Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Open top cages, high wattage bulbs, canned foods, hot rocks, carpet linings, captive monitors will start to thrive!

Why and how the above affect your captive, many here can share with you experience you do not have if you ask why! There’s nothing wrong about not knowing, but it is wrong not to ask, especially when your monitor’s life is at stake.

Sins canned foods have been the lattes flame I will start with this issue.

Why is there cat food and dog food? Because these are two different animals that metabolise in deferent ways, there system do not process proteins acids the same way, without going in deep with mammalian biology I will ask, where do a monitor fit? On the feline side? Or canine? Well this I don’t know! But I can assure you the there liver will not process fat and proteins as well as either, now don’t get me wrong there’s no problem with on occasional feeding, and I think every one agreed on this! The problem is abuse combined with bad husbandry, you see in a dehydrated and cool cage (90 %) of present captive conditions, monitors will not metabolise these fatty foods properly, there system will retain fats and without any possibilities to burn them, kidney, liver, hart failure will eventually get to them, now from experience I can tell you its very hard to bring back an obese monitor, if not don right most will die in the process. The key is to never let it happen in the first place, get your husbandry right and stick to hole foods as much as you can, I understand that sometime the budget may tempt you to try canned foods, however you’d be better off catching wild preys, they are every where and free! After all this is what monitors do in nature. Basically what I am saying is better husbandry is needed by most keepers before any judgement can be made on canned foods, until then I am staying away from these foods.
rgds

When I first started, I would run out of mice or crickets. I would then run down to the store and buy chicken gizzards and hearts, they are very cheap and do not have grains and rice and all sort of chemicals added.

Like I mentioned below, there are many things to do, but to immediately go to dogfood or canned monitor food is not the best idea.

With the above said, I still do not understand(I hope I am allowed to not understand something)why people would use something questionable over something known to work. Whole food items are now known to work. They are known to be good.

As Jobi mentioned, it won't hurt monitors to eat canned foods once in a while, actually it will hurt your nose more. Thanks FR

I am researching various tree monitors and hope to get one soon. Every dragon or gecko I've kept over the past three years I have fed roaches, and they've done great. Are any of you using roaches as feeders for your tree monitors? Want to make sure tree monitors will eat them along with mice before I jump in. I'm sure they will, but it never hurts to ask. I know when keeping most above average animals its usually caging, caging, and food that are the main things.
Thx,
James
www.blaberus.com

If your talking about the prasinus group, at the moment I do not keep them. At one time I did keep tree monitors and I did not feed roaches. I am sure they will eat them. I have no reason to discourage the use of roaches.

For me, I started with crickets, then when I offered various types of roaches, they turned their noses up at them. I believe monitors key on a type of food or a few types of food and stick with that type/s. Unless they get real real hungry.

I had no need to push roaches as they are very inconvienent when you have lots of monitors. Just think how much of a pain it would be to dig thu bins of roaches to find 100 quarter inchers. With crickets the bins are of different ages and sizes, so its very easy to pick the size you need in numbers. Also, I like crickets because of the method of feeding. You can throw hundreds in a cage, and the monitors eat them over a long period, often days. People do not do this with mice or roaches, they only put in what they think they will eat. Its that thinking thats the problem. FR

What's wrong with open top cages and high wattage bulbs? (remember that many monitors are desert dwelling)

Also as posted previously, there is a big difference between premium and grocery brand dog/cat foods. If using a good canned food cost wouldn't be the issue because it would be more expensive than most suppliers sell rodents and bugs. With that said, I am not advocating the usage of non-monitor foods.

Glad you asked about open tops and high wattage bulbs, This is a major factor in varanids husbandry, but first let me say that iv never kept any desert specie, however it doesn’t really matter hers why, any desert lizard use deep borrows that allows them to preserve energy and keeping hydrated, I don’t know if you are familiar with varanids biology therefore ill give an other example, (uromastyx) are believed to live in arid country’s, in truth they live in the beds of ancient rivers, when we dig down there burros we find high levels of moisture retained by clay or condensation between rock crevice, these comes from morning Dew, guess this is one advantage of high temperature fluctuation, well all in all monitors use these retreats in the same way, the idea is to stay hydrated, most peoples don’t know that monitors spend more time underground then otherwise. They see them in the desert and think only about what’s visible, but the under world is a different story.

