Feeder Plants for Reptiles


Marion Minch (Karlsruhe)

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Most people mean carnivorous species when thinking of reptiles. But there's a whole bunch of species which are either omnivorous or even strictly herbivorous. At least a part of their diet is plants. Some of them are well-known representants of this group, e.g. green iguanas or land tortoises, but there are large numbers of other species of skinks, dragons, other iguanids or even monitors and geckoes who share the love for plants and gras, flowers and fruit. Unfortunately most plant eaters suffer from a poor diet of fruit and salat from the supermarket – the zoological markets are misleading examples for this practice. In many cases this unbalanced malnutrition is even health threatening and leads to gastro-intestinal diseases and/or deficiency symptoms.

There's a relatively easy cure for such a malnutrition to find in nature. Competently collected and fed wild herbs offer a full variety of vitamins and other ingredients to reptiles, they lead to solid faeces and healthy animals.

So why aren't they used more often? Probably because it seemes much more convenient and cheaper to pick up feeder plants from the supermarket. But it should be possible to invest just a bit more effort to comply with then needs of the animals. No Pogona will find salat in the outback, no Uromastyx will feed on tomatoes in nature. They predominantly feed on dry gras and wild herbs. Whoever has been in their environment and has been taking a nose full of air coming from a field of herbs knows which wide variety nature offers in this respect.


Spitzwegerich-300 Marion Minch has made it her passion to explore the world of feeder plants through many years. She has documented her findings and has made her knowledge accessible for the herpers world. Her special interest book "Handbuch der Futterpflanzen" (publisher: KUS-Verlag) is kind of a bible in this respect and provides the enormous possibilities for herpers on 350 pages. In her work Marion benefits from her comprehensive experience with keeping and breeding land tortoises. The best thing about it: It's quite simple to offer this variety to the animals if you know how, when and where to find the adequate food.

In her lecture at the Breeders' Expo Marion explains, why it is so rewarding to make use of wild herbs, how and where you find them, possibly grow them yourself, store them and feed them adequately. She'll guide the audience on a little virtual walk through the world of feeder plants and presents some of its most common and useful representants.
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More information: www.samenkiste.de