Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I think there is something seriously wrong with my nile but i have no clue what. I am a snake person and he is my first reptile with legs and I've had him for almost a year now. The temps in his cages are in the high 80s during the day and in the low 80s during the night. I think it all started a couple of months ago when my sister called me into my room because she noticed something wrong with Godzilla. When I came in the room and checked him out his whole back end seemed paralyzed. When he didn't try to pop me with his tail when i picked him up it alarmed me a lot cuz i knew he could not move at all. This freaked me out bad, I had him in my hands for at least an hour as I massaged his entire back and back legs and tail. Slowly he started to regain some movement in them and within a few days seemed to be ok again. I should mention that a branch that I had set up in the tank that I thought was secure was knocked over when I inspected the tank. My first quiestion is could he have injured himself falling off of the branch it is only about 6 inches off of the ground, because he has had a very big bump on his back every since then or could it have been caused by a vitamin b deficiency? He still doesn't seem like he has correct use of his back in because before this took place his favorite activity was taking baths and swimming around in the bath tub at least a few times a week but after the incident he cant swim right and keeps flipping over on his back or twisting around under the water, so i have since stopped letting him swim in the tub. Now he seems as is he might be really sick or something he won't eat and won't even soak or drink from his water bowl. He seems limp sometimes like he just doesn't have the strength to move. I thought he was almost dead yesterday so I freaked out and force fed him a mealworm, was this the wrong thing to do or should i try to feed him more I know i didn't hurt him when i did it i just rubbed the top of his head to get him to open his mouth then stuck the worm in his mouth a little ways and massaged his throat til it was all the way down. I haven't been sprinkling any type of vitamin supplements on his food due to some bad advice from one of my friends that has one and said it wasn't required and is usually only used on iguanas. What is the best kind of supplements and how often should i use them. I am sorry this post is so long but i love the little guy and would be heartbroken if something happened to him. My final question is do they usually go for only living food or is there some special trick for getting them to eat canned food or the occasional cooked egg, because i previously tried feeding mine a little bit of canned food but he completely ignored it. And how should the eggs be prepared cuz i want to encourage him to start eating again will the eggs help? Thank you very much in advance for any help you can give. I'm looking forward to finding out more information on this forum.
Katy

How could anybody make a proper diagnosis, let alone tell you a proper treatment over the internet?

And how you feed or what you feed a monitor. You should understand a monitor before you get one, they are not snakes and snake husbandry will not work with them. No one can diagnose the animal on the net.

The quickest help has been stated: you need to see a vet. There could be many reasons your lizard is having those problems. The biggest problem is that you waited months to take care of this. The moment an animal shows some paralysis, you should be on your way to a vet.

That said, your setup, from what you described, needs some work. There is a book on nile monitors by Rob Faust. It is a good book with some good guidelines on caring for niles. Get it and read it.

Next, your food choices need some serious work. You should not be trying to get your monitor to eat canned foods or those types of food. You should be feeding whole prey foods (crickets and/or rodents). There are a few other options, but your best bet is to use these and not use the other options until you have the basic foods down. The things you mentioned are just bad food items for monitors (even if the pet store told you to use them).

I am a bit confused why you would choose to forcefeed a monitor that looked dead. At that point, food should not be your primary concern. You should not let your lizard get to a point where it looks like it is starving. It should be on its way to the vet before that (for future reference).

A fall of 6 inches should not be a problem for any healthy monitor. However, the conditions you mentioned would not be healthy for a monitor. So... no one knows what happened or what is wrong. Go see a vet. Good luck.
Salvators

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/x/ Bloodbat /x/

first off, they are correct, you need to see a vet.

secondly, monitors are not overly prone to mbd if they are taking in whole foods and have proper temps.

third, monitor husbandry is really fairly basic. i have a basic outline on my site, the rest is honestly left up to common sense.

getting a nile monitor was probably a poor choice. most of us here do not have the room for niles. i happen to have the room, but that is rare. do you have enough space? do you have an extra room for the niles? a 10x6 cage minimum?

perhaps a smaller monitor would work better for you in the future. shoot, even a sav would be better than a nile. maybe an ackie would be a better choice.

these are live animals, i know you "love" your nile, but he might be better off with more capable hands if he lives. finding those capable hands will be more difficult than you think.

all the best,

andrew
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Varanus Creations