This brings me to open tops! You lose all moisture this way as heat rises and vacuums humidity with it, the more heat the faster it rises, not to mansion all the heat that’s lost.

In a closed top cage not only do you keep the good stuff in, but you can also lower your wattage making it safe for your monitor and energy efficient. Its much easier to heat a well designed cage, I raise babies using 25 watt incandescent bulbs and still get 130f basking, for all but my largest monitors 75 watt floods are excellent and safe, dehydration and thermal burns are over and done as monitors can safely touch these without any damage. I am talking about air moisture not wetness or dampness! My substrate is always dry to the touch only the bottom few inches are damp.
We still see many keepers using 250w on top of 54gallons aquariums, this really beats me?
I am not very good at explaining this concept, it always looks better when I read it from someone else, so pleas guys feel free to indulge.

Rgds

I think what you wrote makes sense, bet then again I already know what you mean.

When I get this question asked I usually ask them a question in return. When you say desert dweelers, do you think of them as seen on the top of sand in the sun basking? Do you think of them not having any water and forced to be dry and getting water only from foods they eat? Most reply with yeah i have seen pictures and them on movies.

This to me is silly, to think their entire life is in those 5 minutes or so of footage. There is water in the desert, there are cool places in the desert. These desert dwellers just have to know how to take advantage of that.

A open top cage with high wattage bulbs will only be like a tiny part of the desert. If you take all of the other options away and leave them to sit on top of the sand in the sun , even in the desert they will soon die.

It is upto us as the keeper to give them all of the tools needed, they will then use them or not use them as they see fit.

Funny thing is it seems to me all monitors look for the same tools, they just go about it in a different way.

It has a heat source, which heats a flat surface with lots of ventilation so that almost all moisture from objects placed in it evaporates up through its top, this is how screen tops and high wattage bulbs work.
Simple really, if you place a screen top on an aquarium it allows all of the heat to escape through the top, along with heat follows all of the moisture it picks up.
The higher wattage the bulb, the faster the heating, the more ambient high temperatures it produces, the faster the moisture evaporates. Also if you use a 100 watt bulb on a 4ftx2ftx2ft cage you face a problem with the warm end being 95f plus and the cool end being 85f plus, those are not suitable temps for them to live in, warm temps useable to them vary from 90-84f where as cool temps (on the other end of the cage) should be from 68-75f, so they can cool down when they need to.
Another factor that deep dirt allows is a 3rd dimension to the cage, it allows a warm end underground, and a cooler more damp spot underground, which accomplishes many things useful to them.

What's wrong with a hot dry cage, with a humid hideaway? Resembles the desert a bit more than making the entire cage the humidity of a cave. It's like offering a humidity gradient as well as a heat gradient.

It's fine if we agree to disagree on this point of course. And this applies to mainly the desert species.

That hide will not be humid unless its being soaked with water all day long, the air is dry in it. An example, species of monitor that are desert species are V.Griseus, they spend about 95% of their life in the desert UNDERGROUND. Deserts are not all sand, they are a mix of sand, dirt, rock, and dead/live vegetation with a constant supply of water, dampness under it. If you dig a few feet at almost any point in a desert youll find damp moist earth and sand mixed, this is where they spend alot of time, a "hide" cannot imitate this in the slightest bit, A burrow is about 100% humidity inside, its anywhere from 50f to 70f depends how deep you are, and how close to the heat source you are, this gives them a temp gradient also.
Of course you may choose to keep your monitor the way you want to, thats part of being a keeper, dont tell someone else it is a good way to, or theres nothing wrong with it, as your monitor will be dieing in a few years or sometimes less, but thats your choice. Of course you may use carpet, high watt bulbs, open screen tops etc but dont suggest it to others, someone might think your giving them good advice. Some of us learned the hard way what happens when you use bad choices in husbandry, Im one of them.

