Posted by:
SHvar
at Sat Oct 1 03:01:48 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by SHvar ]
The average keeper has bought their monitor from a local petstore, they have the stores advice, the horrible books they sell, and some really bad forums with many other butchers and newbies telling them what works and doesnt, although they themselves are failing at keeping monitors.
These people in many cases read the 2 examples (how they should be kept, and the easy cheap route), which way are most going to decide on, the easy cheap route, simply because they do not understand the animal at all, therefore they do not understand what makes it right or wrong and the easy route sounds better.
They read is 1-2-3-4-5 books that recyle the same info on captive care (all bad) that variety is what works, rodents are bad, etc etc, now they belive the rest of us are high when we tell them they are wrong and need to make changes. The way many start to listen is the animals suffers, gets sick, or dies, now they either change their husbandry, or they disappear into the oblivion where many others went after failing and never getting another monitor again.
The simple diet sounds as mentioned boring, simple, too easy, not exciting enough, so why not start throwing everything they will stuff down at them, they eat it right, well the problem again they dont understand whats good or bad for them as they dont understand the animal or its needs, hence shot gunning begins. After all what was different when the animal got sick, well that day they fed them one type of food, so its got to be it, not the conditions they live in, thats too expensive or difficult or too much work to change.
We could go on and on about why these animals fail all year, you point out a thousand examples from the forums every month, but it doesnt change the keepers attitude about doing what needs done. You can predict many other these animals failing with a 75% accuracy or higher, but this has to do with the difficult part the keeper, the hardest part of the husbandry to fix.
I guess the best way is to show a new keeper before they get the animal the right way in person, and explain then and there why this works, and why something doesnt. I think it sets in and makes a better and longer lasting impression, unfortunately that first impression has to be a good one or getting through to them may be a long difficult road.
Ive been keeping these creatures a long time with some sucess in many examples, but then again I like to learn the hard way sometimes, and to find out for myself too many times. I will admit what FR and a few others have showed or told me about over the last 4 years got me trying for myself some different methods and it showed me whats worked better by trying these things out, more of that guys advice, darn you FR, lol.
Now if you could only teach new keepers from the start the right way.
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Some real world problems with keeping monitors. - SHvar, Sat Oct 1 03:01:48 2005
