Posted by:
jobi
at Mon Jun 11 23:43:18 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by jobi ]
I will be slammed for this, but hey I can it (bring it on!)
I always do this when I get a new pair, that’s not how I keep my monitors, but until they lose fear of me and feed from my hand this is how I keep all monitors that enters my collection.
Bare naked cage with one branch, one water bowl and not enough substrate to hide, yes this is terrible I agree.
However its my personal choice, I could provide all the bells and weasels from the start, but then id be watching an empty cage for months, with some Doreanus, prasinus and jobiensis the empty cage syndrome can last years, however when you start them this way, they lose fear of you within a few weeks, even the worst cases will feed from tongs before week number 3, this new pair of nil’s from last week already take food off my fingers, they will be housed in an other cage with more furnishings soon, but not yet.
I do not try to touch them, I change water at night when they sleep, I take grate care not to stress them when I enter the room for feeding. They have heat options and the cage is well hydrated, I can guaranty they will climb up my arm before summers over.
Once they have no more fear of me, they start seeing me as a provider, then they become bold and somewhat dangerous until adult.
Maybe this method is cruel? But I prefer this to having a monitor that stresses out at the very sight of me months on end, this chronic stress is worst them what I put them thru at first.
Monitors that have no fear of me do much better, they perform behaviours I wouldn’t see otherwise, these behaviours are the reason of my interest in them, if I was to watch empty cages day inn day out, id find something more interesting to keep.
I often sale animals that I hand feed every day, once in new homes, owners complain about them being hidden constantly or running up the walls when they see them, if I get such animals back they start hand feeding again within a few days, so I don’t know what to say to these keepers, other then apologise?
maybe you want to try this?
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RE: Why African monitors are safer… - jobi, Mon Jun 11 23:43:18 2007