Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am new to this forum , I have been keeping monitors for close to 6 years now , at the present i have a timor , blackroughneck , black tree , and a dumerals . I check all my monitors often for dry sheds and any other signs of problems , last night I feed the black roughneck all was fine , today i noticed the last 1/2" of the tail is at a 90 degree angle and is still flexable past the break , I had this happen with my dumeral and had a dry shed and did everything to remove it but I suppose i was too late , no real harm done just dissappointing to say the least , i did not notice any dry shed on the roughneck and for some reason i check the tail tips just to make sure they are not becoming stiff which is what I found in the case of a few monitors in the past , I don't have anything in the cage that would catch the tail to cause a break so I am at a loss as to what happened , none of my cages have any small cracks that would catch claws of tails but anything is possible with monitors , really what I would like to know is if anyone else has run across this sort of thing , since I had a nile that pulled a few claws out and broke a toe I have been careful to keep things like this from happening , any response would help or any input or experience with these matters , it is just a bit of tail but a huge dissappointment to find this .

They also have good skin and no shedding problems. They also like to whack, if pushed.
Don't feel bad, my big male lost about 3 inches. =(
It doesn't mean much to the monitor, I think, and shouldn't to a person. To be able to say its "x" inches long.
I round off. I have a three foot, a four foot, and a five foot black roughneck. That accurately portrays their relative size and mass. If I were to hold them down to get the number of inches exactly, I'd get whacked. heh.
D.

I do not agree that tail whipping is the cause of losing tailtips. Not at all. Please this is not bragging, but I have averaged over 200 monitors of many speceis, in my care, at all times, for 12 years now. And I have not seen that to be a cause. On the other hand, stressed individuals will lose tailtips immedieately. Of course if an individual thats stressed and the tail structure is weakened, the tip will fly off during whipping.

The main type of stress, that causes tailtip loss, for us is, having another monitor in the cage that is not wanted. Most people here, look for overt behaviors light fighting. But fighting, biting, mounting, bulling, etc, are extreme behaviors. In most cases, the monitors simply close their eyes and give up.

It seems this behavior, causes poor circulation and loss of tailtips, toes, etc. is the result.

Please do not get me wrong, if a monitors tailwhip a sword blade, then of course it could lose parts. But around there, they whip everything known to mankind. Just tuesday, I was packing up a male mertens to ship to RSG and it tailwhipped and blew up the spotlite.(I added that to the bill)

What I am saying is, there tail is designed to be used as a whip, and we can all assume anything we want, but I will assume, it would take something very unusual to cause the tail to break doing something its designed for.

Like so many other things, I believe, people want a easy to identify cause, something that does not offend the keeper. In this case, I believe its the keepers fault and we should be offended. Thanks F

I agree with most that has been said here , i did some time comsuming overall checking of the roughneck and since i have had it , about two years now , it has never really shed well , the humidity is high at 85% most times but since it likes to spend most of the evening submerged in the water it is difficult to tell because it looks black and clean , last night I had it out long enough to go over the body and the tail is in a state of shed and even though on the body the skin is shedding in patches the tail is not showing signs of the skin releasing , you would expect that the amount of time spent in the water would in fact soften the skin and cause the shedding to go normally , it did not handle me trying to rub the skin to see if i could get it to release , so there is a problem and what would be recommeded to help relieve this situation , there is a product called shed ease , i don't know if thisa would help , i got the monitor from a petshop and it had problems shedding at that point and never really seems to have the entire skin clear of some sort of shedding process as my other monitors do , in the case of the timor who never soaks the shed always goes in patches and is complete in a few days , the same with the black tree , i do have many areas that the monitor can rub the skin loose on , so this may be the problem , it does whip the tail but not with great force , most times just to flail it at me , it is calm and will come up and stand to reach any food offered so from that I don't feel it is stressed , it does not cower of run or hide , it did have an area at the upper right rear leg that had a raw skin area when i got it and i kept it clean and applied neosporine to help the healing and it cleared up but the constant dry shed is a concern , everything written about shedding problems all mention the same basic remedy , soak and rub more or less , I do use newsprint as the substrate and possibly this may be part of the problem , i am reaching here but in the size cage it is in anything else is difficult to keep clean and mold free even when changed bi weekly , so again any suggestions otu ther , sorry i did not give more info in the first post but much of it seems to be ongoing and never caused a problem in the last two years until now , in my opinion they should shed clean and this one does not , the diet is supplimented with repcal in small amounts twice a week and consists of crickes , roaches , fuzzies , canned cat food of poaltry or fish and ground thawed frozen turkey , and at times jumbo mealworms caoted with reptcal both vit and calcuim mixed .

