Reptile & Amphibian Forums

and i cant find anything on wether or not Bts need a day night cycle

please dont get frustrated at me for all the questions sorry im just new to monitors(owning one i grew up with them though) and i am doing my research and it is constant

please tell me if my set up is right for a 2ft black throat

cage is 4ft long 2ftwide and 2and ahalf ft high
top is half wood half super fine mesh

ambient highs are 90 to 95
lows are 78 to 85
basking is 130

1 cork log on cold side and a retes stack on the warm side
1 water tub

i have him on very bad substrate right now but today iam going to pick up some decomposed granite

tuesdays and fridays i feed him 4 large mice and on sundays i feed him 4 eggs scrambled and dusted every other sunday

he deficates about every other day

Does he get the scambled eggs and bacon, and you have to settle for the mouse?

Robyn just told you "Rodents, FeederInsects" done. You later acknowledged that by saying "ok thank you", apparently it isn;t sinking in.

Also how many people have said, try to feed everyday? Re-read the material if that is what it takes to soak it in, otherwise it is just a big waste of time.

Once you get that right, you enclosure wont last long (3 months maybe?). You need to get to work on the largest possible enclosure you handle, now.

Goodluck, he'll be a big boy or girl.
Mike.

i know im going to start breeding mice so i have a constant sorce

also for an enclosure would it be ideal to buy one of those metal 10x10 sheds from homedepot and build it up to acomidate his needs?

Forget about the DG, just find a good diggable soil.

Feed everyday. Better once a day than 4 times on a Thursday.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

i dug up some dirt its like a powder but when you add water it gets really hard i pulled it from a canyon by my house there were alot of burrows in the same dirt around the area so i figured it would be good for him its kindof brownish red i screend it and baked it for a couple of hours i am going to start feeding him once a day but how many mice each day ?

There is no written feeding schedule for ANY reptile. Of course there are better ways of doing things then others.

The best way is to listen to your monitor. Let it tell you when it is hungry, and when it is not. A good way to do this is to offer food a few times a day. try to pick up his patterns.

If your conditions are accurate you will not need to worry about overfeeding and weight gain...

yea i think i heard about that somewere
thanks ill do that

>>i dug up some dirt its like a powder but when you add water it gets really hard i pulled it from a canyon by my house there were alot of burrows in the same dirt around the area so i figured it would be good for him its kind of brownish red i screend it and baked it for a couple of hours i am going to start feeding him once a day but how many mice each day ?

Feed him daily but not mice daily. Id feed him crickets and or roaches 4 or 5 days a week and mice 2 days, like a Wed and Saturday for example. Start with 2 or 3 mice on feeding days, if he refused the insects the next day ten drop down a mouse on mice days
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1.1.0 YBS
1.3.0 RES
1.0.0 red belly cooter
1.0.0 Fire belly toad
0.0.1 Savannah Monitor
0.0.1 Blackthroat monitor
0.1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.1.0 Mountain Horned dragon
2.1.0 Ball pythons
cats, dog, ferrets, rabbit, rats.

"Feed him daily but not mice daily"

And why not????

Mike.

Drop the mesh, up the cage size. The cage needs to have a solid top, if not the heat and moisture rises out of the top in a convection current, this is how a dehydrator works, you know those things for making beef jerky.
In a few months you will need a cage 2 times that size, in a few months one bigger yet.
Feed daily, offer a basking spot that ranges from 135-160f for now, then you can increase the size of the basking spot as the lizard grows to heat the majority of its STV length. For months you will be increasing prey item size and amounts, basically by increasing amounts of small prey items such as adult mice.
My albigs ate around 3-6 adult mice a day or 3 chicken peeps a day at that size, sometimes more.
I tried the prepared diets, turkey meals, and alternating insects frequently. Its ok but the results speak for themselves, feed almost exclusively rodents and birds, if you want add a load of insects along with the other prey items. At 16 inches long Sobek ate 50-75 crickets a day, and did so in a matter of an hour. She ate roaches but again even with me breeding 4 species of roach, it was fun keeping up with her appetite. Also I could tell she was not getting much from the insects, she preferred and did better on rodents, quail, and chicken peeps.
Sobek a week after getting her, she was 20 inches already (16 when she showed up).

