Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, i purchased a water monitor monitor baby that was farmed/captive bred from somebody i found in the classifieds. when i went to choose it, the one i picked was active, yet confident enough to not defecate or try to run like crazy etc. once i brought him home he would not eat. it has been now 2 weeks and it wont touch crickets, mice, turkey or anything. also, its eyes are alwways closed even when hes moving around, only on occasion will it open them. if anyone has any ideas on what to do it would be appreciated. Other then those things the personality on this one is great.

It most likely has to do with your husbandry. If you can describe your cage and conditions in the cage, maybe we can help you out. Posting pics will save you&us a lot of work, as well.

Many young monitors are extremely shy. You can try live or dead fuzzies, dip them in egg yolk to see if it'll trigger it to eat. Its best to leave them in a bowl infront of an area where you know the monitor occupies. Set it there and walk away.
Cutting the fuzzies up helps too.

Cmon man, he doesn't need egg yolk, caramel sauce, or ketchup to trigger it to eat, all that is needed is proper husbandry and temps.

What the OP describes is classic poor husbandry. Check out our site for the caresheets, water monitor article, and FAQ. Get a copy of the Savannah Monitor book by Bennett, and invaluable resource for all lizard keepers.

And do it quickly, before the lizard doesn't wake up in the morning. Ever.

Best of luck.
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robyn@proexotics.com

ShipYourReptiles.com
Pro Exotics Reptiles

Robyn, I covered that at the very beginning of my post.
You're right that any healthy monitor will not need a trigger, but in this case this animal isn't. Plus it was just a tip.

But a keeper like this just needs to focus on the very basic husbandry issues, not what type of candy to feed their lizard, ya know?

It is hard enough to get folks to apply proper husbandry, it takes time, effort and thought. It is very easy to ignore husbandry and throw in a piece of bacon because they heard it was helpful, and that is so easy. So the sick monitor eats bacon (or eggs, or hot dogs, etc) while the keeper continues to provide poor husbandry and the monitor still dies.

Warm that animal up properly, let it bask, get it hydrated, and it will ravenously eat thawed rodents with no problem at all, it won't need any tricks.
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robyn@proexotics.com

ShipYourReptiles.com
Pro Exotics Reptiles

i know the cage probably isnt adequate at the current moment. the reason for this is that i have a larger cage coming in but not until next week. its currently in what they called a 40 long or whatever but its in all reality a 20 gallon cage. ive tried pinkies and it gets completely ignored. it put turkey in its mouth and then spit it out

You can offer it all the food you want, but like they said earlier, it wont eat until the husbandry is correct. I have 2 monitors that would not eat when I got them, and the previous owners said they hadnt eaten in weeks. Both ate within 5 days with correct husbandry.

It might be too late to save it, but if not....Follow the others advice, get your temps and humidity in line ASAP. It wont eat or move until then. Also stop messing with it. Dont touch it at ALL and cover the sides of the cage so it cannot see disturbances outside its enclosure until you get things sorted out. As the others have said, if your enclosure is good (mainly temps and humidity) waters will do fine.

it does not matter what size the cage is, the conditions are what is important.

Most longtime varanid keepers start out new monitors is very controlled conditions, which means, small cages.

The key is hydration, or better yet, lack of dehydration. A decent choice, and plenty of security.

What bothers me is the the reasons you picked that individual. A calm monitor is none pooping monitor is not the way you choose one. You want one that is feeding, so it will crap all over you. You want one with strenght, so it should squirm and even bite the crap out of you.

Becoming tame and trustworthy is what you will do after you have a healthy monitor. Now before. Its a bond between you and the monitor.

Also farm raised is total bullshat. PERIOD, I don't care if a monitor was hatched in my lap, thats again not the problem. The actual problem is what happened between that time and when it got to you.

Heres the actual problem, your monitor was either hatched for eggs collected in nature or from gravid females caught in nature.

The eggs were hatched and the neonates were housed in pens of hundreds to thousands, they were then shipped is bags full of babies, some alive, some dead, full of barf and [bleep]. They were then transfered from an importer, to a wholesales facility, again in pens of thousands, then send to jobbers, not thousands here, just poor conditions. Then to the person who sold it to you.

That person would not benefit from telling you the truth, there job is to sell product. Most do not know or care what the truth is, if they did, they would have to quit their job.

