Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today at my pet store job, a customer came in with a Savannah that was 3 years old and just over 1.5 feet. It was kept in a 40G breeder its whole life, and just seriously looks too small...

We now have it in its own little room measuring 6x8.... My boss says that it is permanently stunted...

Is this true? Now that the Sav. is in a proper home, will be fed properly, have proper heat, will it start to grow or will it be permanently a midget of sorts. Also, just in general, will a monitor that is growing at a real slow pace(slower than normal) every reach "full size" or will it just be kinda like a runt?

no one can predict what will happen with that animal. Chances are, it will still grow a fair bit. If it were 12 years old and a foot and a half, I'd say those chances were slim.

I know of a guy that got a growth spurt out of a monitor that he had for seven years that had seemed like it wasn't growing at all, simply by upping its food intake.

I suggest that you give the monitor a proper enclosure, good basking spot and feed it up and see what happens.

The enclosure he is in has the following specs and inclusions:

Cage: 8x4x4
Heating: Ambient: 80 (A little high for my liking)
Basking: 121-(Seems ok)
Substrate: Pure soil, 1.5' deep

The are in the cage is rather dry, but the soil is pretty moist. You can easily form it...

The water dish was from a water monitor, actually, it isn't a dish, a very small pre-form pond... Big enough until the Sav. is about 3'....

So far, he/she ate 3 mice today quite fast and looked like it wanted more, but we didn't want to load he/she down too much. I'm hoping it really starts to go into a growth spurt. We did find out from the owner that the last time it shed was about 4 months ago, in late June.