My monitors/pics/stories. (DUW)

[Millinex]

I keep 4 monitors at the moment, they are by far the most rewarding reptiles I have ever kept, every other reptile I keep at the moment is simply a business venture/for profit simply because they don't even come close to rivaling the rewards of keeping monitors..

First up: Charmander:
When I first got him:


2 weeks ago:



Just over a year ago, I walked into a pet shop in the mall to see 3 beautiful little nile monitor babies. They where cold, so they didn't fight much or show much activity, but the colors on these guys is just flawless and beautiful. I paid $40 for the hatchling and was on my way. My initial husbandry was off, kept humidity and temps too low etc, then went into a streak of 4 months where I didn't hardly feed him etc.. Part of what makes these guys so awesome is the hardiness of the species.. He endured it all and once I got my act together was there with me ready to rumble. He started at around 6 inches and just over a year later is just over 40" long. He's eating multiple mice every other day along with fish, bacon, turkey, chicken, and insects. I call it a he, however she does turn out to be a female but "he" just kinda sticks too well . I have never force handled him, and he is 100% handle-able, hisses a little but other than that pretty well behaved for a nile.

Next is Buddy:



Buddy was more of a pity buy. He was in my local shop for $80 with a larger individual. He was missing some of his toes, almost all of his toe-nails, the tip of his tail, and had bad mouth rot (which you can see the results of). He came to me an outright mean animal, the first day when I set him on the floor he was more than willing to chase me around trying to eat me. almost a year later, he is very calm, comes with me to talk to children, and is an amazing captive. I do not offer him dirt like the other monitors, because when I tried it, he can not dig.. which is pretty sad, so I just keep him on 100% bark rather than bark on top of dirt. His feeding response is awesome and he's very active for a bosc, he keeps a nice healthy weight rather than most obese savs I see.

Next is Kung-Pow:





My 4ish foot asian water monitor. He's missing the tip of his tail, and several claws/toes, and has some scaring on his back. He has an attitude, but I've only had him a few months and he's coming around without issues.. He currently resides in a 7x4x4, with a decent sized pool, lots of logs, bark and dirt substrate. He's very very calm if you let him come to you, and has no problem crawling all over you when letting him out, he just doesn't like to be told when he has to go to bed for the night haha.

Last is my newest monitor, ignore the caging, it's temporary.


I picked this guy up in a trade at one of the local shops down here. He's perfect with all his toes/tip of his tail, no nose rub, nothing. He's handle-able, although he does hiss a bit. Amazing animal, I absolutely love the indicus complex of monitors. He's about 3 feet, sexed male, eating everything I offer him, and he frequently hangs out with me while I'm on the computer. I have him up for sale, however I'm pretty sure he's going to end up staying with me (especially if I end up breeding as many dubias as I think I will)...

Last I'll throw up a picture of a rescue I did recently:


I received this peach-throat from a man up in Denver off craigslist. I got there and the husbandry was awful. Bad mouth rub/rot, missing nails,toes, tip of tail, very badly dehydrated/malnourished. I downgraded aquarium size to get proper temps/humidity. One week later at 85%-90% humidity, and 90 degree constant temps, she was looking like above, and ended up getting rehomed with some friends of mine where she's doing great. Amazing what some proper husbandry does for an animal eh?

-Mike

[marvelfreak]

Beautiful monitors!

[Millinex]

Originally Posted by marvelfreak

Beautiful monitors!

Thanks a bunch!

[Marica]

Nice monitors! Thanks for sharing a little history on each of them along with the pics.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by Millinex

Next is Buddy:



Buddy was more of a pity buy. He was in my local shop for $80 with a larger individual. He was missing some of his toes, almost all of his toe-nails, the tip of his tail, and had bad mouth rot (which you can see the results of). He came to me an outright mean animal, the first day when I set him on the floor he was more than willing to chase me around trying to eat me. almost a year later, he is very calm, comes with me to talk to children, and is an amazing captive. I do not offer him dirt like the other monitors, because when I tried it, he can not dig.. which is pretty sad, so I just keep him on 100% bark rather than bark on top of dirt. His feeding response is awesome and he's very active for a bosc, he keeps a nice healthy weight rather than most obese savs I see.

-Mike

My respect level just more than doubled when I read this.

[Millinex]

Haha how so wayne?

-Mike

[Jay]

What do you feed your Bosc

[Millinex]

Originally Posted by jay0133

What do you feed your Bosc

At the moment I'm feeding him a mix of turkey, bacon, rodents, and shellfish, he also gets an obscene number of grasshoppers in the summer months. I'm personally a big believer that savs are fully capable in the wild of eating and digesting a main staple diet of rodents, however choose not to. Although, I am going to give it a fair shot and I'm picking up 500 dubia roaches to start my colony tomorrow afternoon.

-Mike

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by Millinex

Haha how so wayne?

-Mike

a lot of people would have never took on such a case. plus I have a soft spot for Boscs.

I sent animal control after a pet shop a couple years ago for keeping a baby sav in squalor.

The monitor died, but the shop got fined for a dozen other offenses including an escaped boa that was found in the basement dead. seems they never took the time to look for it.

They left cages of rats unattended for weekends when they were closed, the water bottles went dry, guess what thirsty rats do to each other when there is no water around.

[Millinex]

Eh, monitors aren't too bad to fix in my experience. With the right conditions they heal up fast. The peach throat was awful to, but wasn't as progressed so was reversed quickly with proper husbandry.

-Mike

[Jay]

Originally Posted by Millinex

At the moment I'm feeding him a mix of turkey, bacon, rodents, and shellfish, he also gets an obscene number of grasshoppers in the summer months. I'm personally a big believer that savs are fully capable in the wild of eating and digesting a main staple diet of rodents, however choose not to. Although, I am going to give it a fair shot and I'm picking up 500 dubia roaches to start my colony tomorrow afternoon.

-Mike

I like to see those diets you may have a few that disagree. I have always heard Pork was bad. Do you use it as a staple or treat?

[Millinex]

Originally Posted by infernalis

a lot of people would have never took on such a case. plus I have a soft spot for Boscs.

I sent animal control after a pet shop a couple years ago for keeping a baby sav in squalor.

The monitor died, but the shop got fined for a dozen other offenses including an escaped boa that was found in the basement dead. seems they never took the time to look for it.

They left cages of rats unattended for weekends when they were closed, the water bottles went dry, guess what thirsty rats do to each other when there is no water around.

Originally Posted by jay0133

I like to see those diets you may have a few that disagree. I have always heard Pork was bad. Do you use it as a staple or treat?

Pork is never a staple. I simply had a pack of bacon expire and rather than toss it, I decided to save it for the monitors, and have been feeding it off. It's a treat offered once a month with the exception of the water monitor, who takes it extremely well as compared to other foods, so he gets it weekly.

-Mike

[infernalis]

Just like the venison I feed chomper, A hunter gave me a whole bunch of last years kill.

No fat, just pure lean meat.

[stephanbakir]

Great looking monitors, its great to see someone actively taking in rescues.

[Millinex]

Yea, monitors are not picky, and it really helps with the bills for paying for their food haha. I actually trap/freeze my own mice from my girlfriends ranch for use of feeding to herps. I'm catching between 6-10 a night at the moment.

-Mike