Reptile & Amphibian Forums

OK right to the point.
Is there any specific reason for my blackthroat to now be basking 3 times as much as she used to?

She is in a 8x4 enclosure
basking temp is 125-135 svL depending on temp of house
she eats twice daily jumbo mice
she is 1.5 years old
she poops regularly
she eats regularly

"basking temp is 125-135 svL depending on temp of house "

That just confuses me. I can turn on the heat when it's cold or crank up the AC when it's hot.
My basking temps stay the same.
You are measuring the surface temps with a temp gun??

Now a question for your question.
How many of these jumbos are you feeding at a time?

Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Yes I am measuring surface temp with a temp gun. I have 3 45 watt halogen floods about a foot away (maybe less) from the area. I can zero in on temps with a dimmer.The cool end of the cage is room temp 75, and the hotter end is in the mid 80s.
The basking area stays more toward 135 usually. Sometimes my girlfriend gets crazy with the a/c, and that causes it to fluctuate a few degrees. I think the 10* window I originally stated is a little off.
I feed one jumbo mouse 2 times a day. She also gets chicks mixed in a few times a week, usually.

Could be she's reached a point where her growth has slowed so she is no longer burning off those numerous large meals as easily. Hence, more basking to aid in metabolism and the digestion of all those huge rats and chicks [you must have one helluva food bill, too..].

I could be wrong, though. If I am, I'm sure someone will call me out on it.

Cheers,

~Harm
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1.1 Ornate Uromastyx [Re and Wadjet]
1.0 Eastern Kingsnake [Duke]
1.0 Savannah Monitor [Zephyrus]
1.0 Quince Monitor [Poe]
0.1 Eastern Box Turtle [Abel]
0.2 Leopard Geckos [Ghost and Ankh]
1.0 Green Iguana (Rescue Mission) [Spikeless]

Completely, I think its a combination of air and basking temps that are effecting it. You mentioned about the AC, mine are definitely effected by our central air even with the vents closed off down there. Try not using the rheostat, when temps change in the outside air, so will inside the cage. I dont use anything to limit the resistance, I adjust the amount of bulbs. Also when they bask, some will use much much higher temps than others. If the air temps are too low they will bask longer, hence with the AC running, or running longer, or cooler, they will need to bask alot longer. AC will also suck the moisture out of the cages, watch out for that, tell your girl to get used to the heat, or wear less if she gets hot, after all shes not the only one living there.
My basking temps range from 147-195f. I did change one recently as an experiement, but I never checked the basking temps, it works so why worry about it.
Good luck, they can eat alot more than 2 jumbos a day, depending on size, Ive had several that ate either 6 chicken peeps, or 6-9 adult mice a day when they were around 3ft long. Also that ate every day for a year, or almost.

I don't want to get this thread off topic but I've got to ask about using baby chicks for prey, simply because I don't know much about 'em.

Aren't baby chicks, of all breeds (chicken, quail, etc...), mostly water and little to no bones? Does anyone supplement them?

Many, many years ago, when I was first getting into snakes, a fella that was high up in the reptile department of Busch Gardens - Houston, TX, told me they used baby chicks for some of their snakes but they would shove a vitamin called ABDEC, or something like that, down the chick's throat before feeding them to the snake.

Thanks for your input!

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

Chicks have bones, particularly long strong leg bones. That means cortical bone in the prey and that means a good source of Ca and D3. Go to Rodentpro for a nutritional breakdown chart.

Thank you! n/p
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

>>I don't want to get this thread off topic but I've got to ask about using baby chicks for prey, simply because I don't know much about 'em.
>>
>>Aren't baby chicks, of all breeds (chicken, quail, etc...), mostly water and little to no bones? Does anyone supplement them?

See, my thoughts on chicks is just sheer weight. I am a prey weigher. Well, okay, once every several months I weigh prey items to refresh my feel for how much I am feeding....usually to my snakes rather than the savs but anyway. Chicks weigh nothing compared to mice or especially rats. I have a vet that would give me all the guinea fowl chicks I want, but they are light weight stuff compared to rats. Is it worth it?
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

I agree. That's similar to what I was thinking. Should I feed 'em 8 quail or 2 rats?

Thanks, Sonya!

Take care!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

Several small meals than one large meal. Some people try forcing the biggest prey item they can into their reptiles, but why not get a good price on many smaller meals. The biggest meal Sobek eats is either an adult quail or a meduim rat/guinea pig (just got them). I dont use large rats anymore, and never bought anything bigger for them. I was given some huge monsterous rats once, but gave them away, no use for them.
You know Ive used chicken peeps for years with all of my medium and large monitors, in fact since they are consistantly cheap and sometimes my albigs decided they didnt want rats or mice for periods of time, so birds were always accepted. The biggest growth any of my monitors experienced were on mostly birds (mostly chicken peeps).
As far as weight or size, birds have lighter skeletons than rodents do but alot of bone to them. In fact look at rodentpros listing on size and weight for large mice, jumbo mice, and chicken peeps. You find that the leghorns they use are between the weight of both, and larger than both in size.
At one time I got chicken peeps for .11 each, a friend of mine and I bought 1000 at a time. The last few times I got them on sale for close to that price, and 250 at a time.
Even today my flaviargus eats mostly chicken peeps, and Sobek eats alot of them (I dont have any other monitors big enough to eat them, and no more snakes here either).
A good friend had a white pinesnake that ate mice most of its life, and would only eat a few at a time, sometimes only one. After a few years I fed chicken peeps to it, the snake ate 6 at a time without puking, and doubled in size in a month or so.
Dont get me wrong, I still use rodents, always have, but more peeps than anything else.
Sobek eats an adult quail a week with a few other foods items at most, but this last meal was 5 peeps, and 6 mice the other night, 2 days later 3 more peeps.
If you get peeps from other sources you may end up with more expensive smaller chickens (most about half the size). At one time I used week old peeps, they were almost the size of an adult quail.
So to reference what I mean by 6 peeps, for size, make sure they are rodentpro peeps, not smaller types of chickens. Ive had smaller chickens already, I had to feed twice as many to make up for the difference in size, so now the count is 12 per day, per meal. By comparison the same size of meal was 9 large mice.
I never add any supplements to whole animals, only to insects, and not always with them.

