Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I viewed the series from FR and enjoyed it. Although i hand feed my monitors and sometimes play hide and seek and chase the quail egg ans such, i never actually laid a mouse on my palm to feed. I felt that wether cb or wc, my monitors are so comfortable around me and free of stress that I would have no problem doing that with most any of my monitors so i grabbed my camera and one of my blue tails and here are the results. I am sorry but i do not know how to post more than 1 picture at a time as fr did, so i posted in 4 seperate entries.

i fed two mice this way.

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Nydon you outdid yourself there(;. Great series!

Will it take a roach from your hands too? Your 2 crazy 4 me!

thank you. I hope that the point was understood and that the next series is not of a croc monitor eating a rat off of someone face. that is not the point. the point is that monitors have, in my opinion, more intellence and ability to interact with their keepers than say a snake. I would never attempt that with a snake for obvious reasons. I read a story (i think by fr) telling of a german lady kissing his monitors (no i said MONITORS hehe). Although it may be like he says, that some people have a gift with animals, and i may just be one of those people, I believe all of us can better understand our animals if we allow ourselves to trust them and them us. If we learn our animals better they will tell you when something is wrong. i truly believe that.

Your right though monitors are more active than snakes.Monitors are snakes with 4 legs, that is awesome.Great observation

I agree with most of your post, but, I have done the same thing with snakes and they are mostly the same, sans legs. Turtles and torts and of course Crocs and gators are very interactive as well, I would say, reptiles can do many things that are unexpected.

Of course, you are still playing catch up on this forum. As what your trying to say, has been said ten thousand times before. But its all good, as newbies appear everyday with the same old paradigms.

I do have some questions with your pics. It seems you have no consistancy with your caging. Some look like petshop cages(wall display units, some with wire, some are crates modifyied to hold animals, like they do in indo. But none appear current. Could you show your current cages please? Also some life events, monitors doing things, like breeding hatching, and hatchlings, that would be wonderful.

Back to being current. One of the thoughts I/several here, are trying to promote is, keeping monitors is more then putting a monitor in a cage and having it stay alive for a period of time. We are promoting allowing the caged animals to at least achieve basic life events. You know, hatching, growing up, becoming reproductive for a period of years or seasons, then growin old. Of course lastly dying.

Please understand, this is not about being commerial, or money or any of that old tired out crap, its only about letting monitors do what they do, naturally. They naturally achieve life events. Consider, all the other stuff, like diet, UV or whatever, are only to allow them to achieve something. They are to help support life events. Not to support a static individual.

There are so many of these useless arguments about UV and diet, because most people judge these tools(diet and lites, etc) on static animals(non progressing). Its very hard to measure something on an individual thats not doing anything. But if you test and judge these things on a progressing individual/s its easy to judge and measure if progress was helped or hindered. The problem you must understand husbandry first.(without these tools)

I hope you understand what I am trying to get across. You do not need UV bulbs or a great diet to keep or raise or breed monitors. They will do all that on all but the worse diet. Its a matter of potential. Great tools, will help achieve great potential. All animals have a range of potential. If your only concerned about keeping a monitor alive, then these are not the subjects you should be concerned with.

Sorry, I am having my mourning coffee and I get this way, soon I will be fully awake and would never say this stuff, hahahahahahaha FR

FR, nice to hear from you, you acually appear friendlier before you have your morning coffee hehe.

I currently breed hundreds of snakes but could never see myself letting one take a mouse from my palm. Many times they are so "food crazy" once they realize it is feeding time that they miss the rodent and get my hand anyway. I just feel that monitors are so much more than snakes with legs. Now i will totally agree with you on torts and some turtle species. My leopards, sulcattas and box turtles would come running at dinner time and do about everything but roll over and shake my hand in order to get fed. My DB terrapins are the same way.

As far as being a newbie(d..., i havent been called a newbie since i was in the army back in the 70's, feels kinda good), i unfortunately have no control over my phycic ability so if i repeat something already said i apologize but as there is probably some turnover on the forum anyway, i guess it couldn't hurt too much.

As far as my caging goes, it IS all different as i make everything myself and am constantly trying to improve the habitat for all of my animals all of the time. A lot of things you take for granted (like heat tape and misting systems)are just not available to me over here so i must be a McGiver of sorts. When i first moved over here a few years ago and started back up in reptiles, even simple things like calcium supplement was unavailable. I would go to the fish market and buy cuttlefish and dry the spine in the oven and then scrape it into powder. I must hunt down and modify nearly everything i use and even simple things like vermiculite, and corkbark requires much time to track down and find a source. I do not have one stop shops like home depot and such but it actually makes it kinda fun.

