Reptile & Amphibian Forums

due to the lack of info on captive black rough necks, i will ask the truly experienced people of this forum to answer my questions:
1.how big of an enclosure will i need to support a baby? what about an adult?
2.how often do i need to feed the monitors when its a baby? what about an adult?

thanks for any answers. i forgot a few questions but if i remember them i will put up another post.

I would suggest you ask dragoon she is the leading lady in rudicollis breeding and husbandry. Theyre mid sized monitors that can the 4 foot mark so i would at least double that length. If you can make it high to about 6 foot that would be great. Or a smaller cage up on table keep them somewhat high so they feel secure as they are arboreal. They dont feed on mice too much in the wild so give them variety. Roaches, mice, fish. Babies need to feel more secure so give them plenty of hides id say give them an enclosure big enough for them to explore and keep busy in. Babies eat alot because they grow fast so be ready to feed daily adults you can then feed 3 times a week. If i left anything out im sure someone else will cover it.

cheers

What the heck are you talking about??

Ummm, I am NOT the leading edge of anything, I hatched out some rudis that 80% of which are dead or runty. Yay, me!
I will apparently get more chances, hopefully I will do better. Thanks for the 'title' but I don't want anyone misled. I've only been keeping almost two years. And only a few animals. I've killed more than I've kept (so far).
They 'can' reach 4 feet? Have you seen my five footer? He's still growing, you know, and he's a BRN.
Why make the cage high? How many rudis have you kept? I have a high cage now and they never use the height. They were doing better in the low small cage I had. The high cage is causing me problems, they don't want to go up there. Perhaps "up" is not what they seek?
Please tell me what arboreal means? And what it possibly has to do with keeping a lizard in a plywood box? What is it that acting arboreal gives them?
Rudis eat FISH??????
They need variety? Why? I'm curious. Mine get leftovers because its their job as my pet, I wasn't aware they needed it.
Adults should be fed three times a week? Why? Which ones? The females, males, cyling ones, over or underweight ones? All of them? Sorry, I think that's misleading advice. Adult monitors change all the time, and their need for food will too. Soon you will learn to answer these types of questions with 'depends'.

I know I'm jumping all over you, but I can't help it, I found your post really disturbing. People keep repeating the same stuff about monitors, and its just passed on as fact, and no one then learns what they really need.
I agree with you here:
"Babies need to feel more secure so give them plenty of hides id say give them an enclosure big enough for them to explore and keep busy in."
Yeah, what you said. Mine needs a larger cage now. The poor sod unscrews his lightbulb for fun.
D.

Yours do not use the hieght of the cage???? Mine have a 7 foot high cage and they are at the top, middle, and bottom of it. They make the best of the entire cage.

Do yours always stay down rather then climb? Why do you think they do this?

Hey, I think my interior is bad, that's all. I didn't mean to imply that they (any monitor!) wouldn't use height and that more space isn't needed. I'm sorry I worded it so badly, I shouldn't sleepwalk and type...

I think I just objected to the idea that tall automatically means good. (Just because they're arboreal, ya know). I now think that its great to have more space to work with, but that it means more effort to try and make it useable. My small cage was useable, and they used all of it, even walking upside down from the wire top. They were kind of acrobatic in hanging from things.
Now they stay down or middle (Ana is hypnotized by the tarantula cage in front of the window, sometimes the spider walks around) and I RARELY see them bask, whereas they basked daily before.

I'm seeing problems in the male, who is gaining weight even though he gets fed very little, and he is getting patchy sheds. Which is a result of not getting the temps he needs.
So yeah, anyways, I suck at making cages useable I guess. I'm going to work on it when I get these other cages done.
hahaha, then I'll have to go back, and fix those too, most likely. Gee, that's SO not funny...
D.

Do you think they are staying down cause it is to hot up higher?

Did you move them from a wire cage to an enclosed cage?

Sorry to keep bugging you but there is not many out there to talk to about rudi's.

My cages as you know are wire on all sides. On the wire I have hung tree branches and trunks (cut lengthwise in half). They use them to cloimb on and they climb across and sit on the shelf to bask. But in the summer when it is hot they stay down on the ground and rarely go up, until I turn on the mister and fans to cool the room back down.

Those split log things. I REALLY need them. I think that's part of the problem, them having difficulty climbing smooth wood with their clipped nails. A log would be much better.
I thought I had that angle covered by placing bars of strapping on the walls, to make 'ladders' of sorts. They refuse to place their feet on them, hahahaha. They will wiggle under them, and scrabble on the smooth wall with their feet until they wake me up all grumpy. (Their cage is at the foot of my bed.) Then I grab the offending lizard and pull it out and toss it up on the basking site and go back to sleep, grrr'ing. (I sleep daytime)

I'm so slow I had to be hit with it. I put War in a temp. cage while Ana was preparing to lay. The cage was empty and he wasn't going to be in there long, so I just put in a couple boxes for him. There was a basking shelf but no way up to it. So I made a makeshift 'ladder' out of strapping so he could get up and down. And tossed him up there.
It was funny watching him try and get down. He leaned and sniffed everywhere and finally chose to cling to the wire mesh divider to travel. He wouldn't put a foot on the convenient ladder I made. So, duhhhh, I've finally realized they like to grip a large surface with their feet.
Actually, I should have realized that from how they cling to me when I carry them. They hug and grip with their whole body if possible. More duhhhhhh.....

