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RE: Monitors

Tenacious Leafs — Tue, 03 May 2011 04:30:56 GMT

If you would look a few posts behind you will see that this post is considered dead (has not been active in a few months). We try not to bring up dead posts, so if you have a question or something about monitors feel free to start a new topic. Also welcome to the forums.

RE: Monitors

SwampDonkey — Tue, 03 May 2011 03:22:34 GMT

dwightfry (2/21/2010)

Annostic, I think you may be right about the situation of turantulas on the carpet. It could be very well that he should not be loose on the carpet to exercise, but taken to a park. In the meantime, he's in a very large 8x4' cage that is always clean and the water is cleaned every day. Since this is the SECOND time he's ever been sick and it's both been in the throat/tongue, I will probably have to keep him on the pristeen carpet in the rep room with no exposure to my cats at all. THAT makes sense. Thank you for that!

Tristis, my vet knows what the flock he's talking about...Savannahs are one of the most common pets most recently and there is in no way 3000 different species that are KEPT that vet's need to know about. I worked extensively with vets with all species of wildlife to inspect them for disease/vaccinate or otherwise care for them. The ONLY snake bite I ever received was from a Florida Indigo snake that had just had part of a tumor excised by my boss. He did it, the phone rang before I could the snake down and this normally sweet snake was in a sackful of hurt. I am not a neophyte here, and right now unread newspaper is the cleanest substrate for an ailing sav. If one of your monitors were sick by being impacted by some of its substrate, your best bet would be newspaper till s/he was healthy again. Did you completely bake and sterilize every bit of substrate and climbing branches/bark pieces in the couple of days that you traded out your tristis for the beautiful Ackies you now have? back atcha!

And "Shadowboxing", last but not least, every species of monitor is NOT kept as pets, and I have said many times before that I have a degree in Bus. Admin., but didn't need one to shovel sh!t at the St. Louis or several other zoos in NJ, private zoos, and curator of the wild animal dept. of a museum at the tender age of 16, because I earned that spot. I have been disabled for 21 years now and cannot be a zookeeper anymore. I was in an accident that left me doing a 180 on a very busy interstate and was facing oncoming traffic where I was hit into the K-bar and have lasting neck and back injuries. I am NOT asking for any sympathy, but I have been out of the zoo business for over 2 decades.
You lied through your teeth about me killing a monitor and this is only Harry's second infection, not a series of them.
I did contact the editor here after you came on here and started libeling people on this particular thread, and he responded quickly by telling me that your IP address (that means your actual physical computer location) had been banned several times before. I have the email to show, if need be, and will not hesitate to contact him again, as we are friends. He said you would be given another chance to behave.
If I'm not as up-to-date on Varanidae as you are, I'm sorry. Howzabout we arm wrestle over who can wrestle down a California or Andean Condor? KIDDING is OKAY; slandering them is not. I turn to shut you off when you start putting me down, since it is mean, underhanded and will only get you bounced yet again.
And Harry is NOT obese at all! If you know your Savs, as you should, you should know that when they don't like flash photography, they are going to inflate themselves and "pancake" out! They normally don't look like that and I posted my favorite pix, which are all on an extremely virused computer and cannot be changed at this moment. When I find my software and get an external drive for my netbook, you will see the cage and my slender little cutie! He gets crickets daily for a week, twice a week when he is given a mouse at the end of two weeks, and the same for when he gets his raw turkey neck/chicken gizzard and beef heart. The latter is all fat free, less than an ounce and contains all the vitamins and minerals he needs. And everything is dusted or injected with Vs & Ms. Guess you missed where I got a temp gun and his basking space is 136-137, and he has a flat slate rock to bask on. You pick and choose your "edited" quotes.

*****************************************************************************

I'm simply saying that I am not here to start arguments. I am here to discuss our wonderful, lovable pets that we tend to get very emotional over. Don't we? If we have a sick pet of any kind, does it not hurt us to the core when we find out that they are sick? Does it not make sense to put an Elizabethan collar around a dog's or cat's neck while they heal? Do we not want to keep our cats in a newspaper litter box till they recover?
I have seen the cruelest, most tragic deaths at the hands of my employees and bosses when they leave a door open that causes a predator to kill another animal instantly?
The sickest stuff has come from my bosses. A broken lock on a coyote's run and this person let a sweet woodchuck follow her up the stairs only to see the groundhog's neck snapped. A tiny screech owl jumping off his post while his cage was being cleaned, only to have his neck snapped by a ferret or larger raptor. A twelve y/o iguana that was placed on a table that he fell off of and died of a concussion.