As far as topical ointments, snake oils, etc... Monitors can shed just fine without being soaked, or soaking themselves or a high humidity enclosure.

I have ackies that I had kept in a less than suitable manner for some time. I did not lose one tail tip or toe, and their sheds were a mess, and they were not soaked, and they certainly did not go in the water dish to soak themselves.

I have peachies, I had one get it's tail tip mangled, they have relatively humid enclosures and soak themselves sometimes. The tail tip on the one, was not a very clean break (was hanging on by some skin) so I had a vet amputate it. I knew this monitor was stressed, because his cagemate had a tendency to beat him up. Well, it takes a huge amount of force to get through the skin with a very sharp scalpel, much less severing the bones. Imports are often at the edge of severe stress levels, and it is our job to reduce stress to more normal levels. What Frank has said about circulation makes sense and completely fits what I have seen, humidity and shedding does not.

I do not think stress can or should be totally eliminated, stimulus causes stress. But it certainly needs to be controlled, I know from experience, highly stressed monitors do not easily die, and can seem normal from a growth/eating perspective, but do not really act normal, especially in group situations.

The newsprint may be noteworthy, but more due to it's suitability to the life of a monitor than cleanliness or humidity. I really have a problem, thinking that an animal that often will eat rotten meat, will have very many problems with cleanliness, I actually think constant lack of their smell (due to excessive cleaning) in an enclosure will cause a considerable amount of stress.

A more suitable substrate would seem a proper course of action to me.

Good Luck,

--Robert

Substrate may be the issue , but time seems to be the essence here now , so i will try one thing recommended such as mineral oil just to see if this will soften the shed , i have had concerns with useing most bedding such as bark or some of the new wood type fir of whatever they consist of , ingestion of this stuff has caused a few problems in a mangrove I had , with blood in the stool which was vet examined and determined to be parasites , after deakling with this for months , I found three dime sized peices of bark one day , and not more blood , the pet shop i got it from hard the bark i did not . i would agree proper bedding with a natural feel and look is by far the best for the animalas long as it does not cause other concerns , i will have to play this by ear , my primary goal right now is to get this skin to shed soon and find a way to continue the process naturally , there must be a balance point here , something I am missing , i clean the cages but not to the point of using bleach or cleaners , just water and i change only whatr needs to be done to remove any waste or food . I was expressed to me today by one dealer that keeps monitors and has for years that it could even be a skin problem or sensitivity that the monitor may have similar to problems some people experience and others do not , who can say , what are the thoughts on mineral oil, just a little one the problem areas to see if this will relieve the problem while a solution is found ?

I find the space between neck scales on my BRN will get a little waxy with old skin and bacteria no matter how often I change her water. I think this is because she doesn't get enough UV to dry her out and kill microbes like she would if she was basking in real sunlight, so I put my roughneck in the shower and let her play. She chases drops of water until she catches them, and assumes a basking pose under the falling water. At first she was stressed, but when she began to warm up (the water pleasantly warm, not hot) she started checking everything out, and now she loves it.

The moveing water literally washes the old skin away. And if she's comfortable with it, I'll reach in and hold her directly under the spray for a bit (she doesn't seem to mind since I keep the pressure low) and any shed left just drips off. This is also nice if she's fed messily.

Thanks for posting that bit. I was curious if mine were typical or not.
They all are attracted to running water, and the female will come running to stick her head under the stream, and even the shy males will wiggle backwards until their butts are under the running water, keeping an eye on me, of course. They like it!
D.

