I received a very interesting question this morning about a young male sav that has a weight problem, so I wanted to just run through what I have seen and noted these last few years and about weight issues in this particular species.
There is a great misconception that the Savannah monitors are a husky round boxy animal, and some have even described them as the "Whinny the Pooh" of the vararnids. It's why so many young uninformed reptile owners go to that show or that pet store and purchase that, "cute pudgy one over the skinny, it looks half dead one." A monitor should not look half dead, skin and bones, lethargy all bad signs it's probably half-way dead anyway. However, the fat over fed pet store window monitor is not the best alternate choice either. A monitor should be "healthy" fit full bellied and bright eyed, but not so large that it has no individual fingers or noticeable elbow in it's extremities. Savannah monitors are a boxier monitor, and when provided the optimal diet and setting they are muscular. Males should have tone and strength, females too but they can be softer a little rounder.
Obesity in any monitor species can lead to liver failure along with a whole bunch of other problems do to fat stores accumulating between the intestines and the innards causing constriction and lethargy.
Unlike, geckos or species of the like, there is no "pocket" or spot that naturally is where the bulk collects. It will always spread throughout the body and in time, sometimes faster sometimes slowly, kill, "your sweet little pet."
So let's talk about a few things, diet, metabolism, and movement.
Diet-
The email I received this morning listed a number of wonderful foods healthy for your animal and varied which is great, however, the animal is still "fat" why?
This all comes down to listening to "your" animals specific needs. The misconception that one monitor is like the next is like the third, as long as they are all savannahs or all Niles is so wrong. Unless you are keeping a breeding group of 5 or more animals you would not understand why, but they are social and have a very interesting group system. There is a difference between general set-up and care (optimal word being general as in generalized for all vararnids) versus, specific needs of one of you animals care, even if they are all the same type of monitor.
"Monitors are monitors, they are not people!"…. or are they? 
I love that one remember like you and your family Savannahs belong to a larger family of all vararnids, every type having its own needs. Like brother and sisters though you expect to be treated differently than your sibling or cousin. Your general care is relatively the same but you like to eat only veggies and your brother will never drink milk… it's the same for monitors and I am saying this with experience of holding back "families" offspring and how they are different from one another and from their parents. Remember this, each animal has his or her own requirements above and beyond the, but I got the care pack, I bought the book, I did this needs. Listen to them, for each and every one will have it's own tick and it's own needs both in diet and in habitat function.
I feed whole prey every other day but my animals eat daily. Yes daily!!! These items are whole chicks, rats ranging in size based on the animals, and a mix of 1:1 calcium ratio bugs, i.e.. crickets. Megas are a bit high on the phosphorus side I believe at a ratio of 1:14. Not one, of our animals is obese yet some feed the same diet but vary how often or how much.
It work's out well to feed a chick on a Monday, a rat on a Tuesday but on both days crickets, it is the time of day that differs. . What does this mean? Well, it means the same thing it does for a human. In the morning when you get up you will choose cereal or a bagel. Like you, give your animal a choice, bugs, chick, snails, rats???? Then second feeding we alternate. If we fed medium rodents they get bugs for dinner or vice versa. Bosc monitors come from the grasslands of Africa so their eating habits coincide with the temperatures of the day. They are very diurnal animals monitors, and Savs will be most active in the morning spending energy looking for a place to sun and warm as the suns rays first rise. They wake up they trek were they will and they sit for a few hours and wake/warm up. Then it's time to eat. All this has been observed here in our summer backyard setups, and by noon when the sun is its warmest you see a rest period a time to go to their burrow and cool until the temps drop optimally again, later mid day. Then it's time for more food and whatever else suites them. Savannah monitors are hungry all the time so you have to regulate how much how often. Try and keep it as natural as you would like it they depend on you, but in the wild they do it for themselves, and they do it well, it's what they do. Nature takes it's coarse and if they require more calcium they will seek out more hard shelled animals snails, eggs, etc. If they require more protein they will select alternate food, the occasional snake, large rodents, other monitors!!!
To feed your animal one form of food all the time will lead to deficiencies in the long run, and it can be a cause of your animal being obese. Remember monitors eat when they are hungry, they don't diet, they don't care and they will eat whatever is usually offered to them, whenever; so make the right choices for them. You wouldn't feed your children cereal three times a day every day would you?
Mind you this is taking into consideration that you are not one of those keepers who feeds their monitors dog or cat food? Just cause it's animal byproducts, and a monitor is capable of eating rotten scavenged food in the wild and not become ill from it, it doesn't mean you give them canned processed horse!!! That's not a natural food item for them it is very high in the wrong stuff and yes it gets your animal fat!
"But I feed a varied diet regularly and my monitor is still fat, what can I do" Here is where "listening" to your animal comes to play and habitat that you provide. Let's finish with food before we move to habitat. If your doing this a varied diet of decent size your on track, but when your grandma found out she was diabetic she had to change her needs and diet didn't she? Ok so your savs isn't diabetic but come one work with your animal. If he is getting heavier and you have been feeding more eggs? Put two and two together, eggs, are a great normal food for them but think of how much energy your animal expends in the wild. They move miles sometimes to find one stupid ground dwelling bird nest to get an egg or dig for a half hour to get to the bottom of another monitors egg nest. Think, it's just like you guys the harder you work the more calories you burn the higher caloric intake your food can be. The less you move the easier it is the more streamlined the caloric intake must become.
