Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently acquired a baby nile monitor, I have him in a very spacious setup and he's doing great. I have some small goldfish/minnows for him to eat and I was wondering the best way to feed them to him. One part of me wants to let him hunt and eat them naturally (he has a large water bowl he can hunt them in). However the other part of me wants to get him used to dead food items.

So I was wondering between the more experienced keepers here what your thoughts are, live or dead fish for now?

Gold fish are disease ridden garbage, feed insects and rodents and in no time youll have a nice big nile that rips off fingers.

At the moment he's a bit too small to take pinks, and from everything I've read they will do pretty well on some fish, I'm also offering minnows (which tend to be a bit better). I also have a bit of time until any rodents I order are even here

Try fish and such from a seafood market, you should be able to just use one fish(at this size/age), cut it up in peices and lay it there. Wait for it to disapear. You should try feeding all sorts of things, like shrimp, insects,small birds and mammals.

He's a bit too small for any sort of birds/mammals, but he seems to be doing great on crickets, I'll have to try things like chopped up fish see what he does.

>>At the moment he's a bit too small to take pinks, and
>>from everything I've read they will do pretty well on
>>some fish, I'm also offering minnows (which tend to be
>>a bit better). I also have a bit of time until any
>>rodents I order are even here

It is big enough to take pinks. Niles can take pinks from the day they hatch. Whether they want to, on the other hand, is a different story. I seem to remember the hatchlings I raised had been picky feeders at first.

Luke

So after careful observation and selective feeding he is only taking the feeder minnows (which from everything I've read, are better nutritionally than a goldfish, please correct me if I'm wrong). He absolutely refuses any goldfish I try to give him.

I'm going to pick up a pinkie tomorrow, any ideas on getting him to take them? I know when I had to get some wild caught snakes onto mice I would scent them with fish, any idea how successful this may be with a monitor?

While I'm here I want to throw this out, my nile is probably 15ish inches and eating lots of minnows and crickets, and doing great. The thing I question is the fact he comes to his basking spot and sits on his piece of slate, and he lets me pet him and he has no problems being held and exploring my tshirt. Now from all the young niles I've seen they are extremely skittish but he seems to have no fear of me at all. So did I just luck out with a very mellow monitor, or is something wrong?

(Heat/Humidity is maintained properly, and he is in a large enclosure with lots of swimming space and branches to climb. I mist him daily and run the light 10ish hours a day.)

Is it a ornate nile monitor? What is the surface temperature of the hottest spot in the cage? And what is the coolest spot?

I'm guessing Elidogs hasn't reead up on "ornate niles" being elevated to its own species.

Have you checked to see if the surface temperature of the slate was too hot? Surface temps of 120 to 150 should be your range.Some monitors will use even higher surface temps, but those ranges there are good enough. (get a temperature gun)
Animals should not have to bask all day. It's a sign of being kept too cool if they have to bask all day. A monitor that size(sm) should be able to heatup and get going very fasst with the conditions we're recommending. Ive currently got a monitor about 17 inches and it usually takes him 10 to 20 minutes to really fully heat up, then it will retreat and come out randomly to throughout the day

A nile that is less then 15 inches should be able to take a pinky down very easily. I would just place the pinky in there and see if the nile has a feeding responce to it while chasing crickets around.

"I'm guessing Elidogs hasn't reead up on "ornate niles" being elevated to its own species."

Ma'am the species get confused all the time and ornates seem calmer to me but who knows.

Yes, if you have a nile monitor, ornate or not, that you can even look at without being hissed at, bitten, pooped on, peed on, clawed or whipped, you have gotten lucky with a moderate tempered one, or yours is sick and your husbandry is off. Mine takes pinks / fuzzies best when I just leave them in the enclosure. Come back and they are gone.

Good luck.

-Dan
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1.1 Savannah Monitors (Annah & Terrance)
1.1 Nile Monitor (Lyle)
1.0 Timor Monitor (Timmmmaaayy)
1.0 Blood Python (Kevin)
1.0 Ball Python (Martin)
0.1 Leopard Gecko (Bella)
2.0 Bearded Dragons (Peter & Jack)
1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake (Hector)
1.1 Kenyan Sand Boas (Wayne & Maude)
1.0 Dwarf Gecko (Little Girl)
1.0 Curly Hair Tarantula (Pube)
1.0 OBT Usumbara Orange Baboon Tarantula (Sin)
1.0 Emperor Scorpion (Ashoka)
2.0 D. auratus (Poison Dart Frogs)
1.0 Peacock Bass (Gary)

Well from what I'm seeing the surface temp is around 120ish and the air sits around 90-95 (with some cool days recently). The cool side stays around 75ish and he has plenty of areas of in-between temps I'm using an older heat lamp that is doing fine for now. He probably spends about an hour actually sitting on the rock itself, often watching me, my girlfriend, or my dogs. He then hides until I open the top of the cage and he comes scampering out to his slate to receive his fish. He seems very social though, he was handled a good bit at the pet store by the lady who worked there so I'm going to hope I got lucky

You may have got lucky with the temperment. Keep up the socialization if you want it to stay that way. Rodents can be offered live or dead (dead makes for a calmer animal--not sure exactly why, but it does) and can be offerecd chopped just like fish can if you are worried about prey size (although your monitor should be able to destroy pinkies no problem, if you feel uncomfortable, chop them--chances are your lizard won't care) As a matter of fact, chopped rodents may be a good way to get your guy started on them--exposed viscera gives the prey a stronger smell, thus tempting your monitor to eat it. This trick has worked for me with monitors as well as tegus and helodermids. Once they start on rodents, they rarely (if ever) look back.

Got a pinkie while I was getting minnows from petco today and he took it immediately, will be putting in my order for rodentpro soon as I clean a space in my freezer

He's still being very tame, and I will continue to handle him and make sure to pet him and let him get used to my hand simply being there, he loves to climb on my arms so it makes for good bonding haha

Make sure you check out the pics of Sidbarvin (Roger's) Nile's too. They are amazing. Backtrack in the archives a bit, you'll find them.

-Dan
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1.1 Savannah Monitors (Annah & Terrance)
1.1 Nile Monitor (Lyle)
1.0 Timor Monitor (Timmmmaaayy)
1.0 Blood Python (Kevin)
1.0 Ball Python (Martin)
0.1 Leopard Gecko (Bella)
2.0 Bearded Dragons (Peter & Jack)
1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake (Hector)
1.1 Kenyan Sand Boas (Wayne & Maude)
1.0 Dwarf Gecko (Little Girl)
1.0 Curly Hair Tarantula (Pube)
1.0 OBT Usumbara Orange Baboon Tarantula (Sin)
1.0 Emperor Scorpion (Ashoka)
2.0 D. auratus (Poison Dart Frogs)
1.0 Peacock Bass (Gary)