Have you ever been in a desert? Or even to a beach on a hot day? Do this experiment. Find a beech somewhere on an 85 degree day.. the surface of the sand is HOT.. hot enough to hurt your feet sometimes. But, dig down about... 6 inches and you start feeling that heat disipate. dig down 18-24 inches and you've got moist, cool sand thats probably at a temp close to 75 or less degrees. This is where a monitor would spend 75% of its time. Conserving energy and water by remaining buried under ground where the heat of the sun wouldn't beat down on it. Monitors are late morning or early evening hunters for the most part. Most animals in hot areas stick to these times.. Its cooler, the direct sunlight isn't as hot...Dehydration in desert conditions is the BIGGEST danger facing animals that live there. Believe it or not, it can also be a major problem in a rain forest as well..The desert isn't like that only in spots.. but everywhere...its even better where there's rock crevices or natural caves beneath the sand. Thats why screen tops and high wattage bulbs are bad....the heat doesn't just dry out the top layer like in a desert.. but the entire substrate.
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Lucien

1.1 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)(Sutekh and Isis)
3.5.3 Leopard geckos (2.0 Blizzards (Caine and Goliath), 0.1 Tangerine Albino (Tequila Sunrise ...Tiki for short), 1.0 Rainwater Albino (Mycah), 0.4 Poss. Het. Albino (Annika, Lace, Rain and Aris) and 2.1 dbl. het blizzard x tang albino (Malice, Malfeas, and Mystic))
0.1 Savannah Monitor (Kiros)
13 rats
2 Dogs (Loki and Storm)
3 cats (Ashe, Sahara and Hercules)
6 Fish (4 Red Danios, 1 Cardinal Fish, and 1 Tiger Barb)
8 Ramshorn snails
"And a Partridge in a Pear Tree!"

don't take this the wrong way; I'm sure you're very smart and have a good handle on nutrition and animal biology. Your post did give me the impression of someone who has a minimalistic grasp of the fundamentals and I think largely in part to how it was written. I just thought I'd kindly point that out so in the future perhaps you could edit your posts.

Hahaha NO I have a minimalistic grasp on English (aim French) even though I like to kid myself into believing I am improving, obviously its not the case.
Hope this will not bother you to much

First, let me say, do you know who your messing with????? Jobi is very very creative, nothing short of a genius. He can and will write with his heritage(french canadian)(or is that an act?) or not. He can mispell words or not, he can lead you around in circles until your head spins off, or not.

He surely can play with you like a childs toy, or not. hahahahahahaha He is a very good fella or not, a good friend, or not, but one thing for sure, hes a great advisary. One must respect that.

If hes giving the effort to help you, please do not worry about how its written, take the help, or not.

Please understand, we, any of us, do not get paid here, so why take the effort to fix all things. Besides, I love when he writes with an accent. Its entertaining, and one more thing about Jobi, he loves to entertain and be entertained. I thank him for that. As I too love to be entertained but only like to entertain.

Remember, one of the main reasons we get into battles(Battle, movie, guess which one?) is they are entertaining. Also, Jobi and I will mispell words at times just to see how you react, man is that intertaining. FR

The French accent is about all that differentiate us Frank, I like this post!! Or not!
One thing for sure (You surely understand something about me, that I understand about you, we both like fun.)

Being Canadian myself I am more than understanding of the French language. As a fairly recent newcomer to the monitor forum I have yet to learn who's the knowledgeable and who's the imitators of the knowledgeable. I wasn't "messing" with anybody. Forgive me for making the mistake, but as a newcomer (I"m sure there are many) I was just pointing out my perception that it was hard to tell what catagory jobi was in.

I understand the risks carpet liners pose to the digits of small lizards, but what is the major knock against them for adults? The only reason I ask is that I keep my animals on carpet. I change it every two weeks and vacuum it with a wet/dry vac while I soak the cage inhabitants. I know opinions differ, but in my limited experience, loose substrates pose risks as well. My frilleds and my monitor suffered serious impaction issues from things like bark and mulch. I would literally have to pull loose junk out of their mouths after feedings. It was unnerving, and ultimately resulted in turning to carpet when they became mature animals. My case may be an exception, due to the fact that the species I keep are all pretty much arboreal, with little use for spending time on the ground(with the exception of feeding and defecating.). It may also be that I clean and replace the turf more frequently than the average person. It's expensive, but there's nothing I hate more than a filthy vivarium. I agree completely that all of the other things you discussed are hazardous trash (They still make hot rocks?), and also am willing to admit that I'm a freaking retard if you point out some obvious reason not to use the liner. I'm wrong at least twice every day and having it pointed out to me would be nothing new. Cool post, any info is much appreciated.
-Matt Harmeling

