Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So I have a ~6 year old female savannah monitor. She's been more than patient with my many husbandry mistakes over the years as I learn how to better take care of her. I rescued her from a humane society in Pittsburgh that was keeping her in a 36-inch tank. Now she lives in a six-foot vision cage (not the best idea, I know, but it's what I could find) in Southern California. I have three questions:

1) Any recommendations for good substrate in a vision cage (again taking into account that the vision is not optimal housing). I've tried CareFresh, dirt, newspaper, and nothing (just the plastic). Oddly enough, the lizard seems to like newspaper best of all--she digs it up and makes burrows out of it in a way that she didn't do with dirt. Any better suggestions, or should I just go with what the monitor seems to prefer?

2) Of course this might be a moot point, since she seems to be in a bad way these days. In late August, we had a terrible heat wave that brought temperatures in my house to over 120 degrees--it melted latex, forced me to sleep in the bathroom, and came with a power outage. After that, the lizard was sort of anorexic (eating occasionally, but often not interested in food) and lost a scary amount of weight. She's eating somewhat better now, but still looks like death on toast. Is there anything I can feed her to help her gain weight more quickly, or should I continue offering her mice daily?

3) About three years ago, she had a bout of vesicular dermatitis (bad stuff--don't ever let it happen to your herps!). I fixed the husbandry problem that caused this, and with the help of antibiotic treatment, she healed up completely, albeit with some substantial scarring. She's been in good shape since as far as major illnesses or husbandry [bleep]-ups are concerned. This week, though, I noticed a small red subcutaneous lump on her back. I was afraid it was another vesicle, but the lump is solid. Obviously, she's going to the vet ASAP, but has anyone ever encountered this? If it were a mammal I might be concerned about cancer. Are there husbandry things that could cause a solid lump like that?

Thanks for any help you can provide. I'm working to figure out better husbandry solutions for everything, and I wondered if there were any ways to help her out before I went to the vet.

get her to drink fluids like crazy and see a vet.....your house was 120*F inside??? that's flippin' hot. if i don't run my A/C here in Florida, it may reach 88. there is something more serious than heat that is emaciating your lizard. it could be anything from parasitic to liver failure.

Thanks for the input. My house gets insanely hot--this last heat wave even melted rubber in my house.

I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow; hopefully it will be something fixable like parasites rather than horrible like liver failure.

I have a prefect thing to feed her but please dont use anything else i took mine to the vet in fl here its a HUGE vet it a univerity of uf and was told to fe mine Hill Science puppy dog food canned nothing else not audlt not another bard deff not cat food. Its full for protien and fat and does great mine loves it u can roll it in balls if u lik but dont feed long tern or it could cause liver probs in time but after she fattens u can use the dog food here and there. Mine like chicken flaovr best.