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I am thinking about getting a Savannah monitor over a B/W tegu and had a few questions about the Savannah Monitors

Savannah Monitor questions?

>Will most young Savannah monitors eat dried crickets or do you even have to feed them crickets or could something else replace crickets?

>What supplements are best for Savannah monitors when young? And when should they be given them?

>Should they be fed 3 times a week when young and 1 time a week as adults?

>Is this diet good?
Monday: Dried Crickets, meal worms, hard boiled eggs
Wednesday: Dried Crickets, meal worms, ground turkey
Friday: F/T pinky mouse, Dried Crickets, hard boiled eggs

>Are these good temps? Basking spot 120F, cold end 80F and night 75F? With 60% humidity?

>For lighting is the 160W Mega Rays bulb good for UV and heat?

Feed young ones every day, once they start approaching adult size, cut back to 3-4 feedings per week.

Little ones will eat crickets and pinky mice. As they grow you increase the rodent size to fuzzies, hoppers, small mice, adult mice. You can use rodents as their complete diet or you can continue with insects throughout their lives, keeping their diet roughly 80-90% rodents (or chicks, quail, etc.) and 10-20% insects. You can also offer some raw meat (red, white, poultry) periodically.

Use the smallest bulbs possible to achieve 130 basking site surface temps (not air temps). No UVB is needed; don't waste your money.

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Mike Heinrich,
Mike@amazontreeboa.org
www.amazontreeboa.org

Thanks for the advice!

Are they perfectly able to digest the fur on rodents if fed 3-4 times a week when adults?

Will they eat canned crickets or dried crickets?

I don't like feeding crickets but was thinking if you suggest that they dont need UV then I would dust dried (dead) crickets with a calcium and vitamin powder.

What about multivitamins?

Mine (I have 3) won't eat canned insects or meal worms. I feed crickets, night crawlers, dubia roaches, and appropriate sized rodents. They eat the fur no problem. Temps I keep a basking spot of 145F and a cool side of around 80F. At night everyone drops down to about 78/80F. I have primarily taken the advice for monitors from this forum and it has worked well for me.

By the way if you end up taking the advice of getting a tegu instead of a monitor. Don't get a columbian tegu those suckers are mean (they are a bit smaller too)and strictly carnivorous. Get a argentina black and white tegu.

Get a copy of the Savannah book by Bennett and Ravi, available here on the classifieds. It covers all of the husbandry details that you need.

Looking at your provided info, I would say someone is steering you very wrong.
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robyn@proexotics.com

ShipYourReptiles.com
Pro Exotics Reptiles

Do you want an animal that will become the essence of the word "dog tame"? Be fairly easy to tame? Tolerate all of your beginner mistakes with little fuss? Eat EVERYTHING you put in front of it?

Get a tegu.

The only complaints I have gotten about tegus is that they can become extremely food aggressive. Well cared for tegus are some of the most entertaining and well mannered large lizards you can own. When people get frustrated dealing with the temperament of their properly cared for monitor, I tell them to get a tegu.

They do still need lots of room to move around in, as well as a thick layer of substrate to burrow in, and have distinct humidity needs to shed properly, but compared to a monitor (tegus and monitors are not the same animals!) it may be an easier and more rewarding large lizard. I'm partial to the blues but all three of the "argentine" varieties are going to be similar as far as temperament.

They will literally eat anything you put in the cage if they're kept correctly.

It all boils down to what you want temperament wise from your 4-5' long lizard. A Savannah Monitor is going to be a challenge; a potentially very rewarding challenge, but you are going to have to put a lot in and possibly have an animal that really wants nothing to do with you. It'll be healthy, beautiful, and aloof.
Tegus have been documented in South America begging off of picnic tables for scraps. They seem to enjoy interaction, and I've encountered several that will come up to seek out your attention. One that I see regularly likes to climb into laps and get stroked. He will literally walk out of his cage, stroll around a bit, and then walk over and plop into your lap.

Either way, do lots of homework, and get the book Robyn recommended. It's a useful resource.

~jenny
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)