While your monitor may or may not have a shedding problem, I agree with Frank that the tail tip loss is probably due to other causes and not necessarily tail whipping.

As far as the shedding is concerned, I may be completely wrong here but I don't think you should expect a large monitor to shed completely within a few days. My four monitors (not rudicollis) haven't done that since they were small. As adults, they are always shedding on some part of their body. By the time one shed is almost complete on one part of their body, a new shed is starting somewhere else.

long term, you should ditch the newspaper and put in a better substrate. If you spot clean when they defecate, you needn't change the entire substrate every two weeks (with substrate, not newspaper). They aren't THAT delicate about germs that they need to be kept in an antiseptic enclosure

I agree , most of the monitors I have do not shed in a few days and the black throats i had for a few years always seemed to be in some state of shedding , there is some difference in my opinion between desert dry climate monitors and tree wet forrest dwelling monitors , if dry habitate monitors are in damp enclosures there are problems of a different nature . Most of the books i have on monitors awalys state the same thing washing the cage well and the water containers well , i do wash the water bowls with a liquid soap and rinse very well after but as far as the cage i never sterilize it or use bleach or soap , , i can onlyt take most of the books at face value , most are written from ones personal experience , trying to achieve what accures in nature in a cage is quite impossible in my opinion , i do think freash air and real sun are a great benefit to anyherp as well as clean water , most of the cleaning done is for the purpose of halting parasites and stale air and filth from animal waste which the monitor should never be forced to sit in , stress is a tough issue , i keep my monitors in their own cages and away from high traffic areas and most noise and if they eat and are not afraid of my presense then I would assume the stress level is to a mininum . What substrate would anyone recommend , there are many types to be found in the shops here , i know to stay away from pine and some others

Get yourself some dirt. Good old fashion dirt. Dig it up yourself and put it in your cage.(lots of it) What type of cages do you keep your monitors in? Try to give them as much dirt as you can. Weather it be 8 inches or 3 feet. My outdoor enclosures have 5 feet of dirt and my albigs and argus use pretty much all of it. Now of course indoors most likely you can't offer them 5 feet, but give them what you can. You will be amazed at how differently your monitors will react to something they can borrow in. Anybody disaggree?

R_Hilo

"I have do not shed in a few days and the black throats i had for a few years always seemed to be in some state of shedding , there is some difference in my opinion between desert dry climate monitors and tree wet forrest dwelling monitors , if dry habitate monitors are in damp enclosures there are problems of a different nature ."
1) I have kept monitor species of a few types for years, and yes my albigs when reaching a certain size seem to be in a constant state of shed, yet their home country or origin of ancestry has nothing to do with skin problems or problems shedding. All monitors seek what they need or want when they have access to it. If a monitor has stuck shed its one of 3 things; too dry, too cool, or yes too damp. If too damp their skin stays thick and sticks to them bad, the bacteria thing gives me a clue that too wet sounds more like it, as also skin infections occur on monitors that are wet all of the time (not damp but wet). Albigs are not desert dwellers by the way they are arid to semi arid grassland to woodland dwellers that spend alot of time in trees.

"Most of the books i have on monitors awalys state the same thing washing the cage well and the water containers well , i do wash the water bowls with a liquid soap and rinse very well after but as far as the cage i never sterilize it or use bleach or soap , , i can onlyt take most of the books at face value , most are written from ones personal experience , trying to achieve what accures in nature in a cage is quite impossible in my opinion , i do think freash air and real sun are a great benefit to anyherp as well as clean water , most of the cleaning done is for the purpose of halting parasites and stale air and filth from animal waste which the monitor should never be forced to sit in , stress is a tough issue , i keep my monitors in their own cages and away from high traffic areas and most noise and if they eat and are not afraid of my presense then I would assume the stress level is to a mininum . What substrate would anyone recommend , there are many types to be found in the shops here , i know to stay away from pine and some others."