I am MORE than cautious with my animals to keep them healthy...I've seen too much death through the ignorance of people who didn't think before they left animals out with their predators. I'll be DAMNED if I'm going to let Harry get sick again. You will see that this will not happen again.

However, there is a WAY to go about this peacefully and kindly. And that is to listen to others who have success in their own ways. Don't leap at the chance to tell someone they're doing something wrong when they are using a more sterile environment (newspaper when they are ill only now). I know that I won't try coconut again, but will try to get a mixture of soil and sand from Home Depot and quite a few more pieces of bark. He has six now. Harry's health and happiness are foremost in my life.

Just letting you know: If you dont start listening to the experienced keepers and change your husbandry, your lizard WILL keep getting sick and die very quickly. Im not being mean, but my concern is more with the animal than your feelings. If "Harry's health and happiness are foremost in my life" then you will stop what you are doing (which is not working) and listen to Tristis, for one, who actually gets these things to breed. Check out my sig....

RE: Monitors

Saba — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:36:04 GMT

and just to tell you what a dead topic is, I consider it any topic not replied on within a week and a half.

RE: Monitors

Tenacious Leafs — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:52:55 GMT

spoonie714 (3/28/2011)

hey guys my names randy and im new i have 2 savs male & female i also just started my own reptile business out of my house anyone from southern cali in here?

Well welcome to the forums. Just make sure not to bring up any dead topics. This topic is from over a year ago. So if you would like to chat about monitors go ahead and start a new topic and we can go from there.

RE: Monitors

darkvader525 — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:09:39 GMT

This is the longest paged topic I've seen yet! And this is a dead topic...

RE: Monitors

methos75 — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:31:54 GMT

I got a Baby Sav a few weeks back, awesome little dude but a bit Lazy. He sleeps most of the day, but shoots out like a bolt when its feeding time and is quite the little character jumping and snapping after crickets. My main issue is getting variety into his diet, all he will eat is Crickets, no worms, Meal worms, silk Worms, canned Monitor food, etc, he is pretty picky LOL.

He has put on some good size since I brought him home, he is a good inch longer and much more robust than he was when we got him. I was at the store we got him at today and his tank mates look so much smaller than him, feel sorry they aren't getting the care he does. The GF recommending we pick another up so he has a "friend", she doesn't the size they get and the caging requirements just yet LOL

RE: Monitors

spoonie714 — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:55:39 GMT

hey guys my names randy and im new i have 2 savs male & female i also just started my own reptile business out of my house anyone from southern cali in here?

RE: Monitors

SNAKE CHARMER — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:33:08 GMT

I don't think I've ever replied in this topic before ,but for those that said they like savs heres my sav Lewis (this pic was taken wall he was out roaming around)...

RE: Monitors

A.M herps — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:49:00 GMT

I don't really come here that often, but I thought I'd drop in. I love monitor lizards a lot. My favorite would have to be the freen tree monitor. I love them! My cousin actually caught a baby bengal monitor a few days ago in india on a mountain! He sent me pics, and it was pretty small. Only about 18 inches or so.

RE: Monitors

benandmax — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:48:30 GMT

Saba (3/22/2010)

I love savs

me too!! they are sooo cool!!

RE: Monitors

Saba — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:58:19 GMT

I love savs

RE: Monitors

annostic — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:42:17 GMT

Tristis I saw the post this morning on .nl beautiful animals and I really hope they have a successful breeding pair.

Did you see the animal planet link? OMFG? The lies and false claims from animal planet not to mention that the police report is online. I'll post more about it later but I hope everyone Flames that damn video. To claim he was killed by a pet komodo when the police report clearly states that he died of cardiac arrest. And I guess Animal Planet or should I say the Humane society doesn't know the difference between a Komodonesis, a Niliticus, and an Exanthematicus.

Funny that they also don't mention that the bites were administed after death when his "free roaming" lizards began to starve... funny they didn't do the same story with cats of dogs because that is what happens when animals starve... even humans do that (i.e. "Alive").

Yes people Animal Planet is trying to make the case that your cute little Savannah are deadly monsterous reptiles. Wonder how much funding they got from the animal rights group.

http://animal.discovery.com/videos/fatal-attractions-killed-by-a-pet-komodo-dragon.html?smid=FBAPL-FWP-VAP

RE: Monitors

tristis — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:26:16 GMT

Good luck with everything man and you should definitely be able to find some good soil out there in L.V. Make sure you bring a back brace your gonna need it for all that digging lol. By the way did you hear about this http://geckoforums.net/showthread.php?t=58117 ?