Only 2 years 1.5 months old, and already 75 inches long.

A baby BT on her back, the difference 21 months can make.

Awesome representation on the last picture. That should get people thinking about their 3 and 4 ft cages real quick.

Mike.

ive been watching his body language the last couple of days and im pretty sure he does not trust me hell come out of his cork to explore but he Always keeps an eye on my and i can not get close to him or he hisses and whips at me

The more you test your animal the more he is going to hate you. Avoid all unnessaccary contact in this early stage of his life or you will pay the price.

Mike.

ok so when he gets older will he eventually calm down ?

My experience with the monitors Ive kept over many years. The majority will never like your presence period, some will tolerate you being around sometimes, some will tolerate you even more, a few will enjoy checking you out or being wround you, and a very very few will like your presence and enjoy yo being around them often.
Ive had 2 monitors that fit the latter description, one is Sobek, she was like this the day she showed up at 2 months old, and one wasnt quite as good with people, was a big huge bosc monitor (exanthematicus) I had.
Keep in mind that you cannot estimate the ages of, or even guess at the ages of any wild caught monitor unless you know the person who caught it as it hatched, or in the rare case of a real captive bred monitor if the actual breeder tells you how old it is (if its not Australian then 99% or more are WC).
Years ago I stopped getting WC pets period, and there can be a major difference, why, they never knew freedom, so they dont know what they are missing. WC will always remember freedom and roaming the wild.
The other thing was that I found CBB monitors are far easier to get going on the right track and breed. With CBB you dont have to fix as much damage from the wild, or in the case of an adult from another owner, you dont have to fix the damages caused by them.

unfortunatly im on the down side of the 50/50 when i was changing his water he tried to bite me

>>unfortunatly im on the down side of the 50/50 when i was changing his water he tried to bite me

Things are still new so at this point thats normal, give it 6 to 12 months and there will be a difference in attitude over things like changing water, if your not regualrly trying to handle him/her.

My WC Savannah, just now after 8 months doesnt charge me when I change the water-she sometimes does if Im moving anything else.

My CH blackthroat (36 inches and roughly 11 months old), will allow me to reach in, move things, even will allow me to lift her but let her move up my arm, I never try to force anything. She knows the difference between me and my husband. Husband tries to just hold her, so husband can not even reach into cage without the tail whipping and biting until I saw it myself I never believed he acted like that with anyone.
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1.1.0 YBS
1.3.0 RES
1.0.0 red belly cooter
1.0.0 Fire belly toad
0.0.1 Savannah Monitor
0.0.1 Blackthroat monitor
0.1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.1.0 Mountain Horned dragon
2.1.0 Ball pythons
cats, dog, ferrets, rabbit, rats.

i hope so but i dont know what the deal is ive had him not that long probly a month but the guy i got him from has had him from i think 2months of age but when i got him he never hissed or whiped at me untill last week probly but today after he tried to bite me about an hour or two i put some gloves on and tried taking him out to soak him and he didnt puff up hiss or whip at me at all

what i think im gonna do is take him out only for feeding ill feed him then put him back so hell start to incoprerate me with food and hopfully hell realize that im harmless

You will cause more problems by trying to feed outside it. First of all the cage is home, it should mean safety, even if it means safety from your hands. In time you can be accepted as a supplier of food, but push the subject and you will be considered a threat and a cause for stress at feeding time.

ok ill do that
thanks

>>ok ill do that
>>thanks

Think of him as a teenager, previously he was tolerating being held, or just plain scared. Now he's starting to rebel and act defensive.

The more accuarate my husbandry is the more mine act like monitors
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1.1.0 YBS
1.3.0 RES
1.0.0 red belly cooter
1.0.0 Fire belly toad
0.0.1 Savannah Monitor
0.0.1 Blackthroat monitor
0.1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.1.0 Mountain Horned dragon
2.1.0 Ball pythons
cats, dog, ferrets, rabbit, rats.