can water them only once a day.

Gourmet food

Some species of lizards, for example, tiliqua, love natural food. And for others, snails are a delicacy (for example, gigantic lizards or spiny-tailed skinks). Since these skinks are quite large members of their family, they can crack large shells with their jaws. Young animals should be offered small snails. If you don't have a snail of the right size, you can crack the shell. big snail and also give it to the young lady.

There are reptiles, especially some types of gecko, that love sweet foods. In nature, they lick overripe fruits and eat nectar. These types You can offer fruit pulp(bananas, oranges) in small bowls that are placed on the ground or the top of terrariums. It is important that the gecko is not offered ingredients too often sweet food, as lizards tend to become obese.

Geckos like live food: spiders, flies, crickets. For larger reptiles, small mice are suitable. Interesting feature : The larger the gecko, the less often it needs to be fed. For example, a lizard that has reached 20 cm in length is fed twice a week.

Other lizards, such as monitor lizards, prefer ready-made food to live food. They feed on rats, hamsters, dead chicks, poultry hearts, and even commercial dog and cat food.

Diet of a common lizard

Lizards are easy to tame, so this reptile is now a fairly common pet. In addition, many common lizards live in Russia.

Some people manage to catch these small, fast creatures. What to feed your lizard at home? Their tastes are easy to predict if you have observed these reptiles in the countryside or garden plot. They no different from their fellows, they feed on various insects and their larvae. When you don’t want to run around with a net catching flies and cockroaches, you can think about the pet store. They sell ready-made, special food for reptiles. But not every lizard will be willing to eat them.

Quite exotic. It is suitable for breeding for those who do not want to walk the dog in the morning or clean the litter box after the cat. The lizard does not make loud noises, will not wake you up in the morning, and does not need large area for habitation. In short, the animal is ideal for keeping in a home environment. It remains only to understand what small lizards eat at home.

Rules for feeding lizards

During the summer season this is done three times a day. In winter, the number of meals is reduced to two times. What is the best food to feed? First of all, insects:

spiders;
crickets;
mealworms;
small mammals;
bird eggs;
cottage cheese (used as a feed additive).

From food of plant origin, the lizard is allowed to give:

lettuce, parsley, plantain, clover or spinach greens, dandelions.
Vegetable pieces are great to eat - cabbage, zucchini, cucumber, carrots and even raw potatoes.
In the fruit group, apples, pears, grapes and melons are suitable.
Lizards also love a prepared mixture of finely grated carrots and chopped meat.
Young lizards are fed using tweezers. And older adults eat on their own.
It is very useful for the lizard to give eggshells, previously crushed finely, calcium tablets, chalk and various preparations intended for reptiles.

House conditions

To breed lizards at home, it is assumed not only the correct one, but also the observance of certain conditions for its life. They are not very complicated, they are quite easy to create.

The first step is to select and install the terrarium. It can be of any shape, but the height is at least two times the length of your pet.
The bottom is covered with earth that does not contain fertilizer components or other additives. Coconut shavings or sand are also suitable for this purpose. There are special mats available in pet stores. It is allowed to cover the bottom with pieces of bark, torn paper, and shavings.
Be sure to place several branches in the terrarium that will remind the lizard natural environment habitat. You can decorate your home with pebbles, artificially created plants, and plates on which the lizard will crawl.
A prerequisite is two temperature zones in the terrarium. The hot area should warm up to a temperature human body(36 degrees), and cooler ones - up to thirty. At night, the temperature should not be lower than twenty-one degrees Celsius. Heating of the hot zone can be done with an incandescent or glass-ceramic lamp; an infrared element is also used. The underlying soil can be heated with a mat, which is available at the pet store.
A lizard, living in a home environment, needs constant light. For this reason, an ultraviolet lamp should be located nearby.
The humidity level for a lizard should be between fifty and seventy percent. Such conditions are achieved in several ways. Place a bowl of water in a cool place in the terrarium so that the lizard can freely sit in it. To increase humidity, spray with water and use moistened sponges. To prevent fungus from forming, you should monitor the quality of air ventilation.
Remember that

Lizard as pet not that uncommon these days. However, choosing a reptile suitable for keeping in an apartment and properly equipping its home is only part of the worries. For full growth and development it is necessary to ensure proper nutrition. But how to do this? After all different types Lizards eat differently. Let's figure it out.

Most of them are predators and feed on insects, worms and small vertebrates.

Larger lizards sometimes hunt fish and are capable of catching other fish, amphibians, snakes, birds, and mammals.
They are not averse to eating bird eggs.
Sometimes they go on a voluntary diet, eating only plant foods for a while.

There are much fewer herbivorous reptiles than predators, and they are not “pure” vegetarians, since they periodically switch to a carnivorous diet.

Thus, most of these creatures can be considered omnivores.

What animal food can be used at home?

This type of food should form the bulk of the diet. You can use flies, bloodworms, grasshoppers, locusts, and earthworms. To prevent them from scattering around the terrarium, it is better to feed them with tweezers.

