Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was at a shop today that I seldom go to since it is a good ways from my house. They had a very nice looking savanna monitor. It was a sub adult and looked healthy, alert, and plump. The savanna had blue in its spots and looked better than any savanna I have seen, health and beauty wise. Even the price was good. I showed it to my wife and she commented on how well it looked, for a savanna. I would have bought it except for huge problem. I was covered in mites. The cage was full of them too. There was a Tegu in a cage beside it that was crawling with mites also. On top of these 2 caged was a large cage with 2 large albino Pythons. Both of the snakes were covered in mites also. One of the pythons had a lot of tick on it too. Needless to say I did not buy the savanna. I was not about to risk bringing the mites home.

This is so sad. Why would shops have such nice animals and keep them in this condition. I bet the savanna had not been there long, since it was in good shape. It probably was someone's pet that was traded to the store for something else then got mites there. I really liked it, and my wife wanted me to "rescue it".

It seems like a little care from the shop and the shop could have sold it for twice as much as what they were asking. I sure would have given it a good home, but I am not going to risk a mite infestation to do it.

I want to open a captive bred shop in the near future. I would definitely take better care than most shops I see.
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

That's too bad. I have 2 pet stores locally and buy nothing from them at all. One of which I know killed 8 baby savs in about 3 weeks time (this is when I was still buying crix from them). They looked good when I first saw them, dehydrated the second week, and dead by the third. I got really angry about it since I had pointed the lack of care out to the employees. It truly is unfortunate. I decided at that point not to give them any more money. Even when attempting to rescue some poor herp from the corp. greed, all you do is give them more money to buy more. So you did the right thing.

As for your breeding project, are you going to try breeding your argus? If so, keep us posted. My wife just agreed to me buying a proven pair once we move to our new house . Very exciting.

Best of luck to you.
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hbailey

0.1 argus monitor

I think both of my Argus are males. They also can not stand each other. One bit the other one once and I have never been able to put them together. I am thinking of finding a good home for one of them. I hate to post in the classified because I have put so much time and effort into the monitors to let someone put it in an aquarium by a new keeper.

This sping I am going to take one to a female someone has. This Argus has spent a week in a cage with this female and another female with no problems at all. They did not breed though.

Hopefully he will be able to breed with this female or I can get a female of my own soon.
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Ed

There are chameleons, pythons, and monitors in my jungle room.

What I do in this situation is address the problem. I make sure they are aware of the problem and how to treat it. If that gets you no place then you can complain to your local animal control, or a.s.p.c.a..

Or you could take that animal home quarantine it and treat its condition. Leaving them an empty cage to place another animal into which will/might end up with the same problems.

If that pet shop carries products to treat for mites, I would make the suggestion to them that they try using it themselves.

I agree that maybe you could try to help them by giving them the information needed to treat the problem. Sometimes this works, other times they pretend to listen and when you return to the shop, nothing has changed. Our local humane society did nothing when I called to file a report on some reptiles in a shop I stopped at. I did talk to the manager and told her the many problems I witnessed and she said she would correct them. Some of the monitors were in cubes about 8" square, no place to hide or thermoregulate, no water...disgusting. I came back a week later to find not one thing had changed. When I called our humane society they really were not interested. They did not even go out to take a look, they said they MIGHT call. I wonder if it had been about dogs or cats if they would have reacted differently. I never went back there as I am sure the conditions are exactly the same. There are no pet shops in my area that take proper care of reptiles, so I do not frequent them.

Pam

Its sad to animals covered in mites/ticks. BUT remember these animals are full of them when they first get imported, in the wild, large monitor can have thousands of ticks, huge ones the size of a dimes an nickles everywhere. I once imported 10 Large croc monitors and 6ft salvators, one 8ft, crocs were decently clean, but those salvators, jesus that were covered, not one died or was even sickly, i pulled off most of them and used a tick remover liquid for dogs diluted in water and soaked towels in it with there head covered with a clean towel, the ears were a pain though. A week late all tick dead!, salvators attacking me with huge tails, chicken and large rat feeding time was a sight, this was about 12 years ago. I had them for 3-4 years, sold a 7 footer to the prehistoric pets guy, hes probably still alive too.

I wouldnt fear purchasing one that appeared thick in the tail and i personaly saw it eat, you could think of it as a rescue!
baby ones can be a problem though if full of bugs.

There's a petstore in a Mall here, I live near capital of state so it's really big.. Well, my mom works next door and I would take frequent visits to the store to look at pets, buy supplies and crickets. I bout a Mali Uromastyx, Fischers Cham, and 2 baby veiled chams. Sadly they are all dead. My Mali Uromastyx and Fischers cham died of bad crickets, they had not had the proper gut-loading. I asked them if they gutloaded them with what i've come to guload mine own now, and they said yes. Sadly this wasn't so. I lost my Mali And Fischers when i was on a trip, and my mom was heart-broken the whole time I was there. She didn't want to tell me because she knew it would make my trip a disaster. I went to go complain to the store and I was lookin at the reps they had and i found 1 carpet chameleon dead, 3 boa pythons dead, 2 iganas, 3 baby bearded dragons, and even a bassit hound(spelling)? I called my local humane society and nothing happend, I tell all my friends to stay away from there and if i'm ever at my moms work i tell the same. I wanted so bad to go in there and punch the manager in the face, as he lied to me and sure as crap lies to other pet owners. It disgusts me highly how SOME petstores are only in it for the money and don't care if any of them die. Luckily, I have found a local pet-store, no mall, and they take almost perfect care of their animals. They mist their chams, feed the iganas the proper diet, everything has the proper lighting. It's awesome. And they gut-load their crickets with the proper diet, they will even show you the cage in which they keep them. I've been going to them for about 3 months now and it's been a pleasent experience since.

Just thought i'd share my story =-)

Justin
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1.0 Savannah Monitor - Artimus
2.0 Emerald Swift - Jesus, unnamed
1.0 Baby veiled Cham - Sir August De Winter 1-20-05 RIP
1.0 Green Iguana - King Arthur
1.0 Rose-hair tarantula - Bill
1.0 Basilisk - Adam
0.1 Water Dragon - Lady