Naw, I don't think its too hot. Yes, they went from wire to enclosed, but with the way I build stuff, its pretty, ummm, breezy.. my basking spot is only 115, the same as the last cage.
My main idea is that its too exposed for them.
I had the same problem with the last cage, and I bought some dark fabric and wrapped the basking area on three sides and top. It wasn't pretty, but War was made happy. Now I have to try it again. *sigh*
D.

Yeah I have tried making ladders as you said. They didn't work for me either. So I went with cork haha they shred it after awhile climbing on it. So i had to figure out how to use a real tree branch. The problem with it was they were to skinny. So I opted for a trunk it was so heavy I was like oh man this thing falls and thats it for them. So it was then onto either stabalizing that tree trunk or making it lighter. I decided both. I cut them all in half and mounted them along the side of the cage.

They climb these daily and it works great for me. They even hang from them upside down while walking. LOL

One other thing I have noticed, is if they want down fast they do not climb. They simply just jump or fall you could say.

Now if only I could get mine to start producing for me as yours have. I have only had the female for a short time so hoping it works out.

Keep up the good work with yours.

Hi Goon,

Varanus rudicollis does like to climb and spends ALOT of time on the branches in trees - mine would sit in the pear tree (3-4 meters high) all day long. Specimens caught and shot in Malaysia by Captain Stanley Flower, George Boulenger and others were found 20 meters (= 60 feet) in the trees often...see FMNH collections listings on web and you can see it yourself; Dr. Robert Inger, herpetologist extraordiniare has been researching frogs of Borneo 50 years and found his specimen on the ground, but also saw them in trees -

So offering them alot of choices, like montessori schools do today - offer them choices and they usually make the best of what they have, whether it be a box or otherwise; they are adaptable as you very well know, and your judgement of the babies is good and common sense stuff....but these lizards do use vertical relief as well as terrestrial surfaces. Dale McGinnity at Tennessee Zoo has a simple display: 2-3 full size tree truck segments placed into a 10 foot high enclosure with dirt/leaves as substrate and as you know he bred them multitiude of times, some of his babies had blue eyes - did any of your hatchlings have that? I have his video of his set up and them breeding and all such things...

Are you still interested in sharing your breeding materials with me for the paper I am writing? I still am working on it and wlecome your input...

thanks Goon,
markb

HA HA HA HA HA HA you sure ripped me a new one there sweetheart.

Did you ever think that you have gotten further with rudis than most? Is this not something to be leading edge on? Doing something noone else has produced freakin rudi eggs? I know its not a perfect art for you yet. Producing and hatching eggs all the time, but when is that perfected? Never because like you said they change all the time. Im not gonna argue this and that with you because its not my style. Thanks for exerting so much time on my post and missed the fact that some other poor guy needed help. By th way they are arboreal, live in tress. And no they dont eat fish, but they dont eat mice either. Yours dont climb because they have gotten use to your enclosure remember this kids just came in so in order for it to stress less why not make the enclosure fit what the poor monitor is use to. I got the facts from a paper you have yet to contribute to. I can supply more info, but the guy asking for help is trying to keep his monitor alive not breed it so just help him out and try not jump the gun. I meant you as a leading rudi person in a good way, if it bothered you that much ill retract my statement and just see you as someone who got lucky, but i guess it happened to you more than once. hmmmm you must be doing something right?

thanks for the ripping

hahaha, glad you have a sense of humor, Alex, and I hope you didn't take it personally. I was feeling exasperated with what seems to be stock answers on the net, not with you. I think you're very kind to try to help. And for being patient with my rambling...it would be different if we were gabbing in person, then you could see me smiling!
Its just that I read most of the caresheets and websites on rudis, and I don't feel that they helped me at all. Just confused me. Lots of stuff still confuses me.

Like, why does my new cage suck so bad? Why did they like the old one so much? Why aren't some hatchlings growing? Why did I get a full term dead-in-egg? Was it incubation or in support of the mother? Are my next eggs already sabotaged? Is it the calcium levels of the mother? Did I add too much water 6 weeks ago and will they now hatch? Why is Diem so perfect? What went right? Is he doomed to a life alone now? How can I find him a companion when the next batch is seven months younger? Did he miss out on social learning? Oops, sorry, I'm rambling again...
I really hope 5 years from now I have some answers and can actually be of help with rudi questions. And I hope I can produce some breeding pairs for others. I hope I learn to keep my mouth shut, or at least, word stuff better so I don't offend people like you.
D.

No worries goon i know how frustrating this can be......

alex