Mealworms are also useful (they must first be crushed on the head with tweezers).
Some lizards do not disdain chafers. But in general it is not advisable to feed beetles, since their cover is too hard.
Cockroaches are also not recommended as food, as they are too nimble.
You can try to give them to American ones, after first tearing off their legs.

If the lizard is large, then mice, small rats and other rodents, and recently hatched chicks are suitable. Infrequently, small or chopped fish, lean raw meat without bones, and bird eggs can be given.

Experts also advise feeding with cottage cheese left in the feeder, or spread out on plant branches and stones.

What plant food can be used at home?

This type of food makes up about a third of the total diet. You can treat:

Greens - lettuce, parsley, plantain, spinach, clover, dandelion, etc.
Vegetables - cabbage, broccoli, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, raw potatoes (rarely).
Fruits - apples, pears, melons, grapes, citrus fruits.

Here you can experimentally find out your pet's preferences.

Nutrient mixture and fertilizing

On your own, you can prepare a nutrient mixture that lizards really like. For this you will need meat and carrots (1:1). The meat needs to be ground in a meat grinder and the carrots grated. Next, mix it all, add a little lettuce leaves, calcium, and vitamin supplements. The nutritional mixture is ready.

Vitamins and minerals are necessary for the health, bright appearance, vigor and liveliness of lizards. They are not given in pure form, but must be mixed with food.

Most often, raw crushed eggshells, calcium glycerophosphate tablets, chalk and specialized preparations for reptiles are used.

How to feed and drink

It is better to use feeders of the Petri dish type, that is, transparent and similar to low cylinders. They are very convenient to serve plant foods.

Animal food is given with tweezers or also placed in a feeder. Gastronomic novelties should be introduced gradually, little by little adding to already familiar products, otherwise they may be abandoned.

The feeding frequency for young lizards is twice a day, and for adults - once. Food is given during the pet's most active period, day or night.

Uneaten food is removed from the terrarium. If a lizard refuses to eat, but at the same time it drinks and is active, then there is no need to panic, this way it relieves its body.

A drinking bowl is a must in the terrarium. For her, it is better to take the most stable container so that the pet cannot turn it over.

The water needs to be changed daily to keep it fresh and clean.

Some lizards prefer to lick drops of water from plants, so they will need to be sprayed regularly.

What not to feed

Of course, these are dishes from the human table that are absolutely not suitable for lizards.

You should not get too carried away with mealworms, since in terms of vitamin-mineral ratio it is inferior to other foods.
You should not give cockroaches caught in an apartment, on a site, etc., as they can be poisoned.
Insects collected in the field are also not best idea, because, perhaps, they are stuffed with pesticides.

You need to be prepared for the fact that the lizard will not eat stationary food objects, so the insects must be alive or half-living.

So we've looked at general questions feeding lizards in captivity. Now let's take a quick look at the preferences of some individual species that are most often kept at home.

Each species has its own food

Under natural conditions it eats small snakes, spiders, grasshoppers and insects. In captivity, it can be fed with flies, crickets, mosquitoes, spiders, cockroaches, mealworms and earthworms, a nutritious mixture of meat and carrots, and fruit and vegetable mixtures.

Chameleons Flies, cockroaches, and crickets are suitable as food. We should not forget about vitamin supplements. There is special dry food on sale, but it is better to use it infrequently. You can periodically treat your pet with banana slices, citrus fruits, and grapes.

Geckos agree only to live food: spiders, crickets, flies, cockroaches, locusts and others, as well as worms (mealworms and zoofubus). Large individuals can be fed with baby mice and baby rats, as well as quail eggs. It is necessary to put water and bird stone powder in the terrarium. Dry vitamins and ground calcium are used as insect deboning daily, and liquid vitamins are given once every week. Treats for geckos include bananas, oranges, marmalade and honey.

Moloch(thorny dragon or thorny devil) is difficult to keep at home, but it is found in zoos. This Australian lizard feeds exclusively on ants and can eat 600-2500 of them at one time!

You can give the same food insects as for the above species, supplementing them with snails, pink mice, caterpillars, squid, one-day chopped chicken, ready-made food mixtures for reptiles and even dry dog food. They will not give up vegetables, fruits, seeds, buckwheat, and rice. Occasionally you can give beef liver and heart (chicken or beef).

Iguana is a herbivore and is very selective in its food. In nature, it feeds only on tree leaves. In captivity, she can and should be given spinach, cabbage, turnips, broccoli and other dark green leafy vegetables. The second half of the diet consists of other vegetables, such as carrots, peppers and sweet potatoes, peas, beans and others. Alfalfa in the form of granules (sold in a pet store) is very useful. It is recommended to give fruits infrequently and little by little. Vitamin and mineral supplementation is required.

Monitor lizards. It is believed that they are unpretentious and happily eat both fresh food for other lizards and fragrant game. In captivity, they can be given frogs, mice, chickens, small vertebrates, insects, cockroaches, earthworms, fish, pieces of meat, chicken eggs etc.

So you and I found out what lizards eat at home. What you can feed them and what you shouldn’t. We hope that this information will be useful, since a proper and balanced diet directly affects the health and life expectancy of these animals.

Video from the lizard owner about feeding rules: