Reptile & Amphibian Forums

thanks again frank the sand/moss mix you told me to use seems to have work the second female just finished hiding a nest and I dug it up 8 eggs they all seem to be great looking now lets just see if any hatch.

Mriswith
P.S. the last batch went bad just like you said they would.

Remember, you applied my advice(must have do it well), which is rarely done, congrats. Or was it more about your wonderful cage and nice monitors, hahahahahahahaha Ok, the monitors had everything to do with it. We just allowed them to do whats normal. Congrats and good steady incubation is all thats needed now.

Could you discribe the nesting, thanks. Cheers

ummm not sure if I have all the exacts about it but it was approx 2 feet down in the sand mix and she had been digging over there for oh I would say 4 days. I thought she was just making another burrow but when I noticed it was filled in yesterday I checked and found the eggs in a small chamber about 4 feet from the actual entrance and as I said about 2 feet down. They almost seem heavier then the last ones. (aka the ones that died). I got the info about incubation from my local zoo they have hatched out a few sets of timor eggs. The curator said they were not breeding them anymore as they didn't have anywhere to send the babies so sounds like these little guys will make lotsa babies if you let them.

Mriswith

Well nested eggs hatch better and it may be because of what you noted. Small monitors shell the eggs as they are laying them. Well nested eggs seem to recieve more water. You can tell how good the eggs are when the female emerges. If she has lost lots of water weight, the eggs are good, if she hasn't there is a higher chance they are not so good.

So how do you have them set up? I have not seen to many zoos that were good at hatching monitor eggs. Oh that no place for them is a stupid excuse. Theres millions of places for them.

Think of it like this, your wife tells you to take out the garbage, you do now want to do that, so you make a list of rules that do not allow you to take the garbage out. Mine you, its not illegal for you to take the garbage out. You just don't want to.

Thats how it is with zoos, they simply write up their own rules to suit themselves. They could actually do lots of things. Heck, they could sell them and donate the money to education. Surely they don't need the money for better cages or more food or better keepers. Yea, donate to charities. hahahahahahaha its those dang rules they make. They would sooner see the monitors die then do something realistic.(AZA zoos in general, not specifically your zoo) Cheers

I have them set at 93.6 degrees 87% humidity and was told it could be 100-120 days till they hatch. The ranges they gave were 90-95 degrees 85-95% humidity. They are in a pearlite(sp) mixture. If you have any sugested changes I would love to know.

thanks
Mriswith

Well, considering I have successfully hatched over 20 species and many many in number, I will offer this. Thats toooooooo hot. What the heck are they thinking??????????

Heres the deal. Think of hatching eggs as walking a tightrope. You have to have good balance and stay on top of it to get all the way to the other side. Using temps over 90 is just like that only now its not a rope, but a tiny wire. With the rope, there is room to error. With the wire, there is no room for error. The question is, what are the chances of you making a error?

I use mid eighties, I do so because there is lots of room for error. Consider, lethal temps are around a 100F(lower with higher humidities) higher with lower humidities. With the mid eighties I can error in both directions.

Also water is absorbed in the eggs, how this is done is directly related to temps. More at higher temps, less at lower temps. So at higher temps, you have NO room for error in this area.

So it boils down to this, I hatch monitors on a weekly basis, I have for a decade and a half. I do not have problems. The reason is, I try to avoid making my own problems. Keeping eggs that hot is no more or no less than creating your own problems.

So I say this, they must want you to fail, as they gave you some very risky advice. Cheers

ok I will lower the temps to 85 ish???? and I agree you have ALOT more success then anyone else I know so down oes the temps I hope I didn't kill them again.

Mriswith

np

Timor monitors.