Posted by:
FR
at Sat May 10 08:51:47 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by FR ]
This is a very good question and it brings up something hard to understand. Particularly with varaphiles.
IT CANNOT BE NORMAL, for any animal to consume its offspring or potential offspring(eggs). But in captivity its common. Sadly its caused by "captive" caused insanity.
We have seen that females will remove and or consume, one or two bad/dead eggs in a clutch. I assume this is a normal behavior to protect the good eggs in a clutch. Its well known that pythons flip out bad/dead eggs before they wrap them up to incubate them. The Barkers have film of this.
But when the conditions are so bad they ruin the nest, that cannot be considered something called normal, even if it appears to be common.
I know if I supply proper nesting and in a timely manner(well ahead of time) we will rarely see the female consuming their own eggs or other cagemates doing that. I know if our animals are conditioned to live in groups and we supply enough support for the group, we do not see that type of failure.
We as the "keeper" also know that WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH IS CAPTIVITY and not actually something normal for these animals, we must sometimes make decisions to intervene and remove the other cagemates if the conditions are not supporting them as a group. The common problem here is underfeeding. Starving individuals will resort to cannibilisum.
There are also many other factors, like individuals that simply do not get along. With this group, they tend to bond to a male(they are raised with) and often will reject other males.
The difinition of rejection is not simple, it can be simple rejection, as in chasing it off or killing the new male. Or it could mean going insane and eating its reproductive effort. And of course more. There are many degrees and levels of rejection.
With this group of monitors(the gouldi group) if for some reason we change males or lose a male, it may take testing many males before the female will finally accept one. But they rarely accept a new male to the degree they bonded with one they were raised with.
Yes, there are many reasons for captive monitors to do negative behaviors, in fact, its so common it could be called normal. But its not normal, its caused by poor conditions.
I find it odd that folks think a monitor should perform normally in a box, with odd conditions(jail) and cellmates, not of their choice. So yes, you should expect this type of failure unless you take steps to avoid it.
Its our job as keepers to create conditions and keep maintaining them to avoid this type of adverse behaviors. The main problem is, most keepers are still not sure of how to keep a monitor physically healthy, muchless how to keep the monitors psychologically sound. The reality is, both, take a constant effort. There is no setup that once done, works for the life of the monitor, unless the life is short. Monitors, like all animals, grow and change with age, they require different conditions as they age. We must keep this in mind if we want captive monitors to maintain both physical and psychological health. Thanks for the great question, cheers
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RE: Argus crosses laying eggs and eating ? - FR, Sat May 10 08:51:47 2008