All you can do now is set up the monitor in proper conditions. Make sure is hydrated. As dehydration is the key to poor feeding response. Hopefully your monitor has functioning parts, many do not, liver and kidney damage from the above stress and over treatment.

So next time, pick one that has spunk and vigor, and worry about taming it later. At least you may have a chance to tame it. Sorry for the rant, but we have seen this to many times.

Your an victum of the system. So do not get mad. And its not the size of the cage thats important, not at this point. Set it up right, then respond to those results.

Remember, you have a reptile, it cannot support its own metabolism, as a reptile, it has to pick its conditions from its enviornment, or cage. if its not in the cage, it is dead. Cheers

I vote Franks post, post of the year for new keepers.

Baby imports are notorously dehydrated. Dehydrated, stressed, malnourishd animals won't eat and may not even drink. Of course, at that point, their immune system is compromised.

If and when the husbandry is optimal,stess/handling is eliminated, and the baby doesn't eat or drink, let us know.
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WWW.LIZARDRC.COM

As you said it was on horrible health. My biggest mistake was not taking it to a vet immediately, which i will always do in the future. I brought it back from where i purchased it from, and will try again with one i know with 100% certainty is captive bred

FR, you were exactly right with the problem. i brought it back to where i got it from and they gave me credit, which i will use towards a larger cage. the monitor though, i will get elsewhere. practically all of their water monitors are diseased or have parasites. when i went in on friday, i was looking to trade for one that they know is feeding or is healthy..i found one that looked to be asleep and was very fat. they take it out of its cage and it is dead. the only monitors they have that are truly captives are their brown roughnecks which they breed there. everything else is imported and their tree monitors are infact wild caught, except the 2 babies they have. Thankfully when i went back i found all this out as a fact, because the person i spoke to has nothing to do with sales and only with cleaning... As far as the conditions, i will note for the next go-around to cover each side so it cannot see out and to be much, much more precise and anal about the conditions. I took it too lightly because i have read some other peoples experiences where they stated that they got away with some imperfect conditions. I have also decided after much research that an argus monitor would probably be a better fit for a few reasons: 1) higher willingness to accept food, 2) topping out at 5 feet is more house-able then one topping out by 10 feet. and 3) the overall personality seems to suit me better. I have experience with tegus and a nile monitor...the nile i had to get rid of because it was only calm when i handled it, it would lash at anybody else and as im planning on having a kid within the next 5-10 years it may not be a good suit. i have a large area, about 25x25 in my back yard where i will be able to house the argus when it is larger, but i now feel that space is better suited for an argus than a water.

If its a water monitor, and has its eyes closed it has a respiratory infection. Squeeze his throat a little and move your finger to the tip of his nose, probably has clear mucus or bubbles come out of his mouth/nose. If so, get the right setup and start him on antibiotics from a vet.
Water Monitors from Java usually have resp issues, Sumatrans(true ones) are not caught like the others and do much better.
But eyes closed alot is 100% respiratory infection.

Also if your lucky, it might be just starting, but doubtful it is. Probably has had it. But if your lucky, and its just starting, the right temps and husbandry can fix it without antibiotics, etc. But if it is consantly eyes closed, and wont open unless you touch him, or wet his eyes, its probably very serious and may need a little help from antibiotics. While your at it, worm him as well.

While your at it worm him as well?

Oh boy...

Yes, we have done fecals on LOTS of import waters, and they are FULL of pins, tape, and round worms. And those worms always increase in quantities that are more then even a healthy monitor can handle. Imagine a monitor with resp, compromised immune system, and worms. If the monitor was healthy to begin with, he can probably handle the load, but being compromised and already with an infection, the stress will only help the worms grow in qty.

So i should be getting my water monitor in tomorrow. I have added a pic of my setup below. I have read the article that Robyn speaks of and feel like I am almost ready. This will be my first monitor so I'm hoping everything turns out good. From what i have read, water monintors are an awesome experience. My cage is a 4 foot lizard lounge. I was going to start smaller but got a good deal on cage that i couldnt pass up. I'm using cypress mulch to start off with. A large water dish and 2 logs for climbing and basking. Only thing is i need to build a top tonight to check on temps i get from my basking lights.