Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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Kevin, you have been asking these questions for some time how. These basic questions you ask, are for only you to answer. Like this one, how often to change the substrate, the answer, when its dirty. When is it dirty? Well that all depends on YOU. How often you feed, do you spot clean, how humid it is, etc. ONLY you can tell, as your the one staring at the cage. IF ITS DIRTY, CLEAN IT. Do I sound like your mom, hahahahahahahahahaha, I bet you heard it before.

Also, Please understand or at least think about this, The joy of you owning a monitor or any reptile is, you get to take the joy and responsibility of making the decisions. No one, but you, you see, its yours. Again, its your monitor, its up to you to make these decisions. If your monitor does real well, then you have the knowledge that you accomplished something, if it fails, then you also know its your fault. The learning process here is, if you fail, you must learn to not fail. In this way, your pet is a learning tool. You must also understand, that failing is not so bad, we all do it. In fact most of us have lost reptiles. At that time, we must make the decision to continue on and learn or quit keeping them. If we continue on, we must learn how to not fail so much.(this reflects life very well)

More about you always asking every tiny little question, well it seems to me, your avoiding responsibility. Guess what? Its your monitor, and you cannot aviod that responsibility. So if no one responds or if lots of people respond, its still your responsibility if the monitor fails, or succeeds.

On the otherhand, if you are asking all these questions just to make conversation and make friends, well, as you can see, people just stop responding to you. Unfortunately, that is the "Calling Wolf" syndrone. One day, you will really need help and no one with help. As you have cried wolf to many times.

In reality, you keeping pets is to teach you responsibility. So sir, get with it. You really need to make those decisions. If something serious comes up, then a vet is the next step.

These forums are better suited to share your successes and failures, not constantly pumping for answers. Again understand, the answers are not here, they are with your monitor and your vet, and with all the books and FAQ's and caresheets. You understand, there are millions of them out there. Good luck FR

I'm sorry that this forum sees me as such an annoyance. This place just seemed like a good place to get answers to questions that i thought were important. Why should i make an error, or fail if it can be avoided?? Thank you for your time, i will no longer post here.

Looking at the quantity, topics, and frequencies of your questions/posts, it seems as if you are relying on other people to give you answers for these questions, where, if in fact you did a bit of searching around and reading various articles, websites, caresheets, etc.. you would have gathered a significant amount of information on these simple, basic questions. There is a plethora of information floating around on just the internet and is quite easy to locate. It just seems as if you have not made any effort into searching for the answers yourself, or reading up on your animal; instead, you come here relying on other people to answer them for you.

Heck, if you search the archived entries from this very same monitor forum, you will find that all of your questions have been asked and answered dozens of times before. To me, it just sounds as if you are lazy, and don't feel like doing the "homework" yourself.

I think the reason why nobody/very few are replying to your many posts, is that these questions seem to be asked again and again, every week/month/year by many different people, and regular forum readers/participants are tired of typing the same exact thing that they typed a week ago... I am not telling you to stop posting here, or stop asking questions, as this is what the forum is about; my reccommendation to you, is that you will probably get a better response from people if this is a new type of question which hasn't been addressed before on the forum(or one that hasn't been asked to death). Like I said, there is a search tool for this website, you can also click on the old/archived pages button on the monitor forum mainpage, to search previous entries. You will find that all of the questions you have asked up until now, have been addressed many times before.. Just get off your butt and do some searching!

Cheers, good luck, and if you are unable to find an answer to your questions, feel free to post them...People will help you.

Take care,

bob

I'm sorry if my frequent questions seem repetitive, and stupid. I guess i worry too much. I do try to do research but i guess i am looking in the wrong places. Yes i am somewhat new to the monitor world, but i am learning, and i love monitors. Its just that w/ the new monitor i have now, things are a lot different. With all of my other monitors, within the first day or so they have been out and about in their cage, this one that i got saturday hasnt even poked its head out of its hide. When i observed that monitor for several weeks at the store i got it from, it was perfectly healthy, eating everything in sight, now it is just scared of mice. I can understand stress, but to stay holed up for 4 days, not basking at all (unless she comes out when i am asleep, which could be possible) seems unusual. But again i am fairly new to this, and am eager to understand this process my monitor is going through. Again i am sorry for my repetitive questioning.

I'm still very new to this monitor keeping myself, and I'm an old fart, probably about FR's age. Read all of the old posts as you get time; there is a wealth of information in them. Search for your questions, but, seriously, read all the posts. Took me ages to do that, but I consider that I got a lot information that maybe did not specifically answer all my questions, but gave me the info to be able to make my own decisions.

And when you read FR's posts, if you are like me, at first it's hard to understand what he keeps saying about watching your moniter and having it tell you what it needs. But he's right! And once you figure out what he's saying, and what your monitor is saying, it's a lot easier to make decisions.

