Quote:
Originally Posted by KORBIN5895
I personally feel we are "comforting" our pets to death. Most of our reptiles come from environments where there are very distinct differences in the weather and temperature during the different seasons.
A reptiles metabolism is directly affected by temperatures. We all know reptiles conserve energy during the unfavorable seasons. Yet when weather is favorable they're much more active.
I said all of that to say that I feel that keeping a reptile in prime conditions at all times not only increases the growth rate but may also shorten their lives. I honestly have nothing but rationale to back this up though.
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I agree completly, based on what I know about evolution and adaption of species to their enviroment, and the known effects that dormancy/hibernation, whatever you want to call it, has on physiology, in humans, fasting as the effect of switching our systems massivly to repair DNA, in normal mode, with lots of food, our DNA doesnt get repaired...possibly why Cancer is one of the biggest killers in humans, because we didnt evolve to eat from supermarkets, we evolved to hunt and gather as the seasons permitted. Most insect colonies that are temperate cannot survive more than 20-25% of their full colony life span without hibernation
Quote:
Originally Posted by murrindindi
Hi, I would agree, and with the greatest respect to the OP overthinking often leads to problems, in this case it probably will (for the animal, not the keeper).
There IS a "formula" already in place for keeping Varanids healthy, long lived and productive in captivity, unfortunately not too many people know there is one, or if they do, for some reason want to make unnecessary changes (complicate things) because they think they can do it even better, the statistics prove otherwise.
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I am not convinced that the ''formula'' is correct, there are infact no statistics, the fact that monitors outgrow wild monitors by upto 100-150% in captivity does not mean the forumla is right, or that it is good for them; this is a debatable point and
should not be held as fact either way
And yes I do believe I might be able to offer some improvements which allow for Aestitive states by using an essentially man made burrow and very careful climate control - I might be wrong, and I am dealing with only one Savanna monitor, to truely test the theory would require a much larger number to be matched up against control data (ie everyone who follows 'the formula') and wild data (which doesnt seem to exist in very useful amounts)
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