Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone.
Before I ask any questions I just wanted to say thanks to anyone who has posted here in the past about "taming" (building trust with) monitors. Awhile ago I read what turned out to be very successful advice for allowing my Nile to tolerate my presence around him. Specifically it involved letting him get used to me on his own terms. I know there was many posts about this that I read, & I remember one where Crocdoc, as well as many others, was very particular about telling someone not to force handle their monitor. Allowing my Nile (Xerxes) to acclimate to me on his own time, has been working spectacularly! He's around 6 months or so(of which I've had him for about 6-8 weeks), & he already smells my hand & allows me to touch & hold him on a semi-regular basis, especially in his water tub.
So, on to my question...I was reading up on calcium/D3, & vitamin/mineral supplementation today, & I'm second guessing the amounts that I'm giving him. His diet consists of raw ground turkey with crickets, superworms, & goldfish mixed into it, & pinkies (alternating daily). The crickets are fed Orange Cube & calcium pellets, & the superworms are fed the same calcium pellets & dry oatmeal. I add a mix of calcium/D3 & vitamin/mineral powder. 2 pinches of calcium & 1 pinch of vitamin/mineral powder last about 3-5 feedings of the ground turkey concoction, I don't dust the pinkies since they have bones (albeit not very well developed).
The temps in his enclosure (5Lx2Dx2.5H) are 120F-130F @ the basking spot (95-100F ambient), 90F ambient in the middle, & 85-88F on the cool side where his water tub is. Humidity is around 70%. I have a 4' Exo-Terra 10.0 UV bulb in the enclosure, & the closest he can get to it is about 16".
My question is two part -
1st - does he need the D3 or should I switch to plain calcium since he has the UV, which as I understand should allow him to produce D3 himself?
2nd - are the amounts of supplements correct?
Any input is appreciated - Thanks!

Sorry for the long & bunched up post - it wouldn't let me write anymore, so I had to compact it.

I have to ask, what are you afraid of? If you read your post, its like you have a deadly fear of your monitor turning into a rubberband or something.

First off, if you just do the basics, your monitor will grow like a rocket, and strong and sturdy, only feeding on mice and no suppliments what so ever. Like a rocket and strong as heck.

That is proven many many times. The basics are a decent range of temps.

In your case, you could go hotter under the basking lite, and cooler ambient temps.

A GREAT temp range is 75F to 135F. Both ends are not fixed, so you can get a hotter or cooler on either end and still be fine.

About all your liting, it makes attaining what is important nearly impossible. That is, to much heat spread all over the cage makes cool hard to accomplish. Cool is equally as important as hot.

All your suppliment stuff is indeed odd. Its like you want to work hard and harder. With turkey crap mix. You indeed have to add all manner of stuff. With insects, you need to add a tiny bit. With rodents you do not need to add anything.

Its not the monitor that is causing you to add stuff, its you. Get rid of the turkey stuff and feed rodents(as a base) and you do not have to pinch or measure, or add anything. You will just have to keep making bigger cages, and buy or find bigger rodents.

Of course you can feed other items too, like birds, fish, anphibs, reptiles, anything whole. Not parts like turkey.

Being is you are feeding pinkies, you do not have some manner of fear of rodents. Also, if you throw in a handfull of pinkies, your nile will grow like a rocket and then you will need a handfull of fuzzies, then mice, then rats, then alligators or whatever they are eating in Fla.(snowy owl eggs) oh, I mean burrowing owl eggs.

Yea, eggs are good too.

Anyway, stop with all the cement, you do know thats all calicum is. KISS, keep it simple stupid. Then work on what really is needed. Feeding cleaning, feeding cleaning, making bigger cages, feeding cleaning cleaning feeding feeding

Thanks for the reply FR.
To answer your question, what I'm worried about is the results of either over or under supplementing him. Calcifying his internal organs from over supplementing calcium, or MBD from undersupplementing calcium. I've also read that too much D3 supplementation can be just as dangerous, as can too much vitamin supplementation.
At this point he's just big enough to eat pinky rats. Are their bones going to be well enough developed to provide him w/ the calcium that he needs? Also, will the UV being 16" away be enough to make his body create D3 to process that calcium? Will a diet of nearly all pinkies be too fatty for him? Maybe multiple fuzzy or hopper mice would be better than a single pinky rat?
I will definitely work on the temp situation. Right now I have 2 35w halogen floods & 2 50w GU10 size halogen floods spread out over his basking spot. I'll try downsizing the 50w ones & moving them all closer to the rock slab that he basks on. That should up the surface temps & drop the ambient temps, which should in turn drop the cool end temps. The room he's in is usually around 73F, so it won't take much heat to bring it up to mid to high 70's.
Thanks again for responding!

