Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My little monitor has a little bit of dried blood around his vent. He is on aspen and I have had him for about 6 months and he has seemed fine and happy. He eats with no problem or anything but I am worried about the little bit of dried blood on his vent. Does anyone have any idea of what is wrong?
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1.1 Motley het butter corns
0.1 Snow corn
0.1 Okeetee corn
1.0 Anery mutt corn
0.1 Stripe Ghost corn
0.1 Amelanistic corn het carmel
2.1 Colombian Redtails
1.0 Hypo Colombian redtail
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.0 Anery Kenyan sand boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan sand boa

Take your animal to a vet get an xray done to make sure he didnt ingest a larger part of aspen that has caused him internal bleeding and impaction. He may also have passed it already and it cut on the way out, either way to be safe you need a vet visit, because you can not tell if he is internally still bleeding.

Then change your substrate, aspen is a general substrate for best results with your Sav you need to move over to a more optimal bedding. We call it the "mix" check out it's consistancies in the savannah forum under my last post on savannah weight and general care.

Good luck,
JC

I saw your post and you said older ones are fine on a dryer bedding. The thing I am trying to avoid is using soil like I have seen on some websites. It is just way to messy and harder to clean. My monitor is a little over a foot long what is the best bedding for him?
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1.1 Motley het butter corns
0.1 Snow corn
0.1 Okeetee corn
1.0 Anery mutt corn
0.1 Stripe Ghost corn
0.1 Amelanistic corn het carmel
2.1 Colombian Redtails
1.0 Hypo Colombian redtail
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.0 Anery Kenyan sand boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan sand boa

Soil is the best substrate period. GOOD monitor husbandry = WORK. If you don't like work you won't like monitor. If you don't like monitor, monitor suffer. Get a cat. They are pretty clean.

Morning,
Well drier substrate meaning drier soil, sand, grit mix less cocoanut husk. Aspen is nice but not functional. It will not hold a burrow, it will mold easily if you attempt to even bring up the himidity. The reason we use the soil mix is because it is the most natural to the grassland enviornment these animals come from and allows your monitor to be a monitor functional you know

It can easily be maintained by whipping your glass surfaces clean with paper towels and a small garden tools. If your using plain old dirt, that is your messy problem. The mix dries when wet to form a cast, which is why it makes good for a burrow. It will hold a shape and yet be a great work out when your monitor needs to be working out. Think of it like the natural turmite mounds these guys sometimes demoilish. It is hard and dry yet powerful monitor claws can tear it right up.

If you really have an oversion to the soil mix use cypress with some cocoanut fiber and sand mixed in. It will pack nice enough for a simple hide but stay dry and not be so dusty or smeary as just dirt.

Cheers,
JC

Congrats, and please bear with me, if you will. Your saying and doing a couple things that I think are harmful. Also understand, your gaining success, but please understand, there is no line that determines success. Once you get your charges to reproduce, which is actually very basic. That is merely the begining of "actual" learning and progress. As in, there is a million levels of success. One of the levels is continued success. Also, once you reach success, it reveals more to be successful at. Please keep this one in mind.

First, you appear to be cutting open eggs before they pip on their own. In my opinion, this is a very poor practice. Understand, you can do what you like and most likely you may not do it often. But folks with less understanding then you, will think its a trick that makes you successful and there will be lots of monitors murdered off. Which means, I do not care if you murder your monitors, but please do not teach others to do the same. I think hatching is the first hurdle a monitor must achieve(on its own) If it is too weak to hatch on its own, then in all likelyhood, its too weak to live.(but thats ONLY my opinion) In other words, I don't think its a good idea to be shipping people monitors, that could not hatch on their own.

Second your nesting box thing. That is without question hard on females. Heres the point, if you can see the eggs being laid(take a pic) then the female is suffering. As in, thats a nasty poor thing to be doing and allow to be done.

Of course you can do it, and you can do it a few times. But again your teaching the worse way to accomplish a task not one of the better ways. As an example, You recieved how many clutches from a single female in this manner?? under five, and you mentioned you retired the female, maybe ten? Now compare that to some monitors that have "better" nesting choices. I have a female thats laid 65 clutches and is still going. Or a female ackie that has laid 17 in a row and is still going. All our females lay four or more clutches a year, year after year. Yes, my method is more work(at first). But what else are you going to do with yourself, make the monitors do the work and suffer the effects.

