Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok now I am a little worried. I have acclimated a grenn tree and a blue tree before they are all kicking butt and eating like pigs. This female has not now two weeks in. Temps are good. Humidity high. SHe is in a room I only go in once a day so she is not stressed by me. Tried super worms, turkey, crickets and pinkies. May go with a little dog food. SHould I stress her with a vet visist?
Tube feeding could kill her?
Any suggestions...seems I suck on this try!

Hello Bat,
Just wondering if you read any of the advice that was provided for you? You had some very experienced responses including info from FR & Crutchfield... If you have only tried what you have listed, then you haven't tried everything- lizards and roaches were among the advised prey items... Try these and see how your lizard responds. I have had a young croc monitor WC take months to feed in front of me- he/she still doesn't like me- but the food disappears... If you are offering live insect food properly you won't really know whether it is taking them until you see the chitin in the feces...lizards(anoles & geckos) will obviously decline in numbers... Best to you- Mike

When he was younger (about 1 yr old) my Nile went through a period where he refused to eat. Im still not sure why this was (theres a million reasons why it could have been, as I wasnt in the know at that point) but im pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that he was in my front living room with people coming and going pretty much 20 hours a day. Eventually, he ate.... know how?

I offered him something he remembered- a fuzzy mouse! Itd been quite some time since hed had a lil one, but you should have seen the reaction! What seemed to stimulate him the most was the way the pinky (as all do) wiggled helplessly- something about a weak animal plugged into his predator drive and he took it right there and then, in front of about 5 people all right in front of the glass.

Sorry, that was just kinda a random story...

Anyway, my suggestions:

1. feeder lizards- this animal would no doubt prey heavily on smaller varieties of lizards in the wild; seems sensible to offer it some. And, while im no expert here, id wager to guess that a few house geckos or anoles in the cage to get your lil lass started couldnt HURT your animal, and it may well HELP.

2. stick insects- ive heard a few people tout these as AWESOME for smaller varieties of monitors; one of which has had a green tree for quite some time now, and he says the stick insects are one of its favorites- camo dosnt work too well when the predator is armed with scent tracking specialization, hehe. These can be alil hard to come by, and are often rather expensive (the fellow i speak of above sells them in his shop for like $7-$12, depending on size)... still, buying a few might be a good investment if it helps your girl.

3. live mammalian prey- what sort of pinkys are you offering? frozen or live? if frozen, try live. the wiggling might make enough of a predation response to drive the monitor to take it.

4. whole avian prey- my Nile loves.... and Im not using this term figuratively; i think he wants to marry a chicken so he can eat his own young.... LOVES baby chicks. These might be alil big for your animal though, but you might be able to get ahold of some young quails(i think they are smaller) or finches or something...

5. roaches- no question here, TRY ROACHES! lol

6. eggs- im not 100%, but im guessing a TREE monitor would often come into contact with eggs and prolly prey on them. Id suggest looking around here, as im not 100% on what kind of eggs to offer. Ive heard people offering scrambled before, so im guessing its workable. I once (and ONLY once) offered my Nile a whole chicken egg. He broke it open and lapped it up.... So i tried giving him a fresh hard boiled egg.... Yeah, he cracked this one too, then proceeded to drag the half broken egg around his cage for a few minutes, before depositing it in his water dish and proceeding to DIG into this egg with his feet.... dont know why he did it, but it was a massive pain in my ass cleaning up after that.

7. various insects- just going off the fact that this animal is relatively small and spends the majority of its life in an arboreal setting, im guessing it comes into contact with THOUSANDS of different kinds of insects. Try experimenting. The more movement the better.

Theres a billion different things you can try. Check out www.LLLreptile.com in their Articles section- there youll find a recipe used by the San Diego zoo for their Komodo Dragons.... basically its ground turkey and bone/blood meal I think, but might be worth taking a look.

Just keep trying. Dont give up. If something dosnt work, try it again a few days later in conjuncture with something new. Do as much experimentation as possible- if this thing hasnt eatten in 2 weeks, either its REALLY hungry, or something is wrong on a higher level (ie, serious health issue).

Batlizard, When you originally posted I responded with a quick caution about lizards. I put 2 negative expiriences(really one but then retested...granted not the most scientific test). Never thought to put the other "X" times I have fed wild lizards to herps with zero problems and maybe I should have. Hope you get the green tree going... Zak.

make sure your temps are right and humity is way up there like 95%, like i said before do not handle her think about covering glass with brown paper bags. just for a little while once starts eating regulary take a small peice off a week if she stops eating again cover back up. make sure has full spectrum lighting say a 10.o bulb. can also try differnt light cycles say shorten day for a week or so then make it a little longer each day, sart trying to think of anything... say like more cover like alot of places to hide put in a lot branches and fake leaves. hiding spots up on the branches as well as on the ground. try lizards, cockroaches, crickets, super worms cooked chicken/ turky meal pinkie mice / rats worms wax worms wet dog food (safe kind of course) eggs hell even try fruit i saw one of thse eat a red grape once. put all worms or dog food in a bowl of course to keep acge clean think like a monitor lizard thik outside of normal lizard keeping.

May I add, I have fed wild lizards to at least many many hundreds of snakes and monitors, and have not had a single problem.

In fact, when I was a poor kid, I aquire a runt tiny hatchling Grey banded kingsnake. It ate lizards. I fed it lizards, until it reached record size for that species. At times it would be swallowing a lizard and parasites would, how can I say this, appear at the bum of the lizard. No problems what so ever. He fathered many hundreds of offspring and grew old and as I mentioned, record size. Cheers