This leads me to habitat and movement. All the time and this morning, I am asked how big is big enough, when it comes to a cage. You all know the general rules, if you don't go to Pro Exotics get a downloadable monitor pro care pack, read more. The info is out there. Ok, so you did all that what's the big deal? Well many people try and follow that length width formula, and for keeping an animal at home that is the general rule of thumb, but again your animals needs must come first. Savannah monitors are not Niles they are not waters they are not ackies. These are grassland animals with a body built for low ground rocky dwelling. What I have come to call the "mix" has been around a bit and took its basis off of PE and FR gritty lume and cypress, but now we have come up with a great formula that works perfect for these guys. The ratio I find that works best, mind you I'm in New Jersey, so we have humid summers and icy winters so you may have to vary depending on state and weather, but for most savs I find that 1:1:1:2 ratio of coarse sand (can substitute lume if available), hard grit small finely crushed stone and or clay like one would use in bonsai soil, coconut fiber for moister and sterility against molds and fungus, to plain dirt. This is a great soil base, it drains easily so you can water the area regularly like natural rain. It will hold a tight burrow when dry thanks to the sand and grit, but retain enough moisture cause of the fiber bark that if its nesting you want your females will hunt out the humid chamber. The rest is held by just dirt which graciously isn't as messy as you might find once you have watered it all once well. Remember I have higher humidity in this state so I can use less sand and grit and still have it hold a cast, if your in drier areas increase the sand grit to make an almost concrete base. My current indoor setup is custom built in my basement. Concrete floor utilizing a plywood (pressure/water treated ) frame that is 8X6X4. This a nice amount of square footage to cover. Screen mesh top and all of this easily acquired at your local hardware store. The key is deep bedding with Boscs, we have it almost 20 inches deep from the floor base to the ground level. This gives the animals ample space to do what they do best… dig. * added note I like to cover the whole think then with cypress mulch so it has that grassland mix to it. Yes your monitor will make it a mess it will never be neat, it shouldn’t be they are monitors not toys. Your best cleaning tools ill be a rock rake and a hoe. To constantly stir and mix it up again, not that your monitor wont do that on their own.
Which leads me to this last part, motion. Savannah monitor motion, is the key to daily feeding with no obesity. Right foods, good temps, great medium is a start but it’s the motion just like in humans your monitors must be stimulated to be active. They need heat and room and challenge. These animals are bulky because they are natural diggers, most monitors are, but Boscs have it down pat. Look at their bodies, level flat triangular head to start a nice whole just like a spade, powerful curved thick claws to thresh away dirt rock and soil, and a thick set of stocky legs to pull those claws back.
Anyone, who has seen pictures of my original breeder male, Typhon, can tell you he was lean and muscular, why because he dug daily, incessantly. There are many reptiles out there that stress because of cage rearrangement, ball pythons, geckos, they stop eating they need re-aclimation time, well not a healthy Bosc!!! If they are doing their thing they will dig fill re-dig and move that mix around daily. Its how they burn off those calories and stay sleek, and I find it imperative for healthy nesting in females. My first attempts were half a$$ed at best. I used dirt and sand mix with nest boxes burrowed below that the female could be lead too and then "forced" to lay in. Then I would dig up the box mind you we are talking a simple sterilite under maybe 7 inches of "stuff". This worked but it wasn’t right. My female multi clutched that first season, every 20 days I got more eggs till she was exhausted and nearly died, something I never wanted to happen. This is why although I am sure females of health can breed into their later years as old as 8 or 10 who knows maybe more, I decided to make her a pet and adopted her out when she was fit again. I saw it's toll. Learn from my mistakes. Deep earthy mix and that cypress will come in handy after she makes her burrow she will pull that in to keep humidity higher and lay her eggs.
All in all, this is how my animals get their thermal burn on, keeping metabolisms high and therefore will delegate what foods you feed and how often.
If you find your Bosc obese and you don't feed it canned food, you feed it variety, your temps are great, and your cage is the right size, check your substrate depth. Give them what they want room to roam room to dig. If your animal is already obese and lethargic and you correct your husbandry, get it motivated. Hide food place items under rocks half out. Make little burrows place food in there with parts out. Make that animal work dig feed and move. This is a great motivator. Some people ask if starving their monitor is key to loosing weight because in the wild they are known to go 8 months fasting. This is wrong thinking, your homes are not Africa you are not seasonally drying up and dehydrating where all vegetation and animals are scarce and your force to go into a sedative state where you eat less and live off your reserves. Hell, even females, unlike other reptiles who stop eating before egg deposition, will eat up to three days prior to egg laying. I have had a female even eat smaller insects the night of and right after deposition if available. Starving your animal will lead to kidney failure and vitamin deficiency. Like people, treat them as an individual work with your animal, again if your animal got fat and all you fed was eggs and rats, switch to small rats more bugs and kill the eggs for a few months, don’t just stop feeding him/her all together. You'll cause more undue stress and will do little to fix your problem.
Well I am sorry this was long and that it touched on so much but hopefully some people learned something from my experience. This is not dogma it is what has worked for me what I did how I changed. Try it ! It might help, it may not ( doubt that) but above all learn to read and listen to your monitor. They are special and besides letting them do what they do is so much more fun. Nothing like, five or more animals digging at once, messy sure, fun totally and they couldn’t be happier.
it isn't such a predecided choice to do one food item over the other split up in the day, it is rather random.
? Here's a pic of Deuce in his first home. I will post a couple more pics if someone can tell me how to post more than one in one message.