Heres the reality, and you will indeed face this reality. Heck I am sure you already have, to a small point. There are a million methods that can work. Some of those methods are critical, that is, you have to have the conditions exactly right and keep it right. Nest box type nesting is OK, for a clutch or so(bragging rights) but Nest boxes require constant maintenance and more importantly timely maintenance. If you set up a nest box at the time it SHOULD be set up, then its dried out by the time the monitor is ready. They SHOULD be set up at the time of copulation. Not at the time the female is past due. Causing females to carry eggs past when they are due, is not a good thing, just ask your wife, or a friends wife if they would like to commonly and needlessly carry PAST DUE. They will most likely not answer, but instead hit you with a pan or something that will leave a mark.

As you know, I support large nesting areas, I support that with all types of reptiles. For me, it makes something difficult into something easy. Then consider, something easy will be much easier to do over the "long term" heck, its even better in the short term(for the female monitor)

Heres the deal, doing everything for the animals is narcissistic(all about the person) and being is we are people, its very easy to do and of course very common. The cool thing is, monitors know how and are very willing to do all this stuff on their own. They will dig their own burrows, pick the right temps, make their own nests, heck even hatch their own eggs. All they need is the stuff. Give them the stuff and sit back and enjoy watching them do what they do.

All this leads to the point, Humans make mistakes, it appears we are designed to make mistakes. So take the possibility to make mistakes out of our hands. Put those tasks in the hands(claws) of the real experts, the monitors, WITHOUT question, they were designed to make those decisions and have done so, since before man was man(monkeys). The key is, its easy to do and once you do it, its far easier then doing all that work monitors WANT to do.

You may someday understand, the reason everyone else falls out of breeding monitors is, they make it toooooo much work. They get tired of making mistakes. I make it easy(again narcissistic) If its easy, then both the monitors and I will continue to do it. If its hard, we both(the monitors and I) will most likely quit.

Also, saying a substrate is good because it holds a burrow is very very very very naive. There are something like 4000 types of dirt, nearly all of them hold a burrow, monitors use only a small percentage of those 4000 kinds. Which means, there are other reasons then it holds a burrow.

With that in mind(quit) I will take leave, again congrats and keep on progressing. Cheers

Oh I agree, sir as always. Those pictures are the ones from 04' and her first clutch. As you said I have learned from my mistakes. I hope people have read the first post where I mention that this will be the year I breed the ones I have kept from those pictures, even the slit egg one those were first babies. I know better, I hope I haven't given anyone the impression that these habbits are intact and that using any dirt is fine. I have only listed what worked for me now. I do have to take new pictures. I haven't taken my camera out in some time hahaha I will try and work on that this week. I've just been so busy as of late with care, I have had no time for camera play. Hopefully, the newest setups and my summer outdoor setup will better reflect my continuing progress. Like you said learn and do every day

Always my best Frank,
JC

Thanks for taking my post as it was intented, to help clarify what your REALLY doing. Not what you first did.

I did those things too. Althought, I learned not to cut open eggs a long time ago with other reptiles. Our experiences is suppose to help others not make the same mistakes we did.

I am glad your continuing to work with Savs, and of course I wish you the very best of results. Cheers

Live with the dirts drawbacks, if not then dont have a monitor. They should not have to live in something that is unhealthy, or bad for them to convenience you.
Take it to the vets, find out what is causing the blood, then set the monitor up right away, in a way it should be. Im guessing it will take a good re-education on your part and a complete change in cage, substrate, etc on the way your monitor is kept.

ok look, i really do appreciate yalls help, i do, but it seems like you are talking to me like I have no clue how to care for a reptile. Yea I chose aspen and I will most likely bite the bullet and change, but other than the bedding he is fine and happy. I just wanted to find out why he was bleeding and now I have a good idea. This is not my only reptile I own, yes my only monitor but I know how to care for herps in general. I do appreciate the advice though.
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1.1 Motley het butter corns
0.1 Snow corn
0.1 Okeetee corn
1.0 Anery mutt corn
0.1 Stripe Ghost corn
0.1 Amelanistic corn het carmel
2.1 Colombian Redtails
1.0 Hypo Colombian redtail
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.0 Anery Kenyan sand boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan sand boa

Be here asking the questions you do.
I dont care if your ego is insulted, what matters is your captive and whats best for it. So shows us some pictures of this lizards cage, inside and out, describe in complete detail such things as temps, substrate depths, etc. If you are so experienced and knowledgeable you would not be in these trivial predicaments.
By the way the only one who can diagnos the bleeding is your vet, with a proper diagnosis from your vet, and some good pictures and descriptions of the animals husbandry, we lowly dweeb keepers can tell you what simple fixes will prevent these NEWBY problems.
Dont be afraid to admit when theres a problem, ask for help, but dont let your ego get in the way. The real problem cant be fixed with only a partial view of the whole picture.

