Feeding...

It's fun to watch them stalk their meals, which consists mostly of crickets and superworms.  I occasionally hand feed them thawed fuzzies.  I can't control what the fuzzies eat since I'm not don't breed them, but I do power pack the crickets and worms before feeding them.  I feed the crickets what I feed my iguanas, plus some Total cereal, and egg laying mash when I can find it (stuff they feed chickens which is supposed to be high in calcium).  Ingo Kober, who has more tokay experience than I do (and good success with his tokays) uses dog food flakes, brewers yeast and greens to feed his feeder insects.  About every third feeding, I've been dusting the crickets with Herptivite, which is a product by RepCal.

Anything that moves is a potential meal for a tokay, so it's not a very good idea to house them with other species of lizards, especially smaller ones.  I, as well as Ingo have had success housing tokays with other species, preferrably species close in size and having a large enclosure is a must if you're going to do this.
 
 

A strange, but true story, not for the squeamish...

Occasionally tokays will drop their tails when they get into a fight or are startled during courtship.  One day one of my females, Ozmo, lost a good section of her tail (about 2 1/2" and a little more than a 1/2" in diameter where it broke off).  I think she got startled because she didn't appear to have gotten into a fight.  I searched the cage and couldn't find the portion of the tail she dropped.  Two days later she regurged the tail, undigested.
When a lizard drops a tail, it's a defense mechanism to keep a predator occupied while they escape.  After the tail is dropped, it will wiggle for a good long time.  I'm sure she saw that and thought it was an easy meal.  It ended up being too big for her, resulting in the regurgitation.  Her tail grew back shorter but fatter than the original.

2/8/99- I took some pictures of Ozmo's tail.  You can see it regenerated well.
The texture is a bit different, but the coloration came back well.  I also have a picture of Nordique's tail.  It was cut, but not severed completely and it regenerated in a forked manner.  The part aiming upwards is her original tail.  The other part is the regrowth.

2/6/99-  I was in the lizard room hand feeding tokays the last of the super
worms when I got to the cage that housed Tommy, Kiwi and Argile.  I fed Tommy a couple of worms and Kiwi ate one, then I saw Argile and noticed she only had about 3/4" of tail left, if that!  She ate well for me despite her loss.  I searched the cage and found the rest of the tail.  Now having the digital camera, I took pictures of Argile and her tail.  Click here if you care to see them.  They may be too graphic for some of you.  After looking at her and the remains of her tail, I don't think she had been in a fight.  She had no marks on her other than the missing tail.  I suspect that Tommy spooked her while courting her and she dropped the tail.  I then think he attempted to eat the tail while it was flopping around and found that it wasn't what he thought it was and left it there.  I think it had been a day or so from the time she dropped her tail to the time I found it because of the tail's appearance, though I don't think it was more than that because her tail end still looked fresh and hadn't begun healing much yet.  I put Nolvasan Solution on the end and will keep an eye on it.

I'll post here with updates and pictures of her and her recovery.  She's pretty chubby, so I think she'll be just fine.  It's not the first time she's dropped her tail, and I think the circumstances were similar.