RE: Monitors

annostic — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:05:56 GMT

was actually lurking on another forum and read a guy wanting to set up a room for his sav using a tiled room.... I almost joined the forum but figured it wasn't worth it. That had been me a little over a year ago... and look where it got me... a lizard with two abcsesses...

these guys just aren't cut out for human envirnoments.

RE: Monitors

annostic — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:02:43 GMT

Vet wants to take it slow for 14 days with meloxicam for imflamation and zeniquin for a possible infection. They seem kind of puzzled since the blood samples and cultures were so recent and were negative. But if no progress is seen when I return on the 20th they will do another culture and attempt more aggressive approaches.

Beyond that just a lot of husbandry discussion. Temps, humidity... dr actually wants more humidity for him and not less. They understood my concern about the substrate but wanted to slap me for taking it out. I had to laugh when the vet told me to scrap the coco and any other soil concotion I was considering and that my best bet was to probably just get a shovel and dig. So I'm thinking I'll do that since I'm driving to vegas in a month and there will be a lot of great soil enroute.

Other then the meds I don't know why I bothered they basically said/agreed with dr. sweets comments.

Also got delayed on the new cage a few weeks since my friend who had the space/tools for construction just got a shipment of animals in. He's saying that he should have them sorted out in about 3 weeks time so till then it's the same old... I did swap the bulbs... I have 2x60w halogens and the ceramic and he seems content with that... back to nights in his "burrow" days basking and as the days are lengthening he's getting more active so need more space fast.

RE: Monitors

tristis — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:26:36 GMT

Any updates on your Sav and its treatment Annostic?

RE: Monitors

Saba — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:25:31 GMT

As of 6 days of topics later, here I am.

RE: Monitors

annostic — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:23:19 GMT

WHERE IS EVERYONE?????????

RE: Monitors

annostic — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:16:18 GMT

tristis (3/2/2010)

Annostic your Sav looks to be at a very healthy weight (assuming that last pic is just an awkward shot) Lateral fold is clear, and it sure looks like he has good muscle tone. Good job!

Thanks, glad to know he looks good. Ever since I began researching online and realizing the situation these guys are in I've become a bit paranoid about my husbandry. I feel like I'm treating him like a bubble boy at times anymore. Heck I guess I need to remember that this is the same Sav that has been camping and fishing numerous times... you'ld be suprised how fast these guys can move in open water. (oops did I say that?)

On another note I say your post on "NL" and Dr Sweets remarks and was wondering what you course of action is gonna be about both issues?

Main thing is I need the new cage. Thanks to Shadowboxing's links I will be incorporating multiple low wattage flood bulbs instead of single high wattage bulbs. In the mean time I'm going to try to re-orient his basking shelf and use 2x40w to increase the basking area but reduce the temps. Also wondering if my IR gun is off. It is reading 135f but that doesn't make sense with the data. You know I swapped the bulb cause of you so I'm holding you responsible.... JK!!!

Still going to the vet on Friday to have him look at the abcsess. I've a mind that with what Dr. Sweet said I probably also shocked his system allowing whatever is causing the abcsess to re-propegate. Better safe then sorry.

Still head shy on anything from HD though after the first case and probably why I jumped at the substrate as the cause. Ordered 24 bricks of Coir and going to stick with that for now. Actually driving to vegas in april so maybe I'll fill up the rental car with real dirt instead of this commercial crap. But still have to get the cage done first.

RE: Monitors

tristis — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:37:45 GMT

Annostic your Sav looks to be at a very healthy weight (assuming that last pic is just an awkward shot) Lateral fold is clear, and it sure looks like he has good muscle tone. Good job!

On another note I say your post on "NL" and Dr Sweets remarks and was wondering what you course of action is gonna be about both issues?

RE: Monitors

annostic — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:40:32 GMT

Rather then keep looking at photos and guessing/second guessing I'm posting these for opinions. I personally think he is too fat and needs to lose a few. What are your thoughts? These were all shot last week during feeding time.

Top

3/4

Side

RE: Monitors

shadowboxing — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:44:30 GMT

Saba (2/25/2010)so who here keeps any river monitors?

No such thing, sorry =(

RE: Monitors

Saba — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:03:39 GMT

so who here keeps any river monitors?

RE: Monitors

tristis — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:21:17 GMT

Well they are at it again tonight. Its definitely looking more like a dominance thing then a copulation.