"other than the bedding he is fine and happy. I just wanted to find out why he was bleeding"

Yeah, he sounds very happy to me.

Thank you jcmonitor. That was probably the most clear and concise post I've read. Do you only use that mix for boscs? My niles seem to do ok as far as burrowing with my topsoil/ sand/ cypress/ peat mix but I have no clue about nesting yet or even if I have a female (I suspect I do).

Roger

Hi Roger,
Actually, I use this mix universally pretty much for all the monitors with higher ratios of some stuff depending on the animal. Dumerils, more coconut fiber more cypress, even a little perilite to keep that humidity over 75%. Niles more sand but more water too. Its grainier but more natural like the river banks they live off of. The water gets more sand more coconut husk and more cypress to keep up that hot himid above85% feel like the natural forests of Indonesia.

Remember this can be costly bedding for indoor inclosures, persay, as in not as simple as just a nice mulch bedding over natural soil outside, but it does work. Most keepers just use the cypress or what is simple yet functional. That is fine too and all they alternate is the moisture content. My guidelines are strictly trial and error in an attempt to breed these guys. Keep that in mind for yourself. Nice part is natural mixes like this last for months with regular "poop" scooping we rarly have to change an entire medium. usually every three months we take off a few inches on the top give it a good stir and replace what we took out with clean fresh medium.

Jcmonitors, I used cypress untill a couple months back when I got the computer and started learning some real stuff about monitors. When I first added dirt my nile started a couple of "test" burrows if they could even be called that. They were only shallow holes a few inches deep and she went back to another hide that I made. So I went and got some fine sand and mixed it up really good and a day later she had a burrow I could stick my arm in all the way to the shoulder. However if I am understanding FR correctly, if my 'female' is really a female, she may not find my mix suitable even if she burrows in it she may not necessarily nest in it. Even if I have the proper temps and humidity (I have no clue what the proper humidity level is) she may not like the feel. From what I understand they like to use termite mounds and these are hard as a rock. This is another trial and error thing I'm sure.

Thanks
Roger

Totally, and I myself have yet to get the niles going I only have an immature female so maybe next year or the year after, I can let you know how that goes for me.

I think the main piont FR makes and I agree is that no one has it perfect, there is no such thing, we work with animals that we are constantly learning about. I mean wow the that news article a few months back about the Komodo who had a viable clutch with no male. Makes you want to incubate everything from now on just in case hahaha.

Just keep working on it. If your monitor is healthy they tell you, if your monitor is failing it dies. Some things can be corrected some not. I have such a small collection in general that I allow myself a little excessive play I suppose, especially with the substrates, but keep it as simple yet functional as you can.

Just keep on working it out for yourself. I think every keeper ends upwith their own bag of tricks using the general guidelines and thats all we as humans can do.

Yes, I gave up on the magic monitor formula, you know set it up good to go no worries, months ago. If I had'nt I'm sure I would have become bored of this long ago. The funny thing is, before I even started looking at the fora, I was always tweaking my husbandry in an attempt to make things better for my animals. Thanks JC,

Roger

A misconception about termite mounds, They are hard in the dry season and very soft in the wet. In the wet, you can poke a hole with your finger.

So, throught out the year, their hardness is dependant on how much it rained, or how long since the last rain.

This also goes for many soil types as well. Very very hard in the dry and very soft in the wet or after rains. I know, monitor know how to take advantage of this.

Also, small monitors often make burrow entrances when the dirt is soft, then after it hardens up, they can use it all dry season as no predator larger then them can get in the rock hard hole. Cheers

Thanks FR. Do you suppose this explains why hatchling monitors can dig their wat out of termite mounds? I would think they hatch out at the end or just after the rainy season when food is plentiful.

Roger