Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I presently have beardies, crested, and leapord geckos, and want to move into monitors. I am looking for something smaller and that is pretty easy to breed. please tell me what you think.

Let me try to lighten this up a lil'.

> > > "please tell me what you think."

Be careful what you ask for. LOL!

Wish I was able to help you more than that, but I'm not able to. Hang on & someone with some valuable insight will be here shortly.

Have a good one!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

I’ll give it a shot…in general monitors are easy to breed. Hardly anyone can or does succesfully because they fail to provide their basic needs. Once you are adept at meeting their basic needs the hard part will be getting them to stop. This is nothing fancy, keep it really simple. There is plenty of information available from successful monitor breeders to copy their methods and be successful. There are no short-cuts, follow what has been proven over and over to be successful. Steal with pride. Everything posted here by FR and proexotics.com are excellent places to get a good basic understanding of monitor husbandry requirements.

Once you have established a basic understanding of what this endeavor will entail you will be able to choose what species will work best for you, so that choice is yours alone. You could say if you don’t yet know which species to work with then you are not ready, more research is necessary. The general consensus is the dwarf monitors are best suited for newbie breeders to work with (larger tolerance for error, smaller enclosure requirements), but who knows maybe you’re rich and want to go for a 30’x15’ water monitor enclosure with a pond and 3-4’ of dirt.

That all being said…let me make clear my own lack of real experience. I have never bred monitors. I am somewhere around the ‘understanding what species would work best for me’ stage.

good luck -

Tom

I am relatively new to monitors. I currently have a 1.2 trio of Mt. Isa Yellow ackies and I couldn't be any more pleased with them. They are a joy to work with, they have amazing character, and they were breeding within minutes of being introduced. Follow the advice of providing the most perfect environment available and you will have no trouble breeding them.
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Roy Blodgett
Green Man Herpetoculture
royreptile@yahoo.com

1.1 Drymarchon corais
1.1 Masticophis taeniatus taeniatus
0.0.1 Coluber mormon
1.1 Lampropeltis getula californiae (desert phase)
1.0 Boiga dendrophila dendrophila
1.1 Corytophanes cristatus
1.2 Varanus acanthurus brachyurus (Mt.Isa)
2.2 Pogona vitticeps (snow and red/gold)
1.0 Iguana iguana

“All men lie enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.”- Herman Melville

I have to agree that yellow ackies are the way to go! I have three, and they are awesome! I'm expecting my first clutch to hatch in August!

Jamie

Ackies are prolly your best bet all around.

Reds, Yellows- they are all good times.

A 1.2 or 1.3 group would be good for breeding purposes im guessing, at which point its just a matter of obtaining the housing (proexotics.com has a walkthrough) and the animals themselves.

Even with small species though, be ready for some hefty monetary costs. Foods gonna get ya (i can only imagine that 3 ackies would eat approx the same amount in money as a single 2 y/o Nile), as will housing.

Housing can be tricky, but stock tubs are the way to go here. Still, careful how you go about doing it. Its amazingly easy to damage houses these days when you are talking 1 ton + weights being moved about.