Ok hers why! First any carpet isn’t safe for digits this even with larger monitors, fibbers can and will rap around and constrict digits, however this isn’t the main reason not to use it, carpets are the main reason for blister disease because bacteria has nowhere to go! And monitors will lay on them every day, a few inches 8-12 of dirt will take care of this and also holds moisture, iv yet to see any impaction from dirt. Most peoples don’t want to use dirt because some critters will inhabit the cages, personally I really appreciate their help in braking down waste leaving my enclosure clean and smell free, plus I never really see them. Other don’t like it because there monitors look dirty, this I can relate to as I hate to see my monitors dirty, therefore I cover with leaf litter or put a layer of sphagnum moss over my dirt, when I plan a photo shoot I keep them on wood ships a few weeks.

My guess is the stuff you used was like mulch sold in pet shops? Not a good substrate.

I am sure others on this forum can help you more!

The carpet you use does not offer your reptile much. It is a tool that better suits your needs over your monitors or other reptiles for that matter.

Your monitor cannot burrow into it, it does not hold moisture or offer a place for them to cool down. Haha wait I guess if it is soaked it may hold moisture, but then again you do not want your monitor walking on a wet floor all day.

About your other animals eating mulch etc.. Most of this is a problem of husbandry over anything else. Or it could be the type of mulch used. If your worried of them eating the substrate then dirt is your best choice. Even those carpets can be eaten. I have seen iguanas look to those green indoor/outdoor carpets as a field of green vegitation.

Last question I would have is what do you think reptiles do in the wild??? They seem to be living and thriving yet are not stuck on carpets and worried about ingesting some substrate.

You guys make some really good points. I guess I still have a couple of questions in response to the two replies. One, for jobi, would be: What is a good loose substrate to use? What specific type of soil do you recommend? Seeing that soil, in the worst case that it was ingested, would be far less damaging to the intestinal tract than large or even small pieces of bark or mulch. I'm probably going to give it a try. As far as Shadow's reply goes, I appreciate the advice. I would like to disagree with your last comment (with all due respect, as I'm aware that you probably know a great deal more than I do.). I'm a bit wary of the "It happens in the wild, so why worry about problems it poses in captive situations?"idea. While animals in the wild have survived, evolved, and adapted for ages in the conditions and hardships they endure daily in their natural environment, that doesn't neccessarily mean that keepers should dismiss similar isssues when they occur in collections. Parasites would be one example. A reptile in the wild will inevitably deal with parasitism at some point, probably more than a few times. I strongly doubt; however, that any knowledgeable person on this forum would let parasites go untreated when detected in one of their animals. Wild herps also have to deal with abberant changes in climate in the wild, whereas not many of us are going to let uncontrolled temp changes go unresolved in our vivariums. I suppose predators are another example. Herps deal with predatory species all the time in nature, many times becoming food for them ie the food chain. The standard advice in captivity usually suggests that we protect lizards from even having to deal with the sight of potentially hostile housepets like cats or dogs. Once again, I want to reiterate that this is intended to be a good natured reply, not some smart-mouthed attack. I can't stand seeing the pile-ons in these columns that follow even the smallest errors made in postings (like the spelling correction we have seen here recently.) Thanks for your comments.

I do not take offense I have thick skin.

Now for my last comment that you disagreed with. Be sure to keep it in the context I was talking about. I was simply talking about substrates and you being worried of it being digested. Now if you want to add to that and talk about all of the troubles of thw ild, then yes it could be argued, but I wasn't talking about everything. I was only talking about substrate, the ground beneath them and how they are not worried about ingesting it.

Now if I were you I would wonder why they do not worry of such things in the wild but they must worry in captivity? In this case in your cage setup?

Thanks for taking the opinions and advice as just that.

Take it easy

Thanks for being cool about my reply. I thought you may decide to blast me for questioning you. I also appreciate the prompt response. I have to go, but look forward to hearing from you guys in future posts.

Hello,
You seem like you are on the right track by asking these questions and following up by questioning the answers. These issues are very simple to understand if you have some experience, but not so easy to explain to someone in a 100% convincing way using a reasonable amount of words.