Awwww… Don’t let mean ole Frank make you go and do that. He has an amazing way with monitors, not with people. He is trying to tell you there are no easy answers, that’s for domestic pets. If you want a happy monitor, you become their slave. You do what they want to do, not what you want to do. For some people, that won’t make a very rewarding pet, especially if the monitor never gets over it’s fear and/or dislike of their owner. The SUCKY part is, you will make mistakes, because there is no right way, there are too many variables in each situation. The signs of obesity or starvation in a monitor are not just directly related to food, to make it more complicated, you have to take into account basking temps, hydration, exercise, stress and the unknown (birth defects, parasites, a hidden illness) Do some reading in the archives. You will find that most pet monitors are overweight, it is my opinion that monitors need ALOT more room than most people realize to get enough exercise. The really enjoy digging, climbing, swimming and poking around, it’s good for both their physical and mental health. You will discover that the consensus on best substrate is dirt. The dirt must be a specific way. It must have good drainage, not be dusty, or dry into cement. Or worse, the dirt you get suddenly hatches a swarm of bugs. You might have to mix different dirt’s and sands to get what the monitor wants. You can’t just go out and buy it, see how hard this is? Dirt is easier to spot clean as substrate, and last a really long time. Cypress mulch looks like a pile of splinters to me (never seen it in person) Potty probably gets everywhere, I would say, if it smells, clean it..lol The less appropriate the enclose you have the more WORK you have to do to compensate for the problems it will cause. Believe me….. My enclosure for my large monitor is nowhere near ideal, but it’s the best I can do for now. I have to work my A$$ off to make sure he gets everything he needs.

Do your best, and learn from your mistakes. And post pictures, everybody loves pictures
-H-

Mean olde Frank, oh man, OK, I am old, but I am not mean. Seriously, if the truth is mean, then I can be thought of as mean. hehehehehehehehehe

This carbon unit has been posting these very same questions for a long time. And yes, he/she(dang I love he/shes)(ok, I don't love them, I love that they happen) has cried wolf, ten thousand times(more accurate then you think).

You should understand this tactic he uses, "Ok then I will not post here anymore" is a common tactic for the pity vote. Well, I guess I am mean, because, if It were me, I would ban those that use that tired olde tactic.

I still say, and I know its very complicated, CLEAN THE CAGE, when its dirty. IF a carbon unit cannot figure that out, then what are they doing with the life of an animal in their hands. When you understand their is a living creature envolved, do you really think this "C unit" should have to ask when to change the substrate? This should already be understood.

Let me think, she/he(is that the same as, he/she?) recently asked how much to feed their monitor. Hmmmmmmmmm he/she/she/he/carbon unit, has had this monitor for a long time now. Maybe, just maybe, this should already be understood.

By the way, George(really old male Lacie) is still kicking and hes now 21 years old(that we know of) Hey wait, I bet, your old mangrove(Scooter) and my old Lacie act like little olde me. hahahahahaha FR

Awww Frank.... You just don't remember what it was like to be young and stupid Your not old your ole...lol! I don't know if you were as stupid as some of us were, but I was and knew many others in suburbia. Ya, I know the wolf criers are out there.... I know a hell of alot more people read these posts that are silent and actually reading them. When I put something in a forum it's for their information too. I enjoy writing also, so no worries

How can Scooter be old at 11 if George is 21???

Loved your recient pics (well, all your pics)
-H-

I just got in the lizard game about two years ago, and I know that I have made a lot of dumb mistakes, and I have been paying for it in order to keep the lizards going well. I also used to have a really big problem with deciding on things for myself, which is why I used to change my beardie's substrate (and also my uro's) all the time. I'd hear from one person "yeah, calcium sand is the way to go", then another would say "that stuff's bad, try alfalfa pellets", then yet another would insist "go with playsand", "go with carpet", "go with shelfliner" etc etc. I used all those different substrates but never long enough to realize much except that when they are on paper or shelfliner they're constantly trying to dig, playsand/calcisand is messy, and alfalfa pellets smell awful, grow bacteria, and apparently I'm allergic to it.

So now I use dirt with my uro and my beardie (I only still use shelfliner with my leopard gecko, because he doesn't care, and he isn't the best at grabbing crickets). I understand that under ideal conditions I should have about 1-2 feet of it to give them the option of digging, but I can't, and I know that that's going to make it harder for me because I need to find another way for them to have a humid hiding area that they'll actually be comfortable in (tried a few things so far, a few successes, a few not successes....one ended in dirt collapsing on my uro...I realized something was up after a day and had to dig her up...poor thing). Plus, I was really really bad at keeping my beardie when I first got him, so he developed very bad parasite problems that he's just now getting over, and picky feeding from feeding too many crickets, so now he'll only eat red repcal pellets...and that makes him constipated, so pretty soon here I'm going to have to teach him the hard way (making him go hungry) that he needs to eat better food.

The point of this long message is that we all make mistakes when we first start out in the reptile game. These mistakes will make or break the reptile owner. I've stuck it out because I really love reptiles, but some people would have never stuck it out when problems came up (caused by them) that ended up costing a lot of money. With all this in mind, and the mistakes I've made in the past or may possibly be making right now, I know that I'm not ready for a monitor, and I hope that other people understand that about themselves too.