As far as UVB goes I do not currently use it (for my monitors)but this summer i am planning on moving and expanding my farm and i am contemplating the use of it in my new setups along with many other modifactions and improvements but i think it is a totally personal decision and it is an issue that i simply do not endorse either way. I have a friend who produces a large amount of monitors that recieve natural sunlight all of the time so i know it cannot hurt but due to our harsh winters that is not an option for me. Besides, money is not an issue for me. I have too much anyway and nothing better to waste it on (JUST KIDDING!!)

thanks for the reply,

Don.

Please Don, slow down when reading, as again you misread/misinterpit, or plain got it wrong. I said, you were new to the forum. Which you are, are you not???????

What happens on the internet is, people take a tiny thing like, you thinking I called you a newbie, and totally forget about, or circumvented, avoided, missed, the meat of the post, which in this case was Life events, promoting life events, and lastly and least importantly, showing pictures of life events.

I know I do not write well, and seem rude, but in an attempt to be "nice", I add fluff to the post. Somehow the fluff, gets in the way of the post. If I eliminate the fluff, then people really think you are rude. So, being the rude person that I am, please respond to the meat of the post.(hahahahahahahahahaha, that sounded crude)Thanks again, FR

FR, I did not misinterpret anything. I fully understood that you were implying that i was new to the forum, which i am. That is why i replied that i was not pychic and did not know what had been posted here before me and since other people are also new to the forum, a little repeat business couldn't hurt. My response was upbeat (I said i liked being called a newbie) and my reply directed at your statement. I do read them carfully as without seeing a persons facial expression it is sometimes difficult to know wether a guy is being sincere or sarcastic. No harm no foul.

thanks, don

I sure hope and wish to see many varanophils working with these guys.
Do you agree that photo don’t do them justice!

Ho yes i agree...Did the female laid?

Same here! That local of blue tail is just amazing! I need to find myself a pair!
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John Light
JL Exotics
Contact Me
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as you showed the head shot of?

I have only seen 1 come through florida like that one in the past 3 years. It was sold as varanus sp??? nonameicus haha, I tried to get it but it had already sold.

I have seen only a couple of the orange ones come through.

Good luck on breeding them, they are very nice looking.

Too bad you missed it, perhaps you can’t tack it down?
However the orange doreanus are very beautiful also! Mine aren’t very nice but iv seen outstanding specimens that almost look painted. Too bad they are so shy!!
Theirs a new doreanus with large orange blotches (golf ball size) they simply make all the rest look ordinary, hopefully some will make it our way?
But for now I don’t have the finance to import them.

Jobi, very nice, yours appears to have a bit more orange but mine seems to have a lot more yellow on the back. Perhaps she has not got her adult coloring yet. I will try to get a better picture of mine and post it for you. Do you know how old yours are? They are so much different than my other bt's that i cannot believe someone has not given them at least sub-species status, or perhaps they have as it is hard for me to keep up with all the changes.

Don only a handful of these have been trapped, its very unlikely that more will come due to the fact that they come from the other side of PNG, so hold on to yours dearly.

They look quit plain as babies, mine looked like your last year, I remember not thinking much of this male when first obtained, but as he grew I understood more and more the favour my indo friend made me, my female is much darker and her colors changes with mood, sometime she blows me away with her beauty.

Yes they are very different then nominate form, especially in temperament, these aren’t afraid of us (excellent for stress reduction)and have never tried to bite. However my pair has gone true hell and almost died (male) but now on the road to recovery. As you know the female was bred by a regular doreanus, however I think nothing will come out of this mating, I plan to try again with the young male soon as he seem ready. For these and only for these! I will do the dance of fertility dressed with a j string or is it G string? And feathers.

I am sure chuckjeep911 will dance with me!

I will dance nude on top of a Wall Mart at 6H00 PM the next thursday, only with a cowboy hat if it can help her to be gravid. But my string is in the closet, ready for the occasion if she prefer

Pictures, please, gentlemen??

Leslie

I couldn't resist trying this with Tegus:

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John Light
JL Exotics
Contact Me
Web Site

!

LOL the albinos are juvies at approx 2ft each. I don't know if I'd be risky enough to do it with my adults lol.

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John Light
JL Exotics
Contact Me
Web Site

Oh man, I should have taken pictures of feeding my sav.. I up'd his amount of fuzzies to 4, he chomped them all down. Didn't do the usual "predator mode". heh, that's what i call it. He doesn't get full and checks every inch and craney of his enclosure. But he enjoyed himself and basked a long time. then passed out on his branch hehe
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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