Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm the one with the Ionides. He needs to get out of his tank. I'm going to fix his herp room for him. Please critique my plans.

I have an 8 foot x 12 foot room with carpet. I'll line the carpet with ten-mil visqueen (on the warm side of the floor system, visqueen won't get wet unerneath), and staple down 1/4 inch plywood. The py will get four coats of interior semigloss paint. The joints will get Durock reinforcing tape with polyurethane caulk spread on with a four-inch sheetrock blade. In the middle of the room I'm putting a 7 food diametre X 16" tall rigid plastic kid's pool. I it goes 400 pounds of good, compactible subsoil, with boards and limbs piled on top of the soil. he can get in there easily. I will make a water feature with a smaller diameter kid,s pool, with a small fountain just enough to move the water.

The heat will come from low-hanging CHE's. Lights will be clusters of lowhanging everyday lights. Both will be on one thermostat in case it gets too warm. But I assume he will use his burrows to escape heat. That's double indemnity against heat damage, I like that.

He sure does not look like a climber, but I'll give him a 6" diameter, heavy oak limb spray that reaches the ceiling.

From what I know about him, he'll pout for a week by not eating, for the relocation experience.

I know he wants the entire floor filed with 18 inches of dirt. Do you-all think my plan ill giv enugh to him?

Roger

Actually you need 428 pounds of dirt. Cheers

Gee Frank, Do you think I went overkill on 1500 pounds of dirt for my Niles. I was thinking of maybe giving them another 1500. I sure an glad I read this thread befor going through all that.
Thanks

Roger A. Smoot

Actually my dirt depth scale said, you need 1501.554332 metric imperial pounds. Cheers

Thanks FR, I'll make the necessary adjustments.

Roger

I'm not following some of the main methods you guys use for your animals. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm putting under-floor heat panels to heat the floor and soil.

Don't worry :--) He's a happy, extremely fast-growing, fairly friendly fellow. I anthropomorphise by watching his behavior closely. He does much less glass-dancing now, yet he spends the energy to frequently move in and out of his basking zone (110F by probe off to one side). His behavior is very satisfying. He's getting less and less afraid of the bathtub.

Roger

Understand I could not give a hoot about what you do with your monitor. That is yours to do. What you area missing is, its not about you.

Its about the tens or hundreds that read your posts and think soaking in the bathtub is good. ITS NOT. If you see a need to soak a monitor, its dehydrated. Your job should be to prevent your monitor from getting dehydrated. But of course, that is up to you.

What I fail to understand, why do you want others to mistreat their monitors. After all, they may not be as diligent as you and miss soakings and cause real harm, not just stressing the monitor(what your doing by forced soaking)

So, at least think about what your saying, as want your saying is what your promoting others to do. Cheers

But you are above all.

They say they give their BT's weekly soakings, and they place a *lot* of value on the practice. They have experience with dozens and over the years, hundreds. That's where I picked up the practice. Especialy when I learned that they are not dry-air creatures. My BT's skin is in very good shape, no fungals, no lesions, the shed comes right off. His appetite is prodigious. One thing, whenever I put him in 90F water, he swims and walks, then defecates. Every time. It seems natural to me, and is harmless. I towel dry him after bathing and he heads for the basking zone. All is well in Lizardville. Untill I make the change to his adult cage. I hope he handles it OK.

Frank, as an aside, some of your posts require irreverant responses; don't take it personally, like you say. Yeah, like that advice sure works - what you hand out comes back. It's the Luceciferian Effect at work in every person, no matter who. Look up Luciferian (effect), it's a secular concept in some guy's book that tries to explain human nature.

Forgive my misspellings,

Roger

I am sorry, but can you point to any records of albigs deficating in pools of water, naturally?. Or how about soaking in pools of water.

There are two main known reasons that cause non aquatic monitors to soak. One is overheating, as in, to lower the body temps.

Two is, dehydration.

Normally monitors will choose to control hydration by not exposing themselves to drying conditions. In otherwords, during the dry periods(season) they stay underground, avoiding the heat of the day, only leaving during periods of higher humidity. Examples are, mourning, later afternoon, night, after rains, etc.

In your(all of our cages) they have no choice but to exsist in what we give them.

As for Robyn, I have addressed this with him many times. I believe he is rethinking his stance on this subject.

