Blue-tongue Lizard – nutrition and water
Water
Clean water must be provided at all times. A shallow water dish that lizards can easily get out of if they were to get in should be provided. Water must be checked twice daily and should be replaced once per day. Water dishes must be cleaned regularly. Juvenile lizards should be provided with a very small, shallow water dish to prevent drowning.
Nutrition
Blue-tongue lizards are omnivorous animals and eat a mix of vegetables and protein. A Blue-tongue lizard’s diet in the wild typically includes insects, snails and slugs, vegetation and flowers.
In captivity this species should be fed a variety of food items to achieve a high level of health and nutrition as not one single food item provides complete nutrition.
Suitable food items that can be included in the diet include:
- Insects
- Crickets
- Wood cockroaches
- Boiled egg whites
- Alfalfa
- Salad mix
- Greens + vegetables.
Blue-tongue lizards do not require a large amount of insects and their nutritional needs can be met by providing a mix of vegetables items and egg whites for protein however insects can be fed occasionally. Crickets and wood roaches are the most commercially available insect that can be purchased for reptiles and are available at most pet stores.
The diet should also be supplemented with calcium and multivitamins to ensure good health. Suitable multivitamin and calcium powders can also be purchased from pet and reptile stores and these should be incorporated into the diet by mixing the powder into the salad mix or dusting insects in multivitamin and calcium powder prior to feeding at the suggested ratio.
Juvenile lizards should be fed every day and adult lizards should be fed 3 times per week.
An example of an amount and type of food to feed an adult Blue-tongue lizard weekly is:
- 50 grams of ‘Salad mix’ three times per week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
- Occasionally (once per week) a small number of insects, five crickets or wood roaches dusted with multivitamin and calcium powder. It is recommended to hand feed off forceps most of the insects to the lizards and also to release some into the enclosure for the animals to feed on naturally.
This diet is an example only. Individual animals may require more or less depending on their body condition and age.
Any uneaten food or insects should be removed from the enclosure daily.
Food dishes that are used for salad mix and vegetables should be cleaned with detergent after every use and any food left in dishes should be removed daily.
Salad mix recipe
The mix should include the following:
1. Chopped into bite-sized pieces:
- Chicory
- Kale
- Parsley
- Endive
- Bok choy
- Cos lettuce.
2. Diced into very fine pieces:
- Carrots
- Sweet potatoes
- Squash
- Zucchini
- Tomatoes.
Add alfalfa sprouts, mung beans and chopped hard-boiled egg and dust with calcium and multivitamin powder as per the product directions.
Feeding the blue-tongue lizard
Watch Feeding the blue-tongue lizard (3:01)
Narrator: Taronga Zoo keeper
So, the key to a happy and healthy Blue Tongue Lizard is its diet. It’s the most important or one of the most important parts of keeping a Blue Tongue Lizard.
He does eat a variety of foods but the basis of his diet is fresh fruit and vegetables. We have some strawberry, rock melon, banana, a lot of lettuce or endive and carrot in there, some corn. So, it can be a large variety of fruit and vegetables or it could just be a couple of choices each day.
Presenting it to him in a low flat bowl is handy because then he then can lay on top of it and it’s accessible for him to eat out of.
What you do need to pop on your Blue Tongue’s diet is just a vitamin supplement so it’s a little bit like us taking some vitamins every day, it just helps with healthy bones and a healthy lizard.
So, feeding your lizard maybe three times a week is suffice, so maybe a Monday, a Wednesday and a Friday a great regime to stick to. And then on a Monday and a Wednesday and a Friday you can give him a sprinkle of calcium with Vitamin D. And then just on a Friday you can add a little bit of this product which is called Herptivite. It’s just an all-round multivitamin that he doesn’t require more than once a week.
Also to supplement his food maybe once a week you can give your Blue Tongue Lizard a good quality meaty cat food. And you can either put it on the side of his dish or give it again give it a mix through which encourages him to eat all of his fruit and vegetables as well.
They absolutely love eating their cat food so that might be the only thing that they touch on that day. As enrichment food, enrichment is something that we like to give our Blue Tongue Lizards so that they have a little bit more of a stimulant or a little bit more of what goes on in the wild.
And so something like a snail is quite beneficial to them. It helps their jaw and it’s got that crunchiness and makes them work a bit more for their food. So, collecting snails is also a great thing to do, not necessarily feeding them live but just popping them in the freezer for a week or two and then just thawing them out and popping them in their exhibit.
Depending on your Blue Tongue Lizard as well they may enjoy eating crickets. You can buy these from pet shops and you just sprinkle a few of them in their exhibit. They can’t always catch them, they’re a little bit slow and encumbersome but it gives them something to do and then again it just gives them that as if they’re out in the wild and keeps them a little bit more active.
But the other thing that is most important for a healthy Blue Tongue Lizard is fresh water every day. So, he needs a bowl of water and change it every day so it doesn’t get anything you know even his food or any faeces or urine in it.
[End of transcript]