2) Store bought substrate is junk and not a substrate also way to expensive to be able to be deep enough to just be useful for a monitor. As far as cleanliness, monitors dont recognize clean sterile cages that paranoid humans disinfect ( we are afraid of germs they arent, so theres a reason for it), if a monitor is healthy and in correct substrate you can clean the water dish they drink from regularly and replace their substrate once or less a year. Dirt is what monitors recognize and use, not from a store but from your yard, the woods, a river bank etc. Its cheap (or free), it holds a burrow, it holds humidity at a perfect even rate like nothing else period, and spot cleans easier than any other substrate, besides once you keep a monitor in dirt youll never subject them to anything else. What parasites do you think you are halting by cleaning your monitor cage? And UV light does nothing for a monitor. Until Daniel Bennetts savannah monitor book, or Rob Fausts nile book, there were never any books with anything close to proper care of monitors in captivity, those other authors dont keep the animals they are authors only, and if they do keep monitors they dont live very long at all. Those books I mentioned are the only written by someone who has bred monitors period. The savannah book covers the real basic care of all monitors, if you are researching monitors get it read it several times carefully before evr getting a monitor. Good luck.

Now that I have had this happen to the tail I have looked at a few books of photo's of BRNecks and they seem to have a very long tail , mine was over 2 feet when i got it , the tail was not blunt at the tip but not a real fine point either , I have'nt seem more than a few in shops for sale and today i saw two hatchlings which had tails that were quite long so i can't be certain it mine has not lost an inch before i got it but judging from the way it looks the tail even if it came to a fine point would not be more than 1 1/2" longer than it is now , so as they grow do the tails become less of the total length of the monitor ? i know it sounds like an odd question I just don't see how he/she could have lost much of the length without having a very blunt tip , at the end now it is close to 1/8" of an inch in diameter where before it may have been just under half that , today the broken tip is still attached but has now dried up and is no more than a thin strand , it is not a major tragity , i would like to prevent this for becoming an ongoing ordeal , i have had it for a few years and this came quite without warning and it is possible that it was simply broken from some sort of act , most all the times i have seen this the first sign is a hard no flexable tip , this was not the case here is was still flexable even after the break , i will never know what happened for certain , the hatchlinks look quite a bit different from the adults and if I had $245.00 I would be posting pictures of my new baby black roughneck .

tail length, relative to snout-vent length, varies from individual to individual within a species. It also changes a bit with growth. I've never kept roughnecks, but my lace monitors had proportionally longer tails as babies than they do now.

I had 9 babies hatch just recently. They all are very similar in appearance, one has more orange. Four have unusual chin striping. One has an extra long tail, and two have shorter tails than the others. One has a kinked tail, and one has a (slight) undershot jaw.

So, yep, the tail lengths differ right out of the egg.

Number 4 is Spot. He is the most orange, has a spot on his chin, has the shortest tail, and the worst attitude. Not only did he try to bite me, he ran off my hand, charging me open mouthed. I was actually hesitant to pick up the hissing, whipping, tongue-lolling thing. He is 6 inches long. Yep.
*note to self: send Spot to rsg* hahaha, j/k
D.

Thank you , this at least clears up a tail issue , i did notice once I had him out to inspect him he was still and did not flail or hiss , but once he was back into his cage he bacame aggressive and when i reached in to move a few things around he charged me , mouth open and was pretty pissed , so he is not to pleased with being handled .

Well, that would explain why my male has lost tail, and the other two, haven't.
It didn't make any sense, that he could grow to be a freakin 4 and a half feet, with this long tail, and suddenly lose some now he came here. It stayed intact all the years before. Wow, thanks for the observation.
I already know he is saddled with a ton of issues, he was WC as an adult, as I know now. And he gets to be one of my first monitors, lucky him. So, be offended, I understand. I did buy him.
D.

I have seen that very thing with my Rudis. As many know mine had health issues when I got them but the tails were fine. It wasn't until recently when the two stopped getting along that I noticed the tip of the small one's tail missing. She does whip a lot but that had never been an issue until the stress level went up for her. After separating them for awhile I have noticed she is gaining in size, strength and appetite. Hopefully that was the right call and I will have two healthy ones to introduce again at a later date.

Thanks Frank for putting that out there like that. Your experiences can really help to clear things like that up. Especially when some of us (myself) can't see the forest for the trees.