Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey, im considering owning a savannah monitor. I have plenty of experience with other reptiles. Okay, Are they easily tamed? do they like to climb? do they like being on a leash? i think theyre really cool but am a little frightened of them. Any help would be appreciated.

savannah monitors are great, they get big, they are usually pretty hardy, cheap and easy to acquire. However after they are aquired they can get a little expensive to feed. I still keep savannah monitors even after expanding my collection of species. They are pretty easy to get them to trust you , i never consider any of my animals as tame just that they eventually get used to the fact that i will handle them from time to time. They do not like the leashes, because they are not dogs, they are unnatural and uncomfortable, i dont recommend them at all. Try to get one as small as possible and it will be easier for them to get used to you. Plus as far as monitors go, there are alot of books out there on this species.
best of luck
scott

thnaks for the info! but is it true they can be fed dog food? canned or dry?

No, no and no! They are not dogs, they are monitors. Whole prey items are the best. Dog food is for dogs and has so many additives, artificial colors etc., it's probably not even good for dogs. LOL Keep in mind these animals require a large enclosure and eat a lot. There is no shortcut to feeding them and maintaining them properly. I have ackies, and although they are small, you should see them pound through the crickets, it's incredible how much a few small monitors can eat. Read a lot, ask a lot of questions and make a good decision based on the information. The problem with savs is that people tend to buy them because they are low priced. The cost of the monitor is nothing compared to the cost of keeping it for years to come. Good luck.

Pam

i have heard of people feeding their monitors dog food, and i guess some people have also been successful in keeping their monitors healthy with it, but they dont call it dog food for no reason, because it is for dogs. I feed my sav's supplemented ground turkey (PE formula) mice, small rats, crickets, roaches, baby chics, baby quails, hardboiled eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled chicken, slugs from my bearded dragons, grasshoppers etc. My point is to keep a varied diet for a healthy monitor, not all of my monitors eat all of those items but a majority of them do. I dont think it would be healthy to feed them just dog food. If you want to i would feed them the zupreem canned monitor diet from time to time but that is only on time to time basis. good luck

thanks for all your help. How long will they choose to injest crickets and such? I will not feed chicks because I am a game bird farmer and I love my little quail way too much. frozen mice would be good thpugh. if mice are trapped in our barn, can they be frozen to remove parasites? thnaks!

"How long will they choose to injest crickets and such? I will not feed chicks because I am a game bird farmer and I love my little quail way too much. frozen mice would be good thpugh. if mice are trapped in our barn, can they be frozen to remove parasites? thnaks"

Hatchling monitors enjoy insects, stick with crickets from a supplier, roaches meant to be feeder roaches, superworms etc. Anyways, quail, chicken peeps, are both great and cheap foods if bought in bulk frozen, they digest faster than rodents do but I have had good luck as whole peeps as a basis, yet supplemented with rodents. I switched to rodents supplemented with peeps as the supplier I bought week old 12+ ounce peeps from stopped selling them that size. I now use large rats for my large monitors supplemented by some jumbo mice, and day old chicks. I also use day old quail with my ackie once a week maybe less, he eats alot of 1 inch crickets, and adult lobster roaches. Its easier to feed a 6ft plus monitor large arts than many smaller rodents. Id never feed wild caught mice to my pets, period, if I cant properly support them with frozen feeders I have no need to keep them. Freezing doesnt kill alot of things. Chicken peeps are about a third the price of rodents in many cases, unless you get a great deal. Rodentpro is where I get all of mine from, I love the quality, with a decent price.

"i have heard of people feeding their monitors dog food, and i guess some people have also been successful in keeping their monitors healthy with it"

It depends on the individuals definition of sucess. If sucess is keeping them alive their whole life you could say that when they die in 6 months to a few years at a young age, thats true its after all their whole life. Medium to large species of monitors fed insects, rodents, and birds their whole life live a whole lot longer, mainly consider the rodent as the best part of their diet. Its also a whole set of conditions starting with a proper environment with access to choices of temperatures, humidities, fresh clean water, plenty of food for growth and reproduction if that is permitted by access to mates, and lots of space to grow, get away from each other etc. Its not any little one ingredient but a some of the whole, many aspects that you have to understand the biology of the animal.
Dog food, cat food, the name says it all, why consider it? Because a book says you can do it, no, been there tried it and saw even short term differences with whole animals only. Why complicate something when you have so much more to learn about the whole picture. Stick to a proven diet, no one has real sucess with dogfood, or catfood with monitors. I used to think about variety, then I noticed a difference in growth alone as well females that produce eggs, as opposed to females that dont even grow. Good luck.

The only way I would consider feeding catfood or dogfood would be because it was already in the kitten or puppy I was feeding to my lizard. lol

Scott
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Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Do savannahs make fairly good pets? how big do they get svl? ill get them lots of exercise, but how big of a cage? thnaks in advance.

First, if you are at all serious about raising a healthy savannah monitor, go buy Daniel Bennett's book The Savannah Monitor Lizard: The Truth about Varanus exanthematicus. This book will cover many of your questions in more detail than we can on this forum. Even if you are not sure you want a savannah monitor, the book is still interesting and a good read.

Savannah monitors make good pets if you are prepared for one, can afford it (time, space, money), and have realistic expectations. If you cannot do those things, then a savannah monitor is not such a good pet. Savannah monitors are often a medium monitor, but there are some really large ones out there. They eat a lot and that can become really expensive. If you cannot buy rodents in bulk, you will pay a lot at the store for rodents. Not all savannah monitors calm down and cooperate with being handled. Many become calm and tolerant, but you need to be prepared if yours does not.
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^x^ Bloodbat ^x^
Monitors, monitors everywhere
and all the food they ate.
Monitors, monitors everywhere,
their parents loved to mate.

Adopt to feed to his huge nile monitor, and wanted to know if anyone had any good ideas for feeders. The problem being if it was a joke there were so many people who sounded like they wanted to hunt him down and quarter him. Unfotunately the HSUS or one of those loser groups with hidden adgendas would use that statement against our hobby, thats how lame they are. But then again they misquote research papers, quote half of statements, all just to make it fit their agendas.
Im glad they want to help some pets, and find them homes but let it be about the animals not some political agenda to outlaw everything but dogs and cats.

hold your horses buddy, i mearley mentioned that i have heard of people successfully keeping their monitors alive on that food, i didnt recommend it, i also tried steering the poor lad in the right direction, how long they lived???? who knows, not my monitors, i know how to keep my monitors thriving and that is what i tried to share with turtlester.

I was mearly correcting the definition of sucess by keepers who refer to dog and cat food as good for them. Some consider sucess as keeping them alive for a short time until the novelty wears off, some call it a few years, some call it some growth with several years, some call it lots of potential for full growth and the possibility of reproduction, and some set a standard as growth and reproduction as a minimum and a long healthy life. Some struggle for that first few weeks to keep them alive and call it sucessful. Its all in the way someone defines it. Good luck.