I do not have as much experience as some of the others, but I have came to some of the same conclusions. I have kept quite a few kinds of monitors on many kinds of loose substrate and often observed them ingesting bits of it on accident. I don't recall any health problems related to this. I am however certain that being able to dig and burrow has a very significant positive impact on their mental and physical health.

About parasites, I don't know if I qualify as knowledgeable, but do have some comments. My vet is very experienced and specializes in herpetological medicine and surgery. He also keeps and breeds lizards. I have all my animals stool samples analyzed regularly. Most of my monitors are captive-born and bred in the US, but I have a couple yellow monitors that are likely 'farm bred' in Indonesia. Their samples have both tested positive for low numbers of a certain protozoan. Naturally I would think treatment was in order, however my vet has assured (and reassured) me that even with treatment there is no way to eliminate that kind of parasite completely and that there is nothing to worry about unless they become stressed and have declining health.
Good Luck,
Neal
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pale reason hides the infinite from us

I strongly doubt; however, that any knowledgeable person on this forum would let parasites go untreated when detected in one of their animals.

You do not have to take the following as gospel, but hers what I think about parasitism, I don’t care about them be it protozoa’s, amoebas, pseudomonas or any other ugly parasites.
Why? Because they don’t affect monitors in good husbandry, it doesn’t matter if I raise Cb CBB WC or crappy parasites infested imports, when given proper husbandry they flush out these parasites without the aid of drugs, in fact its better to avoid metronidazol, fembendazol, droncit or any wormers designed for mammalians or avarians.

You should understand that physical and environmental stress are factors responsible for parasitism, once these are corrected, monitors overcome parasitism by fluids and food intake, they kill them by basking and flush them out. Non of these parasite can survive 40c temps. Therefore yes I do not treat monitors for parasitism, I treat there environments. However its best to advise keepers to seek veterinarian help then try to explain what took years to learn and master.

I always have to laugh when people relate to the "well what do you think they do in the wild". Do you think that monitors have never died of impaction in the wild? While I agree the arguement against carpet the analogy is hilarious. Who wants the wild average lifespan when they can live 5-10 times longer in captivity.
To relate this to pets that have been around much much longer, thus their captive requirments are more understood, I will use dogs. I work in a busy veterinary clinic and I'll often see dogs into their 20's. The very next client may have a ragged 8 year old and refuse vaccinations, premium food, and dental disease prevention because they don't need it "in the wild". Has anyone every heard of a 20 year old coyote?

While reptiles will never be tamed like dogs, they are beginning to be captivated as such, thus living long and fruitfull lives is not out of the question.

Agree or disagree I think I'm done ranting

again thanks for taking that out of context. You can apply that one sentence to as many things as you like, but within my post it remains only applied to what i was talking about. In this case substrate. Again i say they do not need to live on carpets in the wild, carpets do not offer them anything. They do not worry about ingesting the ground beneath them.

So again please keep the "" from my posts and use them in the context i implied them with.

Thanks

"Who wants the wild average lifespan when they can live 5-10 times longer in captivity."

Reptiles can live 5-10 times longer on carpet?? Wow do you have proof of this?

"I'll often see dogs into their 20's. The very next client may have a ragged 8 year old and refuse vaccinations, premium food, and dental disease prevention because they don't need it "in the wild". Has anyone every heard of a 20 year old coyote? "

Does living on carpet help the dog live longer then a coyote? And what does a dog and coyote have to do with a reptile yet alone a monitor? How does it apply to monitors living on carpet??

"While reptiles will never be tamed like dogs, they are beginning to be captivated as such, thus living long and fruitfull lives is not out of the question."

Who ever said anyone was against keeping reptiles living long fruitful lives??? I certainly am not or I would not of been against use of carpets.

Your analogy is hilarious.

