Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of niles being bred indoors? Also, to RobFaust, I own a copy of your book and have done my best to follow it to the letter. I have 2 Common Niles. one is around 8 mo the other 7. The younger 7 mo old was about 1/2 the size of the older 8 mo old when I acquired it. the younger one is now a little over 3 ft, the older one around 2 1/2 ft. Both were kept under the same conditions, same diet, temps etc. The younger one just started eating like crazy and grew past the other in no time. the larger is now living in a 10x12 bedroom and doing quite well. Do you think its possible to breed indoors in an enclosure of this kind time.

Yes they will breed indoors. There are several people who bred niles on this forum, myself included, back in the early 2000s. I bred mine indoors in a room smaller than the one you mentioned. It is not possible to say if yours will breed in the enclosure you mentioned because you did not really describe it. Size of the enclosure is only one factor in breeding and not even the most important factor.

If you do manage to breed your niles, you will then be faced with a much bigger problem: no one wants them. (Un)fortunately, I hatched only one egg out of 26 or so. It was not an issue for me because I kept that one hatchling. However, 26 nile hatchlings will grow into 26 very large monitors. Many of the people who tell you now that they will buy one from you will back out of it later when you want even a dollar more than the ones advertised on the Internet. To be fair, one of the other breeders did manage to sell some, but I doubt it is a sustainable demand as niles are incredibly cheap in stores.

I am not trying to discourage you from breeding them; however, be prepared to be stuck with a lot of monitors if you have success. Of course, you have to get to that point before it is a real problem.

Best of luck.
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^x^ Bloodbat ^x^
Monitors, monitors everywhere
and all the food they ate.
Monitors, monitors everywhere,
their parents loved to mate.

Yes, monitors are far easier to breed indoors, unless you live where they occur.

As mentioned, size of the cage is only important if the cage allows what is needed by the monitor. And in most cases, rooms in housed do not supply much.

Monitors can be bred in very small cages, but you must make the decisions for the monitor, as in small cages, they cannot do to much. In larger cages, you can offer a variety of conditions and temps and let the monitor pick as needed. But you must include those elements for the monitor to choose.

The biggest problem with rooms is, they are very hard to support proper nesting. And with large monitors, that is not an easy task no matter where they are, indoors or out.

In most cases, it means hundreds of pounds of substrate. Lets see, I use about 250 pds of dirt for my ackies. So what would a nile need? Floors in houses are not designed for that kind of weight and with that amount of moisture. In otherwords, it will ruin your floor and most likely your house.

Moisture, is the devil for houses and moisture is needed for montiors. A huge problem. Of course there are many ways to work this out, its just not easy or cheap.

Then all that leads to the previous post, what are you doing to do with the offspring. Now consider if you do a good job, the female will indeed lay more then one clutch, up to five or six. So that number already givin is not anywhere near what could happen if your an attentive keeper. Indeed, its a problem.

As mentioned, sorta, most people that have bred the cheaply imported species, get fedup with the customer base. They want your babies that you worked so hard for, but they want them for $19.95 each, delivered. hahahahahahahahahahaha Of course there are a few who respect what you have done and what a captive hatched monitor is worth, but that few will not amount to a single successful clutch.

Of course if your bull headed, you can go on and attempt this, but at least you are now aware of the risks. Cheers

Heres my current setup:
The room itself is 10'x12'. The floor is linoleum and the walls are lined with 4' of ply wood all the way around. The ply is coated with about 5 coats of marine clear coat and all corners are sealed with 50 year exterior caulk. If there were no door I could probably fill it with water ha ha. I have 4" of cypress mulch as substrate and a large rock/log pile in the center of the room. I am a residential homebuilder by trade and have already addressed the weight problem. My wife just loves the temporary posts and beam that I put in her dining room. Ill be remodeling the kitchen in the spring and will install something more permanent. Anyhow I keep the ambient temp in the room around 85 with the floor around 80 and basking site 130. Large water pan for now but I'm looking into a small pond setup. I dont use full spectrum lighting. I have 2-4" florescents on the ceiling and 2 100 halogens above the basking site. There are places on the rock/log with varying temps between 85 and 130. I keep the section of the floor sectioned off with bricks near the door so the floor is bare. The nile i have in the room eats there. Thats about it.