Please try and understand this, 99% of what you read on these forums is not how to keep a healthy monitor that can and does progress through normal life events(grow up and reproduce, in a normal fashion, and life a long life)

The information your reading is based on how to keep a chronically sick animal. Your care is READS like a cure for a horribly sick animal. UV bulbs, lots of calicum, tons of vitamins, etc etc.

Most people here(they cannot be considered keepers as they fail at that) are not doing what supports normal health and indeed are keeping chronically sick animals. So its hard to argue with them as if you do not do all the JUNK your doing, their animals would drop dead.

What is key to understand is, monitors are EASY and do not need or should have, all the junk your doing to prevent some sickness that should not occur and is so easily avoidable.

You do not need or have no need for UV bulbs, they are worthless to a normal healthy monitor. For monitors that can and do consume rodents, you do not need or should not have to use any suppliments at all.

Your task as a keeper is to support your animal in a way it does not need to be medicated its entire life. What your doing is exactly that.

The larger albig is about two months older then its sibling. The larger one is from a first clutch the smaller one the second clutch. It was raised on mice and no UV what so ever, an incandesent bulb.

These are all babies that were hatched here, their parents were also hatched here and so was their parents, and none of them have UV bulbs or vitamins and calcium. Generations of beautiful healthy monitors, without the stuff you think you have to do.

Now please compare this to the results of these using all the stuff you are adding. They are what, attempting to keep their monitor alive. Do you see how work that is?

I always enjoy Frank's replies on this forum!! Frank, you hit it on the head and I couldn't agree more with you - most keepers here, and in general, really have no idea what they are doing. Thanks for your direct and insightful replies; hopefully a few will heed your advice.

Rob Carmichael, Curator of the Wildlife Discovery Center

PS: GORGEOUS ALBIGS!!!!!

>>Please try and understand this, 99% of what you read on these forums is not how to keep a healthy monitor that can and does progress through normal life events(grow up and reproduce, in a normal fashion, and life a long life)
>>
>> The information your reading is based on how to keep a chronically sick animal. Your care is READS like a cure for a horribly sick animal. UV bulbs, lots of calicum, tons of vitamins, etc etc.
>>
>> Most people here(they cannot be considered keepers as they fail at that) are not doing what supports normal health and indeed are keeping chronically sick animals. So its hard to argue with them as if you do not do all the JUNK your doing, their animals would drop dead.
>>
>> What is key to understand is, monitors are EASY and do not need or should have, all the junk your doing to prevent some sickness that should not occur and is so easily avoidable.
>>
>> You do not need or have no need for UV bulbs, they are worthless to a normal healthy monitor. For monitors that can and do consume rodents, you do not need or should not have to use any suppliments at all.
>>
>> Your task as a keeper is to support your animal in a way it does not need to be medicated its entire life. What your doing is exactly that.
>>
>>
>> The larger albig is about two months older then its sibling. The larger one is from a first clutch the smaller one the second clutch. It was raised on mice and no UV what so ever, an incandesent bulb.
>>
>>
>>
>> These are all babies that were hatched here, their parents were also hatched here and so was their parents, and none of them have UV bulbs or vitamins and calcium. Generations of beautiful healthy monitors, without the stuff you think you have to do.
>>
>> Now please compare this to the results of these using all the stuff you are adding. They are what, attempting to keep their monitor alive. Do you see how work that is?
>>
>>
-----
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

If you are worried about pinkies not having enough bones then get a hopper and chop it up. I used to do that just because I could get a hopper much cheaper than several pinkies.

Listen to FR, feed whole prey items. Its the best way to go. Though I do like throwing a few crickets in every now and then for exercise and to enjoy watching them run around.

As for the egg thing FR mentioned above, find somewhere with some quail eggs and flash boil them. I do this for me tree monitors occasionally.

Thanks for the advice guys! Been feeding him pinkies the last few days, & I'm gonna order a bag of fuzzy mice from that RodentPro site advertised on the top of the page.

As far as the temps you mentioned FR, I changed the lighting setup a little bit, & got the basking surface up to 132-137F, kept the ambient temps in the middle of the enclosure right around 87-90F, & the ambient temps on the cool side dropped to about 80-83F.

He seems to be pretty happy about the changes, he's slightly more active & I just found him burrowing under his log hide.