Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay~ the cage is FINALLY done, and I moved Rico into it today.

Wow~ was that a LOT of work! But he really needed a bigger cage.

So~ I when I first put him in I set him on one of those basking shelfs on the sides. He explored for a few min~ and fell down! Guess he's a little clumsy~ no practice being "semi arboreal" recently~ so after a bit I saw him trying to climb the walls (rather the conveniently placed stick he is supposed to use!) so I reached in and put him back on a basking shelf (got tail whipped for my trouble too!)~ and after about 5 min of checking it out~ he fell! Again!!

What are the odds he'll hurt himself falling the 3 1/2 feet from the shelves to the floor if he makes a habit of this? He WILL get more gracefull with practice right?

And because I'm so proud of the cage~ some more pics!

you can see him checking out the stick, just before another fall! I'm not helping him up there anymore either!



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Cheryl Marchek
AKA JM
Check out my website at:
The Red Dragons Den

Funny how you called the branches you use sticks. Seems you already know the problem.

A monitor is designed to reach and sprawl out to grasp and climb. Not grab hold of the branch like a chameleon.

Use thicker branches and it will help him out greatly, also something with a rougher surface will help. Those limbs look like the bark is pretty smooth.

I see what your saying~ he is scrambling to get a hand hold on the branches. I really don't want to have to get new branches if I can help it (when I sent the kids out after these~ one of them came back with poison oak! What a nightmare!!)

What do you think if I took the dremmel to them and cut some divets as places for him to grasp about every 3 or 4 inches~? I think I'll try that before I send the kids back out to the woods! (How only ONE of them got poison oak is beyond me~ but I was just as pleased it was the neighbor boy and not mine!!)
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Cheryl Marchek
AKA JM
Check out my website at:
The Red Dragons Den

you said he was trying to climb up the walls... Have you ever thought of making the walls climbable? Perhaps by attaching cork flats or cork tiles to the walls? You monitor would surely use it, and by doing so, you would be increasing the amount of useable, climbable space at least threefold. Think about it, all that unused space on the walls which could be used for climbing.. Right now, the only places your monitor can go is around on the floor, or up or down the two branches you have positioned in the cage- not too many choices.. If you covered the walls with something climbable, he would have a much larger area that he could move around in, and he wouldn't be limited to the up or down the branch motion he's got right now...

Just a thought, that's what I am using with all of my tree monitors. They sure appreciate and use all the extra climbing space- I'm actually a bit disappointed that I did not think of/was exposed to this idea earlier..

Here's a little DIY article I wrote about maximizing usable space in my tree monitor enclosures.

DIY article

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TheOdatriad

I had not thought of that~ I'll keep it in mind for renovations! Right now I am still trying to make what I've already done usable for him~ but once I have that licked I'll look into replacing the linoleom (SP?) tile with cork. Could be an issue though~ the tiles I have in the now would not stick properly~ was driving me crazy until I solved the problem with several tubes of super glue! LOL!

I notice that you screened off the heat light in your enclosure. I made sure to screen off the lamps in the enclosure I built because I am accostomed to snakes being dumb enough to cook themselves on the lamp. I had thought I was just being over cautous in this though~ as I have noted most pics in this forum show the lamp just in the cage with the monitor. What has your exp with this been? Is it necessary to screen off the lamp with the monitors?
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Cheryl Marchek
AKA JM
Check out my website at:
The Red Dragons Den

Well, First off, I think monitors are smart, and know what not to touch.

Second off, I only used the screening on certain cages where access to the bulb itself was possible; only three of my cages had screening over the bulbs. I have since removed the protective screening from the bulbs, as it was pointed out to me that the wire screening heats up very easily(becoming extremely hot after sitting beneath a 100watt halogen bulb all day), and can easily burn the animal if they are hanging on to it. The screening offers something to climb on, and burns are more likely to occur with this, than just a bare bulb in the enclosure. With a bulb, there is nothing for the monitor to grab on to, if it jumps to try and hold on to it. The monitor would simply fall, having nothing to get a hold of. COntact with heat in this situation is a fraction of a second, whereas with the screening, the animal can get stuck on the screening, or have more exposure time to a heated metal screen...and a greater chance of a burn.. Therefore, I no longer endorse protective screening around bulbs...

Monitors are smart.. I think a lot of people underestimate them and think they are stupid like snakes. I have yet to have any burns occur on any of my animals(I lucked out while I had the screening on those 3 enclosures- but then again, my monitors stayed off of them, as I think they know what's dangerously hot and what's not).

Anybody else have any opinions on the use of a screen cage around the bulb inside an enclosure? I for one am against it..

Cheers, have a wonderful day!

Bob
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TheOdatriad

that is exactly what I found wrong with wire around the bulbs.
Kind of odd the ones suggesting it say it prevents them from getting burns from touching the bulb. Haha what about touching the metal that is now heated from the bulb? Kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me.

I do not even use them with my snakes. Atleast they cannot grab and hold onto the wire. A monitor can and will this leaves him being able to actually get even closer to the bulb as you mentioned.

Maybe if they said they used the wire to stop the monitor from unscrewing the bulb, or to stop them from tail bashing it to pieces. That might make more sense.

Please reconsider your approach, you seem like a very nice person, but you are having one heck of a bad approach.

For instance, you said you want to make what you already have done work, it does work for a reason. Wrong type branches. Well, as far as I know, you can make large branches smaller, but you cannot make small branches larger. I guess you can make smooth branches rougher, but it surely would be easier to just get new ones.

The bad approach part is(in my opinion) your confusing problems. Your kids getting poison oak, is not a problem to be confused with getting branches and limbs. Teach your kids what posion oak is, that is seperate from getting branches. Teach them to avoid the poison oak. IF they find a beautiful perfect branch in that stuff, then teach them to send one of their friends after it, hahahahahahahahaha(many ways to skin a cat)

The problem and joy of monitors is, they keep you looking for those many ways to skin the cat(poor cat) Remember, putting a free ranging active reptile into a small cage(any cage, not yours) is already a magic act all by itself. So your main task is the ability to adapt and be creative, not use what you have already tried.

I would not say any of this to you if you were a normal petshop repta tankola person. But you have already shown that you are willing to put lots of effort into keeping your monitor.

The truth about keeping monitors, is the effort never stops. Again for instance, if what you do works well, then your monitor grows like a weed and you have to change the cage furniture, then the cage. If it does't, then that is a disservice to the monitor. See what I mean?

I believe your first error was in the choice of species. You should have picked a species that only gets the size your monitor is now. Not pic a monitor and build a cage for it, just to find out, if you do a good job, it will outgrow the cage very quickly. Consider, if you do a bad job, the monitor outgrowing the cage will not be a problem. But from the looks of the cage, you like to do a good job. Good Luck FR

the dremel tool to me will be much more work then simply replacing the branches. It also might not work.

With my rudi's I have large branches, shelves, and split logs. The branches run left, and right. The shelves are situated for basking. The split logs are mounted to the sides of the cage.

You could use cork flats etc. also for the walls. Or cork tiles but what I found is they overtime would get shredded. I know bob uses cork tiles for his tree monitors and has not had problems but with the bigger monitors I have found only pieces of the tiles left on the walls. They even eventually ripped up the cork flats. This is when I switched to just splitting logs in half, and sanding the inside flat.