Reptile & Amphibian Forums

without having a harmful effect on them? I understand that in the wild, desert temps can fluctuate dozens of degrees, and the animals can handle it; however, do you think that they can handle such extreme temperature drops without becoming ill?? I know that you keep someof your goannas outside, just wondering, my herp room's temps fell into the upper fifties last night; the temps outside were in the single digits, and my heater malfunctioned. I guess it's a good thing that I insulated the hell out of the building otherwise, temps would have been much much lower.

All of my odatria have at least a foot or so, some more, of substrate that they could have burrowed down into... Has anybody heard of monitors coming down with respiratory infections due to cold teperatures as it is commonly seen in boids?? Just wondering, hoping my animals are OK, I'll know later in the day, when temps warm up in there, to where they should be.

Thanks for any info,

bob

First, I think in those old articules in the mags, that I mentioned we allowed all the monitors to routine go into the fortiesF. We did not notice any problem until actual freezing temps occurred. With the species that occurred close to the equator, in nature, they would simply die of suffication, a few degrees below freezing. They did not freeze. The species that occur farthest from the equator, did not sufficate. Or freeze.

The lowest outdoor temps that unheated uncover monitors have experienced here, was around 15F, that happens a week or so ago. No problems. Remember, these did go underground. We have a pair of 22 inch sulcattas, that experienced that without problem too.

Once a male lacie that had a heated night box, decided to not use it and stayed out all night at 22 degreesF without damage. In fact, he seemed to be frozen like a popsicle, I put him in his heated night box and he ate several hours later.

Another story, I have this giant outdoor test cage. The first winter I tested ackies(teaching monitors) was very enlightening. I built underground heated burrows, expecting the ackies to be smart enough to find and use them. On the night of our first hard freeze, I went out to make sure all the ackies were in safe places. Much to my surprise, they were under surface boards and under rocks, all around the cage. So whats a boy to do, I rounded them up and led them down the burrows. Remember, it was below freezing at that time. The next mourning I get up and go out to see what had happened. Much to my surprise, the dumb ackies had crawled out and gone back to their original hiding spots. They were all fine.

Lastly, we have had all species of monitors get very cold and never, that is, not once, not a single, not even a tiny time have a monitor get Respitory infections. Remember, we froze them to death. As well as almost to death, and all things inbetween. We have had them cold and freezing and wet at the same time. Yet, never RI. We had them return from the dead, and have brain damage, no RI. Not to show you just how bad of a keeper I am, I have forgotten a monitor or two in cages and they never got RI. Once i accidently left an ackie in a shipping box after coming back from the Orlando show in august. I looked in the box in June to go to the IRBA show and found a nice healthy ackie. The box was outside in a unheated shed all winter. And no RI.

If you ask me, and surely I don't know because we never had it. Respitory infections are caused by a total lack of an immune system. Combined with, no will to live. We have not experienced mouthrot either.

About your snakes, I feel you are off there as well. As an ex boid keeper and breeder, I am aware of what you are talking about. But the funny thing is, boids in nature are cold lovers. For instance, I have seen five species of python cross roads in temps from 50F to 60F, some species are rarely found when its warm out, like tableland carpets. Also boas, from our rosy boas, found active at 50F to mexican boas between 55 and 65F, with the mexican boas, they seen to go down once the air temps hit seventyF

Those did not have RI. again I believe RI is caused from a combination of constantly carrying the antigen and living in constant stress, then is triggered by a small event.

For instance, I was one of the first breeders of whitelipped pythons, womas, blackheaded pythons, and we kept the cold part of the cage in the low fifties, with 100f under the hotspot. And they would feed without problem when they were in the low temps, then simply move over to the hot temps. At times they were so cold, they could barely move. Remember, I am not a monitor fella, please do not confuse me with that group, I learned how to keep and breed monitors from these other fine reptiles.

Please remember, I am aware of what you are saying, and I know it happens, Its that I am aware of other opposite events as well. So to say that it was the cold that caused RI in your snakes, is not my opinion, I think its something else. What? I don't know. Good luck with your reptiles and have fun. F

I totally agree that the cold is not what directly causes URI's, but don't you think that it can be a factor which can open an animal's suseptibility to a pathogen? Is it not true that once a reptile's metabolic rate slows down, it's immune system weakens, thus having a more difficult time fighting off pathogens? This is when the URI hits, it's when an animal is in a weakened state. I am not doubting that boids, as well as other reptiles are active on 50 degree days, but is their immune system just as strong as it would be on a 90 degree day? It seemed, at least to me and some fellow colleagues, that nomatter how sterile an environment we kept a boid, the animal would get sick after seeing an unexpected(accidental) temperature drop. I experienced this with a snake(carpet python) that was kept completely isolated from anothe snake or reptile, who could have brought a pathogen into contact, when temps dipped into the lower sixties one night in my sun room while I was living down in FLorida.

I kind of felt the same way as you, and that temps in the upper 50's would not be a problem, but I can't even imagine seeing a lace icecube, and then have it "spring back to life" once it was warmed back up. Perhaps monitors are tougher than we had thought.... It's pretty amazing that they can tolerate temps down into the teens, especially in your case of the ackies returning to their colder positions, as if they wanted to be cold.. very interesting.

Anyways, thanks for the input frank,

bob

First, the ackies did not survive nights down to 15F, just nights below freezing, in the 25 to 32F range.

Next, again we are discussing something not much is known about. Keepers make all sorts of rules. They indeed are observable. That is, your snakes get sick when exposed to cold. Or when exposed to petshops, for some reason RI is very common there, cold or not. But was it the cold? or who the heck really knows at what temps the immune system is developed. I would agree, it most likely is build at warmer temps. To be exact, its created in the temps required to do that. That does not mean the immune system does not function at lower temps.

If it did, then dozens of my outdoor monitors would get RI, every year. That also brings up the question. Why do wild pythons, crawl at temps in the 50's and do not seem to be prone to Respitory infections.

As are so many of our discussions, we do not know if its the cart before the horse, horse before the cart. are the road that both travel on, is the cause.

Most reptiles that I know of, seek certain feels, temps, materials, etc to live in. Take them out of this, and a sick animal occurs. Allow them to be in that, then no sick animal. I could call it enviornmental stress. that is, a stress from not being in the enviornment they are designed for. And please do not give me that, yea but Joe breeds them on dogpaper. The answer is simple, do what do did.

In captivity, you have reached that condition if your animals thrive, if they don't, then you didn't. I think in most captive cases, we are barely reaching the conditions that allow them to put up with extremes that are normal to them in nature.

Natural monitors/boids, live and grow and breed, all the while getting a new dose of parasites with every meal. Now, would your captives do well full of parasites and constantly becoming reinfected?? They should be able to.

About your sterile. you are fooling yourself. A reptile kept without an immune system, simply cannot be exposed to YOU, you big germ bag.(joke, but true) Most of these stress induce infections, RI, mouthrot, etc are gram-negative bacteria deseases. Those are everywhere. Look at your hand, its full of them.

Its kinda like the dirt in cages deal. Ours are outside in cold wet, nasty dirt and do not get RI and yours are in sterile clean proper temps, then a slight drop knocks them down???? Wild ones have huge extremes. I feel, you need to explain that to me.

I am not trying to argue with you. but we are flipping a coin, and the dang coin keeps landing on heads or tails. Is it heads or tails, or neither? most likely neither. F