Posted by:
FR
at Tue Apr 22 09:32:42 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FR ]
Hi Tom, You are judging your monitor on the wrong criteria. Monitors do not want to bite the hand that feeds them. None that I have ever worked with, in fact, we seem to taste very very nasty to them.
What makes them bite the hand that feeds them is extreme hunger. Most keepers do not have a clue how to feed reptiles. They some how think reptiles feed on a schedule. You know, once a month, once a week, once everyother day, once a day, etc. When in fact and reality, monitors feed when they are hungry.
This subject has been gone over time and time again. Reptiles have a variable slide scale on the subject of hunger, Its based on available temps and available food.
If food is scarce, they lower their body temps, therefore lowering the need for food. That reduces hunger. If food is plentiful, they raise their body temps in order to process as much food as they can. Here their need for food has to be filled as their metabolism is at a very high rate.
Their life is normally spend picking temps and moving to temps that fit their needs. Every minute is all about this.
In captivity, many think they are smart by only giving hot temps, and feed on a cool temp schedule. This will cause extreme feeding behavior and cannibilism. Or keepers only provide marginal temps and wonder why their monitor is a picky feeder.
Of course, I practice and recomend supporting a wide range of temps and allowing the monitors to do what they are designed to do. After all, they have been doing it for the history of their species(a very long time in a humans concept of time)
Of course there is more about this, but WE have to start simply.
The problem with Savs is, STRESS. Stress kills them over time, and that time is generally under five years. If you hang around here, you will see that clearly.
Those that show the most attention to their monitors are the first to lose them, no matter how good the rest of their husbandry is. Prolonged stress causes the failure of the immune system and that kills off monitors of all species. THIS IS PROVEN HISTORY.
Confined animals of all manner will become behaviorally surpressed if kept in conditions of no hope or possibility of escape, including humans. They will become comatose and eat, sleep, and in many cases perform a patterned pace(cage crazies)
While this seems complicated, its not. But I do not expect you to understand it. I hope you will simply remember it. As a couple of years from now, you will open your wonderful healthy monitors cage and it will be dead. Then you can start to think of what is really important with monitors. Hopefully you will remember this post. I have made you aware.
If you somehow beat the odds and learn to what your monitor really is, I will gladly and happily be wrong. The problem is, I am right far to many times. Cheers
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RE: Its not taboo, its stupid - FR, Tue Apr 22 09:32:42 2008