I am only guessing but in the case of Pro Exotics, many of their husbandry techniques were developed with keepers in mind. To control the animals to make it easy on keepers. Particularly paid help. Some of these techniques were not for the monitors sake.

What you and many others, including Robyn may forget is. A business does things in a way that benefits the business. Which may or may not be properly incorporated by the private keeper. In the case of Pro Exotics and Rare earth, they kept dry cages and moist nesting boxes in an attempt to force the monitors to nest in a predictable way. Which is fine(for the business) when you recieve lots and lots of clutches. But may not be the best thing for someone with a few pairs.

An example is colubrid breeders. They can and do breed snakes in tiny shoes boxes. But the private keeper should show some compassion and offer a much larger richer enviornments.

IF you choose to keep your monitor in a way that physically stresses it(dehydration) then fix that by forcibly soaking(rehydrating) it, causing mental stress, thats your choice. But intellectually speaking, you my friend should be better then that. On offense, its does not take a whole lot of intelligence to figure that out. Avoid the stress, both physical and mental if possible. Yes, its not only possible, but easy to do.

You see Roger, your an oxymoron, you act smart, you talk smart, but you do non-smart things. Yes, a paradox. Cheers

p.s. You do understand, defication is a known responce to stress with all kinds of animals.

Humans are not adapted to defecate in water, but if you pour warm water on a sleeping persdon's hand, he spontaneously urinates, to the delight of his tormenters. But we should never be ashamed if people do that trick on us, because it's an autonomic response. My iguanas and my BT like the tub. IMO tub defecation happens the same way. The BT hangs around the edges, but he defecates every time. I believe it is a response to being in warm water, and not a result of scare-the-poop-out-of-him stress. He is very calm in the tub, never showing me his teeth when I come back in 15 minutes to get him. He just does not act stressed. He is not dehydrated, but then, he does not seek out water: I put him in it for 15 minutes every 167 hours. He has deep damp (no not sopping) 70F. soil to tunnel under surface objects, and remains active in moving between his temperature extremes. He commonly spends about an hour at each location. REpeatedly throughout the day. he spends hours on the dirt, apparetly resting or sleeping. Hunting would be very good for him, but he's stuck in habitats. at least they are large.

You are the set-apart one (holy man) here Frank: I bow down to you. You have lots of experience and lots of believeism. Believeism is not directly related to truth. It's what seems right to a man, which can lead to folly. I combat believesim by reading-up on my specie's care, and closely watching their behavior. I give them hotter if they want hotter, to name one variable. I think through the care of my liards very carefully to see the paths of truth in my mind's clutter of suppositions and preconceptons. It's not easy, but the lizard benefits more and more fom my ascending stewardship.

Roger

First off, why do you rationalize(rationalizing is using out of context comparisons to support your theories) all things you do. Second, you have almost no experience, how do you know what is stressed and what is not. You have no base to work from. Experience gives you a base, both successful and unsuccessful experience. Get some experience under your belt before you go babbling on an on. Sir, that is only common sense.

You use anthropomorphic statememts. You know, comparing human values to people. Then you make it about whos a better person. Clearly, I make no claims that any of this is about a better person. Surely not I.

All of your stuff smacks of a high degree of insecurity. Why do you make so much of so little. Surely if you were not insecure you would go on and do what you do. You would make so much about nothing. All this stuff you do, is in all respects is advertising your methods, yet you have no results. Do you know how easy it is to raise monitors. I guess not. Its very easy.

But as easy as it is. There is no reason to inflict or torment them when there is no need to. And that is what your doing. Your simply tormenting them. If you want to anthropomorphize, how would you like to be forced into a tub with smooth sides that you cannot get out of and have no idea that some giant fat headed monster will come and save you.

If you had half the brain you think you have, how about putting a shallow tub of water in the cage and let the dang thing soak itself?

Then if it did, I and others would tell you that that indicates its dehydrated and needs some cage adjustments.

You go on an on about how wonderful your monitor is doing, do you think that gives you the right to torment it? No it doesn't, what what I get to do is torment you. At least you have the ability to avoid it. Your monitor does not have that ability.

So yes, I must be a better person, then you, as when I torment an animal, I feel bad about it and try to avoid continuing that practice. You seem to take joy in having supreme control of an animals life and continue to torment(inflict mental and emotional harm) for the simple reason it makes you feel in control. How sad for the animal.