I agree with you on most of that. I was just thinking from the point of view of a snake keeper I think it is more stress on an animal to eat 6 items vs 2. And while I am not saying feed huge items I am saying to get the same weight may actually take more mass with chicks. Then there is the issue of smell from the poops from chicks.
But, if I can get chicks for nothing I would likely feed them more.
From a monitor point of veiw I am sure they would enjoy them if they weren't too fluffy.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Monitors like furry, fluffy, scaly, bristley, spiney, slimey, and slippery, they are equal opportunity consumers.
The mass is the overall size of the item, in the case of leghorn peeps, they are larger and heavier than large mice, and lighter than jumbos. So if you use either one, they are a great substitute. They digest faster because the feathers are more digestable, they come out the other end stinkier,and a bit runnier, but this may also have to due with a higher liquid weight or content.
Certain snakes prefer birds over mice, then again pinesnakes almost eat anything they see.
Keep in mind that many snake keepers are funny. Like certain atheletes (wear the same underwear because they believe its good luck, etc). These keepers seem to believe that their snakes wont eat anything but white rodents, yet this is how I always got multi-color mice cheap, so they believe as they are told by their predecessors that captive snakes wont eat or do good on anything but big fat white mice, or rats.
As far as stressful to snakes, eating many food items is not at all true. In fact many snakes prefer multiple meals, its easier to swallow, they go down and digest faster, it allows them (like any predatory reptile) to spend more time in lower temps and under cover (where its safer) and they can digest their meal.
In fact Ive seen snakes more often puke up part of a larger prey item undigested, rather than many smaller meals that are larger in mass and weight, smae principle, easier to digest.
Monitors are not all that different than snakes, or for that matter turtles.

Ok I’ll join…

Remember basking is simply a means for your monitor to obtain the necessary heat to thermoregulate. Consider it is in fact a ‘last resort’ after all other potential heat sources have been exhausted and proven inadequate. This is because basking requires physical exposure and therefore danger, naturally sitting out in the open is not the position they want to be in. So extra basking means that something has changed forcing him to use his ‘last resort’ heat source more often. In this case a lot more often. Either there has been an increased need for heat or a previous heat source has been removed.

Only you know if there has been a heat source removed in some way. It sounds like that is not the case. If not…then the question is what could cause the need for more heat, so much so he is compelled to place himself in danger 3 times as much to get it?

Illness? Could be, maybe he is struggling with a parasite or illness that he knows he needs extra heat to deal with.

Eggs? Is she producing eggs and knows she needs the extra heat to be successful? I do not know if this is true but it makes logical sense.

Too much food? Maybe the consistent source of food evenly distributed (one mouse twice a day everyday) has become an issue with his age.

Basking temps too low? Hey there is nothing stating it has to be 130-140. Maybe sometimes 110 is best, or 160. Excessive basking normally indicates low basking temps. Maybe that’s it?

But wait…maybe this is the normal amount of basking? Maybe he has really only lately become comfortable enough to feel safe using it how he has always needed to.

Or a combination of his age and food intake has increased his heat requirements?

I am not sure of this list, I am just thinking ‘out loud’, but you get the idea. There are just too many variables for anyone to accurately speculate on the problem (if there is one). Maybe it is a combination of several things?

The good news is he is eating well. The bad news is that if there really is a problem by the time he stops eating he is most likely a dead-monitor-walkin…so eating is not a good indicator of health; but it does indicate you have some time to figure this out. So change what you can. The easiest by far is his feeding schedule. Change it up. Feed less, feed at different intervals. Probe his enclosure and understand the temp range options you have provided. Next easiest is basking temps. Increase them, increase the basking surface area.

Sorry no specific answers – good luck.

Tom

Ok guys I think I found the trouble. I tested my temp gun on another surface (incubating beardie eggs). The gun was waaaaaayyy off. It appears that my gun was very misleading. i changed the batteries and now I am getting REAL temps.
105 was the average range of her basking area. The excessive basking has started a little less than a week ago. I am assuming that is when the dimmer was accidently turned down. I will do what SHvar said and just keep the basking at one hot temp, and ditch the dimmer.

Let this be a lesson to everyone!!! Some of you probably have heard FR say "listen to your monitor, it knows best". This is a classic example of my monitor telling me that there was something wrong.

In conclusion, a dumb move for me not supplying a controlled basking temp, but...
Kudos to me for noticing a problem, listening to my monitor, and correcting this problem.

Thanks everyone.

I should have read your post first.

Let me add an other option, one often overlooked.

Radiating cold from the floor of a basement, many keepers omit to insulate the floor and monitors become more affected as they gain girth and weight. Tossing the substrate aside and verifying the surface temp should clear out this option pronto!
Sometimes its as silly as an air conditioner?