RE: Monitors

Saba — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:31:35 GMT

I just find it strange. Well, I don't own monitors so…

RE: Monitors

annostic — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:28:50 GMT

Saba (2/24/2010)

Not the monitors, what they are doing. the female mounting the male, then back and forth.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think most animals do this for various reasons. I know most of the animals we kept on the family farm use to do this regularly.

RE: Monitors

Saba — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:58:29 GMT

Not the monitors, what they are doing. the female mounting the male, then back and forth.

RE: Monitors

tristis — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:09:08 GMT

Saba (2/23/2010)

beautiful monitors, but strange.

................... What do you find strange?

RE: Monitors

Saba — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:20:49 GMT

beautiful monitors, but strange.

RE: Monitors

Saba — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:13:07 GMT

Beautiful pics!

RE: Monitors

tristis — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:37:32 GMT

Well yesterday i caught my male(?) Ackie mounting the female(?) but to day i come home and find this

Thats the female(?) in the process of mounting the the male(?) which she/he accomplished as soon as the battery died on my camera. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.............. Now im wondering if i got some "Brokeback Mountain" action going on.

RE: Monitors

ReptileChannel Moderator — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:16:34 GMT

Please take a deep breath everyone. I think everyone for the most part is communicating respectfully. You need to make sure you are not personally attacking anyone. You make your side known, they do the same.

I shudder to think how stubborn some of these posts are.

Dwightfry, I'm sorry if you misread my email.

We will check the situation out. We do ban IP addresses and that person did have their IP banned. They could still be using a computer from work or a friend’s house. I can check the city they live in to see if this is the same area.

There was nothing that I saw that showed that this was the person that was banned in the past. When I said "that person" I meant the original person and not the current person.

RE: Monitors

tristis — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:23:47 GMT

For me annostic pill bugs, pin head crickets, plus all those other little detrivores brought in from adding leaf litter and digging up my own soil do all the clean up work. I have used nightcrawlers in the past but they died out due to the soils temps being too high for them. Red wigglers might be a good choice since ive heard they are more heat tolerant.

RE: Monitors

annostic — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:43:27 GMT

uhm.... well on a pleasent note I got a free flourescent fixture for the cage building. So one less expense for the cage. Basic design is set, and priced out. The frame and basic construction is going to be about 120$ That doesn't include making the rock work, or dirt... and maybe the bark we'll see. That or I might go on walk about to find some.

One thing I've been thinking about regarding humidity and burrowing. I recently saw a cage that actually had grass growing in it. That would defenitly boost he humidity and with a nice root structure burrowing would be great. Not to mention lots of food for critters to eat... = lots of excercise for Nacho. I like to leave a few live inverts in his cage to do clean up and for him to hunt... the roaches work great. Any thoughts? and any recommended grasses?

In the mean time I got a nice colony of isopods going to do clean up... and tristis, shadowboxxing... what other clean up crews do you use? I'm thinking red wrigglers for the soil.... I've hear they are easer to keep then night crawlers. those coupled with isopods and the occassional stray roach should do fine.

RE: Monitors

tristis — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:27:21 GMT

dwightfry (2/21/2010)

If one of your monitors were sick by being impacted by some of its substrate, your best bet would be newspaper till s/he was healthy again.!

................................ Actually no. My best bet would be to correct the husbandry issues (inadequate heat and humidity) that caused the impaction.

dwightfry (2/21/2010)

Did you completely bake and sterilize every bit of substrate and climbing branches/bark pieces in the couple of days that you traded out your tristis for the beautiful Ackies you now have? back atcha!

................................ No of course not. That would be one hell of a job though, baking over half a ton of dirt and sand in a residential oven. Besides that would defeat the whole purpose of having a self cleaning biologically active substrate.

P.S. I still dont understand why your getting so upset with Shadowboxing. He/she has really provided you with some very good info that all Sav owners should use when caring for their pets.

RE: Monitors

shadowboxing — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:51:19 GMT

dwightfry (2/21/2010)Savannahs are one of the most common pets most recently

They are also the most frequently obese/sick/dead from poor care. It's unfortunate, and I believe the reason why people are concerned in this thread.

dwightfry (2/21/2010)Did you completely bake and sterilize every bit of substrate and climbing branches/bark pieces in the couple of days that you traded out your tristis for the beautiful Ackies you now have? back atcha!

