Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it healthy to run a 24/7 day schedule for Blackthroats? I have a BT that is about 8-10 months and I keep him outside. Even though we are in S FLA it is getting fairly cold outside. The only way to keep the temp above 65F is to keep both the 250W infrared bulb and the daylight 100W bulb burning. I would prefer to just replace the 100W daylight bulb that is actually inside the cage (with a protective mesh frame around it) with a 200W. Since the infrared 250W are not shatterproof I keep it outside the actual cage and the distance disipates the heat effectiveness. We are only dropping into the 40's so I can not imagine what keepers of larger monitors who have outdoors enclosures do when it gets colder? Thanks for any input and ideas!

The first thing you have to understand is, the litebulbs you are talking about do not mimic the sun. So to think if it as a daylite schedule is misleading yourself.

The litebulbs you talk about are merely heat sources. That is plain and simple. Monitors know how to use heat sources. They understand how to use many kinds of heat sources.

So to me what your asking is, is it OK to provide a heatsource 24/7? the answer is, not only yes, but heck yes. Whether its a heat pad(good one), heat panel, lite bulbs of many or any color, really has not shown to make a huge difference.

Please think about this, what do you think your monitor thinks of a red litebulb??? is it the red sun????? How about a green one???? a green sun? etc. Also, I am not saying if someone used a huge bank of Mercury Vapor bulbs, that were twenty feet off the ground, that a monitor could not be fooled into thinking they were the sun. I have to wonder what a monitor thinks the sun is? Most likely thinks the sun is a very good heat source when up and warm.

of course, Monitors should always have completely dark hiding places 24/7, no matter what type of lite or what time of day or night. Monitors spend most of their lives in dark places, they do come out at times in the day to do particular jobs. They can also come out at night, but thats a lot rarer. The point is, they should always have dark secure spots to be in, all the time.

With all that said, I keep Albigs outside and temps and lows in the forties is not a problem, in fact, ours have no problem with temps in the twenties. In fact, it the daytime highs hit fifty, they will come out and bask. Understand, mine are Whitethroats, what yours do is your problem. But I don't imagine that would be a problem if your setup right. Good luck FR

A wile back you said "I believe, monitors "feel" the sun coming up and going down. But that's a story for another time."

If you have the time I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to hear you thoughts. Thanks

This is simple, I work with reptiles in the field and in captivity, in both cases, they go down deep enough to eliminate lite, in fact, thats a requirement. With our gouldi complex monitors, they actually plug their burrows from the inside.

The answer is, even when in total darkness, they know what time it is. That is, they know to come up in the mourning and see what the days weather is like. They also seem to know if its going to rain, or be cloudy or sunny and react to their own predictions. Again, this occurs with both our captives and wild lizards. For instance, the weatherman may predict poor weather, and our local lizards will come out and bask, whoops, the weatherman was wrong. On other days, its predicted to be nice out, but no lizards, whoops, it wasn't nice out. These tend to happen in the early spring and late fall, of course in the middle of winter or in the middle of summer, its very predictable.

Again, the reptiles "know" when its day or night. They seem to know how to predict the weather(to a certain degree).

While this may seem to be magic, its not, reptiles have glands we do not understand. We say they do this or that, but we really are only guessing. For instance, snakes have a sensing pit on each scale. Whats it for. Pit vipers and boas have enlarged pits on their lips, what about all other snakes? These pits had to develop from something? Are these pits only to detect prey or are they used in other ways, like to detect suitable basking temps, etc. Or monitors are always touching things with their noses and are always taking time to clean their noses off, Why? They seem to have some sort of sensing organs on their nose.

While I do not know how they do what they do, they indeed do this stuff.

There are so many "neat" abilities you can test, for instance, you can keep a monitor in a cage without lites, and put a heat pad on a timeclock, have it go on at four in the mourning. At four fifteen, there will be a monitor on it. Then with a few days, that monitor will be there are four, waiting for the heat to go on. (the test monitor, must be healthy and feeding or there will be no need to find heat)

How about this, in the summer, our outside monitors are exposed to extremely hot temps, they normally dig deep burrows and go down to avoid the heat. I can put a dead mouse on the surface and within minutes its gone. Now please do not tell me the monitors felt me opening the door, because, I can open the door and put nothing in and they do not come up. These are only a few examples of thousands, the point is, they do have some abilities that many do not understand, or completely deny. Thanks FR

Frank,

A couple of mates of mine here in OZ breed Sandys on a regular basis...V.g. flavirufus and V.g.gouldii ( southern SA form). Both are kept in "conventional" snake cages...6X3X3 and 4X2X2 one runs a photo period and one does not (Basking lights flick on at night and day). At night in the room with a photo period it is lit by blue globes...so even then its not pitch black.