Lastly, all in all, you totally mucking the animal up mentally makes no difference, you have a single animal and it will never have do anything but have a heartbeat. You have no goals to allow that albig to be an albig, you simply want to keep it alive, what lofty goals for such a brillant person. Your simply happy its still alive, great. Keep it up. But why the torment? no cheers for you, good day, I said, GOOD DAY

Frank remind me never to get in a war of words with you! lol I have spent many years keeping boids and monitors and it seems its only been in the last ten years that I have learned anything of merit! and when I think I have learned allot I find I have learned almost nothing! Cherrios Jim

np

I'm concerned with what you stated about defacating in the water Frank. I enjoy just sitting and watching my albig in his enclosure, and I have wittnessed, multiple times i might add, him casually climb down from his stacks, walk over to his water dish(rubbermaid tub), climb in, defecate, and climb out like it was completely natural. I also should probably add that since the day I received him, he has never gone anywhere but the water tub. Every morning I wake up to a bowel movement in the water, and I change it. I'm just wondering if this is something I should be concerned about, since you said that they dont normally do that. He doesnt soak, he just climbs in, defecates, and climbs out.
Thanks,
Josh

That is "normally" a sign of minor dehydration. Do you have a screen top or large vents, or no way to conserve moisture.

They normally prevent dehydration by staying in areas(burrows, termite mounds, hollow trunks) they do this to limit air movement around their bodies.

Remember, our modern cages are all dehydration machines. When you provide a hot area, you are also heating air, Hot air expands and moves up(to thermal) It takes moisture with it. If the heat is allowed to escape, it takes moisture with it and it does not care where it comes from.

Also, folks confuse moisture with humidity. Monitors like a medium humidity, that does not dehydrate them and does not sufficate them.

Normally land dwelling monitors make their territory with dung piles. They will habitually deficate in a certain area. Captive albigs have a habit of deficating in a certain corner, etc. Cheers

480 pounds or more. Yeah, I know. I have a quarry nearby that makes soil rock, and one stage of soil-making is perfect for tunneling. I'm getting 500 pounds of that stuff. I'm going to put boards, pcs of plywood, large stones (as heavy as I can move in on a dolly), etc on top of the soil. His water will be a smallish pond feature that he can soak in, plus a cat fountain so he can see moving water. I hope he doesn't go on too long a hunger strike when I move him in there. At least the 10 X 12 setup will contan live mice. Those really turn him on.

Funny story: I bought him/her a chick, but he wouldn't eat it, so there it sits in a lizard condo, eating oatmeal, growing out it's pin feathers. I hope it's a hen. I'm positive he would eat a day-old chick. You should have seen him checking this one out. He was practically making-out with it LOL but not fun for the chick. When he starts accepting live chicks, I'll feed him a certain percentage of pre-killed frozen chicks. They *must* have different nutrition than pure rodent, rodent, rodent, I have to assume.

I'll let you guys/gals know about Brown Garden Snail raising. This is the perfect season to start it.

Roger

Frank thinks I'm going to keep my Blackhroat in a 4'X6' cell LOL

Roger

FR does not bother to think about anything you do. No offense, but your posts smack of game playing. Or at least a loose grip on reality. Either way, it does not matter.

Remember, My main and really only concern is my monitors. I have control of that. I have no control over what you do, nor do I want any. You just have fun.

You have to remember, its your monitor, not mine. In that I wish the monitor well. Cheers

Rocks should lay on the floor not above dirt, more then one monitor was killed by digging under rocks. You might be better served with a few larger logs sticking out from the dirt, after all albigularis are Africa’s tree monitors.

hey let me know how this turns out im really interested. im about to do the same thing but with my rhino iguana. one thing im doing is adding small woode boxes im going to connect to the wall that have a small locking door so outlet plugs will be commpletly blocked. then im going to cover all wires. put up some pics as u move along. im going to use melamine floor. but my guy doesnt really need much water.

Put 10-mil polyethylene sheet under the malamine and up sixteen inches. It's like working with sheet aluminum. I know it's hard to get, but it's better if your melamine board rots than your floor.

Are you getting some kind of pure melamine sheet?

roger

yes and i have this plastic coating going down on floor 1st, but like i said these guys dont really drink at all. ive never seen them in 11yrs. so everything is pretty dry. lets see some pics when your done.