Boy are you in for a world of hurt, with monitor books, its a bit odd. They are normally written by academics(those not practicing captive husbandry) With very few exceptions. Bernd Edinmuller, wrote a small book and he is very good at breeding monitors. But there is a huge problem. He is the polar opposite of us. We have space, he has none. So the conditions(husbandry) are not transferable.

When I first started, I did what I thought was normal. I visited the zoos and private keepers that were leading in the area of captive husbandry. While I found nothing wrong with them. Not in the least. I chose not to follow their direction. The reason I did not follow their direction was simple. It was nothing against them. But what they were doing was not much fun.

It appeared they wanted to breed monitors, without letting the monitors be, well "monitors" they kept them is small cages, tiny if you will. And broke them down to the bare minimum. Yes they bred them, but they did not allow the monitors to express themselves. They did it mechanically, if you will. I on the otherhand am interested in behavior.

I, being a long time reptile breeder, has always bred reptiles by exploring their abilities. Not restricting their abilities. I am interested in behavior, not basic function. It appears you do the same, from your comments like, an aplomado hunts like a peregrine on crack. Tells me you "see" what they do. It appears most varanid keepers, including experts, do not care what they do. Or how they do it. Heck, most do not even care to allow them to do anything.

In all my travels, I have found only one varanid "expert" that I enjoyed conversation with. That was Dr. Ebe Krebs. He like me, does not claim to be a varanid expert or any such label. He is a ethlogist that picked varanids to work with. Which is my REAL interest, their behavior. I work with monitors, not in an effort to produce babies. I allow them to express behavior. Weird as it seems, when they are allowed to do that. They throw out eggs like pez despencers.

Which is one reason I view your setup with some skeptisium. Yours plans are to have seasonal cages. Like your active snake cages. Have a winter, a spring, a summer, and fall. The problem is, monitors(all I have worked with and that is many) are like mice or rats. They will reproduce to the level of support. That is, they lay eggs as long as they can wring out some tiny amount of energy from their enviornment. Seasons have nothing to do with it.

I learned that in conditions much like yours appear to be. I hoped they would rest in the winter and breed in the spring and summer. Then I ran into a problem, my healthist females kept dying in winter. Upon dissection there was a common problem. They were all gravid(in the middle of winter) And yes, they were cold. Cold and gravid kills them. hahahahahahahaha

Once a told of a sad story of a Heavy female attempting to dig a nesting burrow. The ground temp was 28F. Hmmmmmmmmm I moved her inside and all worked out well.

I will not explain everything, so you can ask questions, but in the end. Varanids were not the animals in the books. In fact, they were polar opposites. Which makes me wonder, what the heck were/are those folks looking at. Mind you, I too, am a field biologist. And yes, I spend over a year and a half in the field looking at the very subjects I was working with(again something I thought was normal)

Back to the books, Bernd stated that V.acanthurus, could lay two clutches, anything more and they will die. He also stated conditions and amount of food. So as any wiseguy would do, I changed the conditions and amount of food and sure enough, that changed the results. At this moment, I have a gravid V.acanthurus, that is gravid on her 19th clutch in a row. Which means his statement was naive. It was accurate with his conditions, but the conditions were restrictive. He only spoke of a part of V.acanthurus's reproductive potential. He did not speak of their entire reproductive potential.

He spoke of times, like five weeks from copulation to deposition. Which is well within normal. But oddly, we commonly experience many species of varanids depositing eggs, every two weeks. Clutch after clutch after clutch. Which means, that anything in a month to more, is very naive.

