ground rabbit?

[beardeddragon111]

There is whole ground rabbit on hare today that is super cheap. I was wondering how healthy rabbit is for tegus? I will also probably be getting whole ground mice and quail. seems a lot cheaper than buying the rodents themselves.

 

[Walter1]

Hmmmmm.

 

[dpjm]

Rabbits, rats, chicken - all pretty much the same thing. There is surprisingly little variation in most of these common prey items, nutrition wise. Rabbit might be a bit leaner. Variety is key. Don't neglect fish. My tegu loves whole herring, which differs a bit from the other vertebrates due to higher fat content but I think it is acceptable (for omega 3 polyunsaturates especially).

The only issue I have with ground meat is that you never know what you are getting. Well, you know what animal it is from but you are not guaranteed a representative sample of what would be in a whole animal. They would produce huge batches and you get some of that batch, but you don't really know how much of it is muscle meat, organs, bone, etc. With whole animals you always know what you are getting.

Otherwise, ground meat can work well as it can be mixed with foods that aren't usually accepted on their own.

 

[Walter1]

I'm interested and like that ground mouse might be cheaper than whole.

Rabbit sounds fine. I'm curious.

 

[beardeddragon111]

Did some math and though I couldn't find an exact answer, ground mice are about 2/3 as much as whole hopper mice from perfect prey. But if you go with jumbo, thats cheaper than the ground mice.Ofcourse that is assuming every mouse you get is the maximum size promised. The ground rabbit is DEFINETLY cheaper its like 4 dollars for a pound. I'd still like to offer whole prey to make sure they get what they need, but if rabbit is very similar to rats/mice, I want to atleast suppliment that in there because of its price. Quail is also way cheaper ground than whole. Sorry if none of that made any sense, I'm very tired. I hope all you out there atleast got the jest of it.