It seems the best way to allow monitors to regulate their body temps as needed is to provide them with temperature gradient. This can be done in many different ways. The use of electric lites seems to be the most common choice. With indoor or outdoor floodlamps being the most commonly used successful choice.
I have tested keeping a few individual monitors(over two years) without any lites or heat elements, what so ever, only using ambient room temps. And they have not had a problem. I do not reconmend this as the best or even a good method, but for arguements sake, the individuals are no worse off. And they have lived longer then most kept in, what some call, idea conditions.
In the past, many things were blamed for the failure of monitors in captivity, from UV to parasites, from photoperiod to hibernation to diet(varied or natural like). These and more were givin credit for success and failure.
In my experience, none of this was important or even useful. With parts one thru five in mind, we have been highly successful, in keeping and avoiding desease, raising, breeding, monitors thru many many generations with many species.
I believe the first thing a beginer needs to learn is, monitors are like all other reptiles. There is no magic approach to keeping them. They have a higher metabolism then some species, and require a greater heat range to acomplish that, like Uros and Racers and such. They are active and need some room.
Common sense needs to be applied, most of the newbies would not feed, strips of meat to their captive colubrids or boas and pythons. They could, but the realize that would not be a good thing. Or would they intertain the thought of feeding dogfood to these snakes? Well if you do some research, it was tried in the past. Things like zoopreem snake diet was used in zoos.
Again use common sense, an expert that knows how to read the health of an individual animal could feed these types of diets, This expert, would know when to stop and when to change, if they observed adverse changes in the captives. But that is not the case for beginers. Beginers do not know, they may not be capable of telling if their new monitor is healthy to start with.
Beginers need to realize, you simply cannot start with your first monitor and be "perfect" or "ideal". I have not seen either of those in my career, not with me, private keepers, zoos, etc. Not anyone or anywhere. Beginers need to start simple and with conditions that allow you to learn to advance over time.
I warn beginers to not listen to people or dealers or caresheets that say things like "perfect" or "ideal". I suggest, you always check to see if anyone has reason to say these types of things. Most don't.
I suggest to beginers, if you need and want help, you should find someone who is successful at what YOU want to acomplish with your monitors. Whether its a lap dog monitor or breeding groups or keeping a single individual. Then make sure, they prove to you, that they are indeed successful. But always use your head. If they indeed are successful, they will have no problem sharing proof of that. The saying, buyer beware, applies to keeping animals, only here its, Reader beware. If it sounds to good to be true, then most likely, its to good to be true.
And last, common sense, common sense, common sense. Then understand that your first task is not making cages, or buying food. Your first task is to learn to make your own decisions. That is by far the most important thing you can do. If someone would ask me what step takes me past being a beginer, I would say, the ability to make your own decisions. Good luck Frank
