Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone,

I haven't been here in a while but its nice to see the usual cast of characters sparring back and forth; great entertainment as always and I always get a big smile when coming to this particular forum.

We just received a young dumeril's monitor via a rescue and this is our first go around with this particular species. We keep croc monitors, black throats, black roughnecks, etc. and I just wanted to know if there were some special considerations that we should be aware of. Right now, this animal is in quarantine and we have him set up in a 6' Vision: newspaper substrate, large shallow water bowl that is large enough for the entire animal to enter, large cork bark tube for hiding and basking/climbing, a large sterilite box with dampened spaghnum moss as a high humidity retreat. Heat/light is provided by a 100 watt halogen bulb (T-Rex). Background lighting is provided by a Zoomed 5.0. He appears to be active and is feeding well but any helpful hints would be greatly appreciated.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Contact Ben (tectovaranus), or check out his website:

Roughneckmonitors.com

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Treemonitors.com

Humidity is one of the most important factors in succesfully aclimating dums.With all imported/compromised roughnecks I use a hydration chamber for the first month or so, check out Treemonitors.com for an exellent discription of how to set up a quarentine/ hydration chamber.Please contact me directly through my site, I will be happy to assist in any way I can.
Cheers
Ben
www.roughneckmonitors.com

Thanks so much for the great advice and the websites (and to the other post as well). We are going to make a few changes to this particular animal's environment and I am fairly confident that he'll acclimate; so far, he's eating like a pig but the increase in humidity should improve his health. Thanks again, Rob

>>Humidity is one of the most important factors in succesfully aclimating dums.With all imported/compromised roughnecks I use a hydration chamber for the first month or so, check out Treemonitors.com for an exellent discription of how to set up a quarentine/ hydration chamber.Please contact me directly through my site, I will be happy to assist in any way I can.
>>Cheers
>>Ben
>>www.roughneckmonitors.com
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Rob,

How have you been lately?! It's nice to see you on the monitor forum. This is a great place to come "take it all in and sort it all out".

Dan and I just moved last week and had to endure an 18 hour drive with our mini-zoo (personal pets, breeders and rescues) and belongings. Thank goodness we won't be doing this again anytime soon (or ever)! The Olive Pythons are doing terrific and braved the move beautifully. They're enormous! We plan to concentrate our efforts on breeding them next year as with everything up in the air right now we weren't able to focus this year.

Drop us a line sometime. Hope all is well at the Wildlife Discovery Center.

Jennifer

Danny and Jennifer Guerra
Jungle Gems Exotics
www.JungleGemsExotics.com