Just Agree to disagree, cause all your doing is ranting

My bad, shadow. I didn't intend to invoke the poop rain with my reply. I made my obviously broad point to the living in the wild statement and totally get that your intentions were specific to the subject matter being discussed. I'd still like to know what a good loose substrate would consist of. Jobi stated that most commercially available stuff was no good. What is ideal here? Can I just use cypress mulch as advised on a lot of breeder sites I've seen? If I'm going to go with soil then what kind? Just potting soil? Maybe a soil-sand mixture? Also, after observing in the 30 or so zoos I've visited over the last few years, I've notice a few enclosures with some leaf cover(and admittedly none with astro-turf). It looks cool and I'd like to apply the technique in the safest manner possible. I've always just been leery of scooping up things from outside and plopping them in my cages. Despite what you may think I'm not a sucky or selfish keeper. I'll buy just about whatever will work the best for my animals, and will use whatever husbandry theory works the best no matter how inconvenient. I was only violating the carpet commandment due to my impaction observations. Bloody stool with coconut bark and appetite loss seemed to point to carpet as my best option and things improved vastly after I employed it. As I said most of my animals (1 corucia zebrata, 3 chlamydosaurus kingii, 1 varanus rudicolis) are arboreal and don't spend much more time on the substrate than they have to, so I didn't think it was as big an issue as it apparently is. If you have good soil advice, let me know.
Thanks,
Matt Harmeling

I'd just like to share a little story that applies well to the lengthy string of posts we're serving up. While I know you'll say carpet doesn't apply here because it serves no good function, understand the point is taken. When I was 15 and just getting into reptiles, I knew a kid in a high school educational program at my local zoo. He did a lot of helping out in the seemingly meager reptile house. One day he arranged for me to come with him and look behind the scenes. Apparently they had a great collection of giant salabanders and even a ridiculously rare bornean earless monitor. He told me that before I could go I had to agree not to talk any smack about the bare bones techniques they used to house off-display animals. Function was apparently valued more than form. I never actually was allowed to check this stuff out. It seems like back in the day, even the avs books were reccommending carpets for ease of cleaning and impaction avoidance. I guess things have come a long way since those days. I always liked form better anyway.

Many things have been used and work.

Soil, soil & sand mixes, cypress mulch & dirt, cypress mulch & sand, cypress mulch, leaf litter, etc.

Finding what works is the harder part. Some people get a sandy loam type soil, other mix top soil, peat, and sand together, others just use dirt from outside.

Look for something that holds a burrow, retains moisture, but is not heavy in clay. Clay is not breathable and most reptiles avoid it.

I personaly use, cypress mulch , florida's natural soil, and leaf litter. I use cypress mulch, soil, leaf litter weed mix for my rudi's. Basically I just raked up the leafs with the soil and weeds that came along with it and mixed it with my mulch. My nile monitors have readily nested in cypress mulch soil mix.

I would avoid potting soil as alot of them have fertilizers and other things added that you don't want.

"It seems like back in the day, even the avs books were reccommending carpets for ease of cleaning and impaction avoidance."

The reason for that is simply husbandry lacked in many ways back then. It is now known with proper husbandry we do not see all of the problems we used to.

LMAO this post is a joke right?

Yet stay dry on the surface? Does it have depth and provide a tight cool damp hiding place? Does it help in the breakdown of uric acid and fecal matter?
No, it cannot do these or many other things that a monitor needs substrate for.
People dont like the idea of having hundreds or thousands of pounds of dirt in their house, or putting the efffort into digging, carrying, lifting, and dumping into a cage many many times buckets full of dirt, but your monitor benefits from it, the dirt is useful to them, it does many many things to improve our cages to make them useful to our monitors.
Many owners have many reasons not to use useful substrate, but those reasons are almost always for them, the owners sensibilities, and not for the animal in any way.
These are some factors that (those who are researching monitors to consider purchasing) one should understand before they ever decide to go ahead with the purchase.
Actually a few live in deserts, but many live in grassland/woodland/jungle environments, all monitors of these environments have one thing in common, they spend half or more of their life underground, hiding, retaining moisture, being warmer or cooler than the surface, and avoiding stress.

So what do you recommend for a setup. Closed top, obviously. But what type of wattage for bulbs?-basking, UVB, ceramic? I have 160 watt UV basking bulbs, 40 watt UVB bulbs, and 160 and 250 watt ceramic bulbs(with thermostat). I'm a lot newer to all of this than you guys, so I'd just like to have some opinions.

I have 4.5x3x2.5 plastic stock tanks with a screen top that is partially covered with acrylic. Should I scrap those and remake all acrylic?

I have red ackies and freckleds at this point and have never been clear on their humidity requirements. I try to keep them around 50-60% when the season is dry around me, but not sure if this may be too low or not. I don't have any problems in seasons other than winter, as the humidity is relatively high where I live.

Any advice any of you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Farfel