Again, a good bioactive substrate, a few critters here and there are more beneficial than not, given sufficient basking temperatures, proper food, and substrate sufficiently deep enough for your lizard to burrow. Such husbandry, in my experience, takes care of 99% of monitor health problems.[/quote]

dwightfry (2/21/2010)but didn't need one to shovel sh!t at the St. Louis

dwightfry (2/21/2010)I did contact the editor here after you came on here and started libeling people on this particular thread, and he responded quickly by telling me that your IP address (that means your actual physical computer location) had been banned several times before. I have the email to show, if need be, and will not hesitate to contact him again, as we are friends. He said you would be given another chance to behave.

I believe that so far, I have kept things civil and simply gone point/counterpoint with you, I don't know what you consider "libeling" as I have done no such thing, nor have I ever had any problems accessing this board. The only thing out of line has been your defensive reaction to my suggested corrections to your husbandry. I'm pretty offended that you are now using profanity toward me and tristis, and believe that if no action is taken toward you for such an offense, the editor would then be taking selective action simply based on your friendship and not on fairness.

dwightfry (2/21/2010)You lied through your teeth about me killing a monitor

I looked back through the thread and it was another vocal poster who lost a monitor, I apologize for confusing the two of you.

dwightfry (2/21/2010)slandering them is not. I turn to shut you off when you start putting me down, since it is mean, underhanded and will only get you bounced yet again.

Again, I've never been bounced. If you keep your lizard in a snake cage, and I say "you keep your lizard in a snake cage and it could be the cause of the health problems you're experiencing", is that slander? Or is that simply pointing something out? If you get angry at that, whose responsibility is that? Mine?

dwightfry (2/21/2010)And Harry is NOT obese at all! If you know your Savs, as you should, you should know that when they don't like flash photography, they are going to inflate themselves and "pancake" out!

In my long experience on message boards such as this one, this is always the story. Owner has an obese Sav, not enough experience to recognize the Sav as obese, is experiencing any number of health problems, lethargy, eating problems, aggression, etc. When husbandry problems are brought to the owner's attention, owner gets angry and says, "What problem? There's no problem?" Sav continues to get sick, and owner either stops posting or posts months later, "My Sav died/is sick again/etc."

I've pretty much said all I can say about this topic, so again I'll just wish you good luck, and hope for the animal's sake (which is all this is about), that things get better and that perhaps if you keep running into problems, you might take some of the multiple suggestions given in this thread.

In fact, if you don't particularly like me, you can actually feel free to disregard everything that has been said in this thread. Instead, I will refer instead to a bunch of links which you may find helpful, that are personality-neutral.

http://savannahmonitor.org
http://www.varanus.net/faq/
http://www.repticzone.com/forums/Monitors/messages/1272637.html
http://www.wnyherp.org/care-sheets/lizards/savannah-monitor.php
http://panoptesv.com/HBD/tricks.html
http://panoptesv.com/HBD/savanna.html

Good day.

RE: Monitors

dwightfry — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:31:17 GMT

RE: Monitors

annostic — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:27:34 GMT

tristis (2/21/2010)

Annostic, I just checked out that link you quoted and all i can say is WOW !!! That has to be one of the worst "care sheets" i have ever seen for keeping monitors. That was a prime example as to why Vets should stick with their area of expertise which is vetenary medicine and leave the husbandry advice to the people that actually know what they are doing.

WTH I feel violated now... or decieved... i posted that link on the common diseases? the comments on that page i agree with. 1. that with 3000+ species vets can't keep up on all the details. and 2. that resperatory diseases are heat and ventellation related... and not about trashing the soil.

I totally thought the links on the left were hyper links to the "common illinesses."

I need to check my sources better... after your comment I clicked trying to figure out what you were talking about....

AGAIN WTH.... sorry bout that... I'll scour the pages more.... that advice is total crap.

RE: Monitors

shadowboxing — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:00:52 GMT

dwightfry (2/20/2010)However, YOU have been banned on your IP level several times already. AND you have lost monitors. You said you don't have monitors now, so take off with your bad advice.

Sorry, I've never been banned, nor have I lost monitors, and I said in a previous post I keep Argus and a trio of Similis. I'm not sure you're knowledgeable enough to know that those are monitors.

It's possible you're confusing me with someone else?

What I'm doing is sticking up for your animal. I'm sorry if some of what I've said has hurt your feelings, that's not been my intention, but if your husbandry was working your animal would not be getting sick as it has been.

RE: Monitors

Saba — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:07:53 GMT

I find that in pet stores, Most monitors are put in MUCH too small caging. Well, I need to clean my kingsnake's cage. bye!