Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I came home to find my 1 year old Savannah monitor having muscle spasms. She was crawling around with her front legs bent in. All her muscle were twitching and her tail was shaking like a rattle snake. She was fine this afternoon, eating normally (even lunging in the air to get the crickets) and she also defecated in her water bowl while I was gone. I did notice that her toes have been twitching on and off over the last 2 weeks. I thought she was doing it because the heat rock was to high, which I turned down a little bit (warm to the touch) about a week ago. We have a super UV coil lamp on top of her cage(no more then 10" away from the bottom of the cage). Her cage temperature is between 80 & 95 degrees. I feed her about 24 crickets every day, I dust them with calcium 3 times a week and give her a multi vitamin once a week. Is there something I can do to help my monitor or is this some kind of genetic problem. Please help or let me know what is wrong!

Hi!
These species-specific sub forums get overlooked quite often, I strongly suggest posting in the main monitor section.

Hopefully you know by now what is/was wrong with your sav and hopefully it's on the road to recovery. Based on what you said I'd say your sav was/is suffering from MBD (Metabolic Bone Disease) due to a lack of sufficient calcium in it's diet.

If caught early on MBD can be reversed with a proper diet of whole prey rodents. Some will claim that you'll also need UVB but that's not so.

I hope your sav is doing better by now.

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

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