The previous post was mostly about what happens in the wild and whether or not lace monitors do or do not nest in termite mounds. That's neither here nor there unless it's applicable to captivity, because this is a forum about captives. FR, when you and I first had this discussion many years ago (before I even started breeding lace monitors, in fact) you thought all of this was purely academic and not applicable to captivity. A few years after our discussion, you mentioned it to another lace monitor keeper on this forum:

FR: The real truth is, the academics do not have to be right or wrong. Its not about that. Its about whether if what they think(theorize) can be applied or be effectively applied.

For instance, years ago, an ozzie lacie keeper and now breeder, agrued that lacies need termite mounds to lay eggs in. Science showed that in nature, lacies had laid eggs in them. The reality is, we do not have termite mounds and neither does that person(unless he builds a cage around a living termite mound). So that input was useless for us to apply. Not about whether its right or wrong. For us keepers without termite mounts, that information is wrong.

(here's the link: forums.kingsnake.com/viewarch.php?id=910618,912753&key=2005)

That's pretty much where you and I went our separate ways. I thought the information was valuable in terms of setting up nesting for captives and you didn't. Now, many years later, we can contrast and compare.

We would both agree that one way to know whether or not a female has nested successfully is the amount of time it takes her to go from first mating to egg laying. You've even mentioned this recently:

FR:Again, its not success vs. failure, its about success vs. success. I have found when they are given a number of good choices, they can decrease the amount of time it takes to lay eggs and increase the number of eggs laid. Its fairly simple, the longer they hold eggs the more stress it is on the female.

(link: forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1964323,1965253)

Recently I was following a thread on another forum in which you were giving someone advice on breeding perenties. What really caught my eye was one sentence, in which you mentioned what you thought was the normal mating to egg laying time for a few species of monitor.

FR: our croc monitors, lacies, and the perenty did not follow the 30 day gestation guideline. They normally went about 6 weeks successfully(reabsorption for the perenty).

(link: www.varanus.net/forums/read.php?2,22012,22124#msg-22124

I have no experience with croc monitors, but have worked with both lacies and perenties and can say, without a doubt, that the average gestation in these two species is 30 days. In a good run, both species can go shorter (I've seen 23 days with perenties and 21 days with lace monitors), but anything over 35 days is a sure sign of trouble. Discounting your perentie, which was a lone female resorbing clutches and therefore bound to show oddities, I was surprised that you thought six weeks was 'normal' for lace monitors, given that you've had experience with so many other species and you know the general rule is 30 days for large monitors, less for Odatria. Unless the animals were housed outdoors and there'd been unusually bad weather delaying things, a female lace monitor holding eggs for 45 days (six weeks) would only be able to do that for a few clutches before dying of reproductive failure. Which is the result you got. You were right in guessing that lace monitors were different, but incorrect in assuming it was their gestation time that was different rather than their nesting preferences.

Which takes us back to nest boxes.

FR:The point can also be made that the use of nest boxes is very situational. That is, works best in cold climates. I know here, they are more successful in our winter, I am using one now as we speak, but they are of no use in our summer, when most of our monitors lay. Its simply too hot about substrate level. Consider, our normal room temps in my area is around 80F so any kind of heat lamp takes the above substrate area way above the temps you mentioned. So any box sitting on the ground is HOT. Therefore not usable.

My animals nest in summer, when the enclosure is quite warm. The nest box is packed full of substrate and heated internally (not by heat lamps), so it maintains a good temperature even when the enclosure gets too hot.

I was under the impression that your problem was your lacies trying to nest when the ground was cold? You implied something to that effect in a post below, when you said they nested out of season (which to me would have been winter rather than summer). You even said that you should have heated the ground. That's where heating a nest box, rather than the ground, would have been ideal. Here's the quote:

FR: The problem we have is southern hemispere varanids wanting to reproduce, on your seasons and not ours. This creates lots of problems which includes nesting. You know, nesting worked well when we could trick them into reproducing in our seasons, which was easy their first couple of years.

I guess I should have installed a hot water system like John Egan did, as all it takes is one failed reproductive event. Then then that occurred with John as well. BUt then, I am human, and it worked until it didn't.

(link: forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1964323,1965390)

FR: Now Crocdoc, you may have a good idea of what your LACIE(one lacie?) needs, so you can support her in your conditions, with your education level of her and lacies around your area. I ask, do you think others have that same understanding and feel as you?

I have offered the same advice to many lace monitor keepers in the past. Some don't have the same understanding and feel, but decide to do their own 'version' of a nest box with varied success. The ones that have followed me to the letter have had success. I have one good friend who regularly breeds lace monitors and whose females nest in mounds of dirt on the ground, rather than in nest boxes, but he lives in the tropics and his ground temperature is hovering around 30C throughout the breeding season. He and I had a chat about this a couple of weeks ago and, interestingly, he said his females make the sort of short nest tunnels they often do in small termite mounds.

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