Plastic hide boxes with a holes are provided for a hide..these double as laying boxes....sphagnum moss is added.

Regards,

Scott Eipper

?

Well Scott, I bred my first Gouldi and Sandys(flavis) in old snake cages. No one ever said, it cannot be done. In fact, thats how most all varanid keepers started.

But I could also say, no one has ever had a gouldi complex monitor lay 51 clutches in 8 years in a snake cage either. Of course thats our most extreme case. I could say, our gouldi complex monitors average at least four clutches a year, do the ones you have in snake cages do that? To make it a little clearer, the above female is outdoors and only breeds in the summer, she has produced over 500 eggs in eight years. She is also still alive and healthy as can be and getting conditioned to start producing again in the spring. (yes I do understand it will not go on forever)

The only thing I can add is, the above female and the others must perform so well because of the ability to control their metabolism and conserve as much energy as possible and apply it to recruitment. Which I believe is their design in nature. In snake type cages, we did not see this happen, we did indeed have reproduction, but at a much reduced level. In the snake cages, there must not have been the ability to manage stress and their metabolism. Remember, reptiles are "all about" management of energy. To obtain and conserve and expend as little as possible.

So yes, its not required, it just depends on what level of success your looking to express. Thanks FR

Frank,

I am pretty sure that none of the gould's complex have 4 clutches in the a year in the wild...captivity is a very different thing I am well aware of that.

With an average clutch of 8 eggs for the goulds and 9 for the flavis over the last 5 years (my data)they have produced 19 offspring for the goulds and 11 for the flavis (Had probs incubating eggs and getting to them before the male).

I don't have/ nor do my friends have a monitor producing factory. All I am saying is that a photoperiod is NOT a must when breeding these monitors....if it was then theses animals would not of produced the eggs.

Regards,
Scott Eipper

Again, No they do not need photoperiod, I thought thats what I said in the first post.

If you had better cages that included good nesting, you would not have problems hatching them, you would also not have problems with cagemates eating them. If they laid dead eggs, thats fertile eggs that died in the female, they simply consume them. Like pythons, they know which eggs have the chance to hatch.

This is nothing about being a monitor factory, that is a sour grape statement, Healthy monitors produce eggs like crazy. I have not figured a way to stop that. That is, if you understand the type of feeding that allows baby monitors to grow, then apply that same amount to adults, they produce lots of eggs and clutches.

About whether they do it in nature or not is secondary to what happens in captivity, in so many ways. But if you want to discuss it, I would start with a simple thought, the same thought I offered Dennis King when he came to my house. And that is, In drought years, its very easy to understand, there will be very little recruitment. In wet years, there is so much food in Oz, there is millions of lizards, billions of roaches, jillions of insects, tons of birds of a bizillion kinds, so much so, you cannot even have a decent walk in the bush. Monitors, readily consume all of that and more, and YOU think they would not be able to find any of that???????????? Now you really have to question your understanding.

What captivity shows, is they have the ability to to do that, now if we have a brain, we would try and find out why they have that ability. I am positive, they do not have the ability to multiclutch so FR can have a monitor factory. Really Scott, do you think they have that ability so FR can be famous for breeding lizards? FR

I have removed the red basking light I was using as a night cycle heat source and replaced it with a second 100W halogen closer to the hide and basking areas. My BT did not come out today at all(this is unusual. The air temps were hi 60's lo 70's. The ambient temp around the lights was 10 degress higher and 110-120 in the basking area. I just checked on him and he is basking??? It is 7:45 p.m. and the air temps have dropped to 60 with all other temps correlating to that 10 degree drop. So why would he wait until dark and colder temps to bask? Is he just thrown off by the new lighting/heat schedules??? Any input is appreciated, thanks!