This approach was taken to larger varanids as well. Of course they were a bit slower, often having 4 to 8 clutches a year. Oddly, they often accused me of killing my monitors, as surely they would not live all that long, WITH ALL THAT reproductive STRESS. The problem was, ours lived as long or longer then theirs. As they appear to miss the boat, in order to have any animal reproduce successfully, the task is to reduce undue stress. As it turns out, reproduction is not stressful, not at all. Its a normal function of a healthy indivudal. Its not something that occurs in the best of conditions, but something that occurs at the minimum conditions. Anything below that has to be considered poor, unsuitable, or even horrible conditions. As I often mention, if you treated a dog or cat that way(kept them in conditions they physically could not reproduce), you would go to jail(share a cell with M.Vick) for animal cruelty.

As an example, I made a cross(sorry, I cannot stop myself) between two small species. (kinda like crossing a aplomado with a krestrel)I keep a group outside with no additional support. Note, they were raised inside and return inside in the winter. This group is 2.5. They are on their fifth round of clutches now. I will be digging some up today. The funny part is, they are little over a year old. I know, I hatched them. Again, the funny part is, they are fed about 3 times a week. Sometimes four, if I remember. They are normal(wild) appearing, not fat(how could they be) They work as a group, no fighting, or bickering. All individuals work on others nesting. They are tame. If I put my hand in the cage, they climb all over it. Heck one recently escaped for a month or so. Then I caught it while it was attempting to get back in the cage. Turns out, it was about to cycle and the males were IN the cage. hahahahahahahahahaha, you never see that with raptors do you????????(joke)

If your still reading this, heres the point, Daniel Bennett has been here, he has seen this with his own two eyes. Yet, something very stange and very human happens.

When he is here and sees it, He SEES whats going on, he admits its not what he understands from what he has read or written. But admits to seeing it here. Then he goes back to the land of no reptiles( The U.K.) and then does the human thing(begins to deny). He then is not exposed to what he saw here. Hes only exposed to others with their/his old views. So whats a boy to do, he then denies what he saw, he rationalizes what he saw. Then slips back into his academic ways. Consider, Daniel is one of the good ones. He at least had the confidence to come here in the first place. Most did not. I invited all the authors, all the experts to see this in person. Very very few actually did so. Most choose to not see this, as they knew it would have to change their views. While they constantly deny this stuff occurs. They also know it does, as we have shown it a million times over. They are best served by not being exposed to something with has to make them question what they know(they think they know)

So all in all, it boils down to two sides of the fence. The academics, those that "work" with papers and words. And practioners, those that work with the animals. Successful practioners are few and far between. And they are too busy practicing to write books. The academics, have all the time in the world to write books, as they do not actually DO anything, but gather others work. So here we are. Sadly simple and sorta accurate.

I am really really going to enjoy your progress. I would like you to think about your choice of species. Its a bit like falconry. You can "man" small raptors very quickly. You can do that with many birds in a short time. You will learn all the basics of manning and conditioning. Then you can move on to larger raptors that take a little more time and more patience on your part. This is how I was trained with raptors, they made we work with Kestrels before anything larger. They(the falconers, made me read first, then practice manning, conditioning, they training to fly, with small birds.

With that in mind, you would be better off taking a year and learning small varanids, as they are quicker, but exactly the same. More fun too. Then applying a base education to animals your dream about.

Heres one tiny thought. If your successful and I clearly see your one with that intention. You will have babies coming out your ears. Monitors are explosive reproductively, not like raptors or snakes. Just think if your coachwhips had ten clutches a year. The point is, where do they go????? In all reality, anyone with a snake or bearded dragon, can successfully house small monitors. In apartments and all such.

But, VERY VERY VERY few can house larger monitors. Any monitor that get four foot or more, eliminates most of the possible homes. With larger monitors(five foot plus) there are nearly no suitable homes. The reality is, if you produce 10 or so larger monitors a year, you will find good homes for them. Anything more will be destined to a living death in someones apartment. This is not a judgement on the people, just a judgement on their resources.

Of course, you have the facilities, in fact, tooo much. hahahahahahahahaha. You could be a chicken rancher, hahahahahahaha hehehehehehehe, I know, being a falconer, that is really insulting. Cheers

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