Your monitors will develop panaris on linoleum, use wood chips.

If you have supported the weight, then the next thing I would have done is, I would have used a 20 mil pond liner over the floor and up the walls to the top of the plywood. Then FRC(tile board) over the pond liner.

The reason for the weight is, your going to need 2ft of dirt over a fairly large area. The deeper the bigger, the more chance of you getting it right. Which means the more consistant your success will be.

Of course you can hatch an egg laid in the water bowl, but that is not really considered success these days. There are many ways to look at this. It will not take much to hatch a few eggs, its easy. I really do not understand how people have problems with that. But getting it right allows the female to live a long life and produce lots of babies, which by the way, is her design. As an example, I have a female gouldi type monitor that has laid 65 clutches in her 9 years of life(I hatched her) she is a little old looking, but is still going strong. 65 clutches, of an average of 15 eggs per. Hmmmmmmmmmm 975 eggs. Now consider, that niles lay clutches three to four times larger. Their potential is huge.

But I rant, what I am getting at is, you really should think about what will allow a female to attain an average reproductive life. Not the minimum. And of course, not the maximum either.

The reason for the pond liner is. Monitors only lay in humid substrate. And to keep a large area humid, is very difficult in a non draining box. In most cases, the things that prevent folks from breeding monitors is not necessarily about monitors, but about simple problem solving. As you wet the substrate, the moisture(water) will travel along the floor and into the walls.(ask more about this)

Anyway, just some thoughts, Cheers and good luck

FR,
I have access to 60 ml rubber roofing which is the same material as pondliner. I,ve already used it for lining the bottom of my Timor enclosure. I researched the matter as well to be sure it was safe, thats how I found out that they were the same material.
I just have a couple of simple questions. At what age do Niles become sexually mature or is it more a matter of size. The next question is; What are the chances of the two lizards I have being of opposite sex and if they are what are the chances of them being compatible?

Most monitors can breed at or under a year of age, if properly supported.

Also, 50% chance of them being one sex or the other, hahahahahaha, Sorry but guessing will be of no use. I can say. The real key to breeding monitors is the ability to sex them. The first thing you need to do is learn to sex them or all your work is futile.

I guess you are not keeping them together, in my opinion thats a bad thing. Like all other animals, if they grow up together, they stand a far far better chance to get along as adults. I see monitors learn to feed together, share food, share other things, as youngsters. The older they get, the more set in their ways they become.

That being said, its all percentages. You can get two animals from different pet shops, put them together and have them pair up beautifully. But sadly that is the exception. The best way hedge your bet is to raise them together. But its always a bet. No sure things.

Of course with experience you will have more ways to work the animals into success, then when your a beginer. To keep animals, is to work them, that means, you have to make decisions based on whats happening with your animals, at the time its happening. There is little coaching(help) until you have something to coach.

So I ask, why Niles? not that theres anything wrong with them. Cheers

Frank,

I have a heated barn dedicated to a few species of monitors. I have a pair of Lacies in a 10' x 15' enclosure. The substrate is 4 feet deep and there is radiant heat under the substrate in the cement slab. The barn was purpose built for reptiles and the foundation is sunk about 6 feet below ground level and back filled with good burrowing substrate. Over 10 tons of substrate is in this room!!! The temperature of the substrate in contolled by a thermostat. I have several cages that are this large.

Here's my question:

I live in Colorado so these will obviously be kept indoors during the cold months. I have a dog door in the monitor enclosure that can open to a large outdoor enclosure. They would be free to roam indoors and outdoors in the summer. Am I complicating matters too much by letting them have access to the outdoors in the summer? The outdoor area is under construction but will be huge.

Thanks in advance for your help.