constipated monitor?

[Lrptls]

as you may have known iv had my big savannah monitor for a little while now, roughly 2 weeks, a bit longer i would say. i feed him every other day and hes always got water. hes gone to the bathroom twice and it was all white and liquidy. it isnt in a nice pile either, its sprayd out. hes never pooped though. hes wrecking his cage right now, he seems uncomfortable and one time he pushed out his..well...now i know hes a boy! but i think hes constipated. how the heck can i help this poor guy?

[Bartman]

I know my guy was pushing out his hemipenes when I firtst got him. For about the first 2 weeks he would constantly do it, as well as when I would take him out he'd squirt some onto the floor. I was told its as if he was marking his territory. That shouldnt be a problem, let him get used to his new enclosure and dont handle him until he stops.

As for the constipation, I'm not sure what to tell ya. Maybe one of the monitor guys will know :)

[crocdoc]

Sorry to make you repeat anything, but I haven't been following your posts so don't know what your set up is. Perhaps if you describe the monitor's enclosure in detail, or show a photograph of it, I can help. I'll need basking temperature, what you're feeding it etc

[Lrptls]

i dont mind repeating, ill give the best details to make sure my wonderful sav is ok. hes recently been moved into a cage thats 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. its actually an arborial lizard cage so its very tall, it was the widest cage i had at the moment. i put the heat lamp inside and its hung down close to him. his basking temp is about 125 degrees which is right above a hide. on the other side of the cage its around 70s with another hide. hes only got a few inches of dirt until i get to go to my friends house, shes going to let me dig dirt out of her yard, im not aloud to in my yard. i want to fill the cage with atleast a foot of dirt, more would be preferd because i know they like to dig and burrow. hes got a fairly small water bowl, about 7 inches wide id say, i will put something bigger in there if any one thinks i should.

as for his feeding schedule he eats every other day, if i give him something big like a rat ill let him sit for 2 days. i will feed him mice, small to medium rats, chicken peeps, raw meet (iv only used chicken so far) carnivore yummies and iv tried giving him super worms but he actually can not eat them, they fall out of his mouth so i was going to try mixing them in his meat or something.

oh and by the way munster (my sav) is about 2.5 feet, im not sure how much he weighs but hes a pretty heavy boy, for me any ways. heres a pic

[crocdoc]

is the top of the enclosure sealed? What's the humidity like?

[Lrptls]

no the top of the enclosure is screen but i was going to try and seal it with something. the humidity is between 50-60%

[crocdoc]

well, there you go, that was easily solved.

I'd say that your monitor is probably more dehydrated than you realise and that the screen top is the likely culprit. Has it defecated since you've started this thread?

Is the enclosure made of sealed wood? If so, rather than look for something to seal the screen top, remove it and replace it with another sealed wood panel. Make sure the corners are all well sealed or the humid air will rise and escape.

[Lrptls]

he has not defecated. whats the best humidity for him?

[crocdoc]

...one which will allow your monitor to start defecating again. Seriously, though, I'm not a big believer in setting numbers to these things. What you need to do is seal your lid (get rid of the screen top) and add more dirt. The most important thing is that your monitor can access high and low humidity when it needs to, so if it wants to bask to dry out it can and if it wants to retreat to a deep hole to regain humidity levels it can.