Reptile & Amphibian Forums

every time i put my hand neer his cage he goes crazy and starts chasing it around and when i drop in the pre killed mice he doesnt go for it unless he sees it drop. instead he will follow my hand around ex. when i walk away he starts to push his head up to the glass and tries to go get it. I want to start taming him but dont want to get bit so how do i stop this problem?

np

Like feeding your monitor more often and seeing how that effects its feeding responce. Or let the monitor bite your hand and learn its not food. As you have taught the monitors that it is food. Of course, you are smart enough to protect your hand(I hope)

Once for fun, I taught an adult male peachie(one of my favorite monitors) to open my hand with its hands/claws. I wore welding gloves(I weld by the way and will be doing so in a few minutes) I would keep a mouse enclosed in my hand and would only open it when the peachie used his claws to open my hand. He would try to pry my hand open with his nose(that is really funny) and once he learned my hand and glove was not food, only mouth my hand when he got really frustrated. Soon he learned to use his claws first and did so repeatedly.

What did I learn from this experiment? Well, I learned if you feed your monitor everyday, they will learn exactly what to do, but if you allow the monitor to starve, that is, go several days, then their hunger overwelms their training and they revert to basic instints and attack anything that comes in the cage.

So your answer is here, you can train your monitor. You can feed it more often so its not starving. Or something else, because its a reptile and all behaviors are temperature dependant, you can lower the temps and not have that problem. Good Luck FR

>>Like feeding your monitor more often and seeing how that effects its feeding responce. Or let the monitor bite your hand and learn its not food. As you have taught the monitors that it is food. Of course, you are smart enough to protect your hand(I hope)
>>
>> Once for fun, I taught an adult male peachie(one of my favorite monitors) to open my hand with its hands/claws. I wore welding gloves(I weld by the way and will be doing so in a few minutes) I would keep a mouse enclosed in my hand and would only open it when the peachie used his claws to open my hand. He would try to pry my hand open with his nose(that is really funny) and once he learned my hand and glove was not food, only mouth my hand when he got really frustrated. Soon he learned to use his claws first and did so repeatedly.
>>
>> What did I learn from this experiment? Well, I learned if you feed your monitor everyday, they will learn exactly what to do, but if you allow the monitor to starve, that is, go several days, then their hunger overwelms their training and they revert to basic instints and attack anything that comes in the cage.
>>
>> So your answer is here, you can train your monitor. You can feed it more often so its not starving. Or something else, because its a reptile and all behaviors are temperature dependant, you can lower the temps and not have that problem. Good Luck FR

I can picture this and was smiling. People don't think reptiles can think. I think my monitors (mere savannas) are smarter than most of the lizards I have had.
I did, inadvertently, teach my more mouthy girl ( I think) not to eat my hand....she got one of my fingers in her mouth, thinking it was a large prey insect- even though I feed with hemostats. She sat for a sec, looked at me and decided to let go. Remarkably 'gently' too.....only a few cuts and I KNOW she could have done damage. She looks before she grabs now.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

i have never had this problem with a monitor, and i have one now and have had several in the past. i do have this problem though with a red tegu. when i feed him he goes crazy. sometimes he doesn't even like his food so he'll try my fingers instead. he is generally a really good eater, quite a greedy gut. but i still handle him quite a lot. if i pick him up quickly without giving him the opportunity to sample my fingers, he seems to get the idea that it's not feeding time and he does pretty well. i don't need gloves. he's almost two feet long now. he is quite excitable though. if i let him get too excited, he'll try to nip to get away so i'll have to settle him down and he'll get gentle again.