Actually a classroom situation can be good, it will allow the monitors to feel normal around lots and lots of people.



There is a pet shop here that has a pair of prasinus and they did lay eggs when they fed them. Sadly the person who fed them is no longer there so they no longer lay eggs.



Those are in a short smallish cage as well.



If you do not "want" them to reproduce, then what your doing is fine, feeding wise.



Monitors do have a very high metabolism and will consume what your feeding on a daily basis, under those condiitons, they will throw eggs at you until you cannot stand it any longer.



Monitors will not seek higher temps unless there is a need, when theirs a need, they use higher temps, which increases their metabolism past mammal levels to near bird levels. Of course, only for periods of time, which is what gives reptiles their advantage. So the balance of need, vs. temps is key



They only reproduce when they hit certain levels of metabolism.



Prasinus are thin built monitors, so its very easy to "see" they are gravid, and to feel they are gravid.



To see,



you know how they look after feeding? When they are gravid, they appear like that all the time, even when not full of food.



To feel,



Its called to palpate. You simply let the female crawl between two fingers like she would a crack. You want your fingers to be about 1/4 of so smaller then the diameter of her body. Because prasinus are so thin, no large fat bodies, you can easily feel the eggs move thru your fingers, and they are easy to count.



To SEE,



Also near the the time the eggs need to be deposited, you can see the oval white areas through their bellies. Near the end, they loss skin fat and the belly becomes more transparent.



Nesting is the most difficult. As its not clearly understood by us, and it may be different with each local of monitors. They tend to have populations around areas they have found a nesting area. These type areas vary.



But they always nest deep in something, several times the lenght of their body or more. This could be inside hollow limbs in the rotting or broken down plant material. Or inside termite colonies.



The key here is temps and humidity. They want mid 80's and there is play here of a few degrees either way. And dryish and humid. Like between 60 and 80% humidity.



Prasinus like to press their heads into broken down plant material and push themselves in to make all matter of burrows and dens and nesting chambers. A peat moss, coco material, and sand mix is good for this. The amount they burrow is amazing.



I would think in most cases in nature its up in trees they find these areas, most monitors and other reptiles do the same as the ground is too wet. So the dryer areas are up and inside.



In captivity, we do not have up or down or ground, we have a cage. So its senseless to think about that. You can fill the whole bottom of the cage with this material, or use a big plastic box with a hole in the top.



It helps to cover this material with leaflitter as it slows down dehydration of that material. Remember, humid not wet.



Well there you go,I gave you both barrels. hahahahahahaha



ALso, I owe my biology class in high school for everything I have done with reptiles, they taught me to think and not to believe what I read, but more what I see. A valuable lesson.



They allowed my mind to exceed limitations. I was a very lucky person to recieve that lesson. Good luck, any more questions?

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