Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey all --im new here and already i only have disheartening news to the table!--i recently purchased 3 kimberly rock monitors that were supposed to be a 1.2 group--the male was 3.5 months old and the females were 2months old--i payed $2100 for the group--they were GORGEOUS monitors!--i recieved them on thursday morning and put the 3 in the cage 2gether--all was fine all day and the next morning when i came down to turn on the lights for them i saw the male sitting on the rock completely filled out with a tail hanging out his mouth!!!---he ate BOTH of the females!!!--ehhhhhh---that completely destroyed me!!!--well i dont even wanna get into the heartbreak i went through not to mention the finnancial loss i took but anyway now im on a search to find a juvi-subadult female for my male--can anyone help???---any leads on where to look will be GREATLY appreciated!!--thanks guys!

Were these your first monitors?

no--ive had monitors my whole life!---these were my 1rst kimmys--they were only a month apart and i asked the guy b4 i bout them if it would be cool to put all 3 in the cage 2gether and he said they were close enough in age so they would be fine---the male was only like 2in bigger--i still cant believe he got them down his throat!

Dude that sucks. Did you try to feed them after you got them. Some places say wait till the next day. Must have been a big size difference, so sorry to hear that, its a real shame.

I had the first breedings of this species and raised hundreds of them. And,,,,,,,, I have never had one consume the other.

I raised them in groups, individuals alone, etc etc, and still never had once consume the other.

So what you have is a freak incident. You cannot put this one anyone but you and your animals.

When keeping animals, things happen, when keeping them in groups, things can happen. But what you had happen is not common, normal or expected.

In fact, I cannot image one consuming one cagemate, muchless two. Thats dang freaky

I would have to wonder, did that male feed or was he starving?

Of the thousands of odatria that I have raised, I did have one hannabile Lecter ackie. That is, it would murder other ackies. So I guess you have one of those.

Behavior is a strange animal, it has barriers, they are just soft barriers. So, murder can happen as well as cannibelism, that is not normal.

If I were you, I would get rid of that male and start over. Good luck

yea the guy who sold them 2 me said the exact things ur saying but then he also told me that the females were housed 2gether with a group from trhe same clutch and they were 2.5 months old and the male was from an earlier clutch and he was 3.5 months old but he was also housed alone his whole life and he was about 2-3 inches bigger so mabe he just thought they were food--although he assured me he was well fed so i dunno what happened

Well Fed is an hour to hour basis with monitors. What he fed them has nothing to do with 6 hours or 48 hours out of his care. But it's still freaky and I'm truly sorry for your loss. I wouldn't gamble at all this week...

Learning simple things can be costly with varanid husbandry. Age is not a factor when multi housing but size definitely is. All varanids are predators and can be cannibals as well. Housing smaller varanids with larger ones is a lose lose situation. What you experienced is the worst case scenario and very rare at that to have 2 eaten cage mates. The not so bad scenario would have been to keep one large one with 2 smaller ones that get stressed and hide from the in escapable presence of the larger one that is a real threat. Best to keep individually until you know exactly what the sexes are and pair them up accordingly. Here's another good example of a guy I know who had 2 kimberlys for 5 yrs paired together and they did very well. Only until he seen an adult male for sale at a show did he realize the 2 he had at home were both girls. He bought the male and put him in with the two 5 yr old girls. Within a very short time one of the girls up and died while the other girl soon laid a clutch of eggs. My guess would be the girl that became gravid stressed the other girl out by being territorial with her and to the point of death. Females do create pecking orders when housed together. Another incident with Kimberly's is I normally house 1.1 together and I had one of my females lay a clutch of eggs, I then cleaned the cages and moved one female in with the one who just laid the eggs for a day or two. When I came into my facility the next day I had to pinch myself to what I was witnessing, the female that had laid the eggs 2 days prior was trying to copulate [so it looked] with the new female that had been in her cage for 2 days. Really this baffeled me and the only thing I could come up with was it was all about dominance between 2 females. Knowing the species you are dealing with prior to purchasing is the BIG difference here, you have to use good common sense and insight, dont be lazy set up separate cages and be patient enough to wait until they are all close in size.
Bob