Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Shes a good vet, and better yet Sobek likes her.
Sobek recieved some IV fluids and was given some water extra here by me to further help.
Out of suggestion by the vet I attempted to force feed her, dont ask me how I did it, but she put down 1/3rd of a large rat, and 4 adult mice with my help. That was difficult!!! Shes one very powerful creature!!
Such a lady though no attempt to bite. I hope this gets her going again, Ive made a few changes to her cage and a larger water dish to assist with humidity. Next Ill try some pedialyte on her.

Why are you having problems with her husbandry? Is it because you havent adjusted yet to the new enclosure?

I made some changes over recent times, and the problem is findind out which changes to change back. Im working it out.
She normally fasts 2 weeks twice a year, this year there was one fast, this one, it was different so after a week she went to the vet. This time she was dehydrated, so I made some changes to see if it solves it.

I don't understand why you chose to forcefeed her, especially when you knew(your vet diagnosed) and understood what the culprit behind her lack of appetite was??? And there you go, shoving food down her throat while she clearly doesn't want to eat.

Why don't you correct the problem which is causing the dehydration first, and once she recovers, then let her make her own decisions on whether or not to eat..

If I recall correctly, you are one who is always handing out advice to newbies about "giving your monitor choices" and "don't force your monitors into situations", etc.. Is force-feeding a monitor when it is strategically not feeding, considered offering it a choice???

I don't think forcefeeding is ever necessary, nor should it ever be used.. just my humble opinion...

Its his animal, so Im sure he is aware of what he can and cant get away with doing.

Hes already been to deaths doorstep and back with sobek, so he can handel this.

Its a different situation then a noob and their FOB monitor.
Guess it would be FOP? haha (fresh off the plane)

"She normally fasts 2 weeks twice a year, this year there was one fast, this one, it was different so after a week she went to the vet"

So after a week of an animal not feeding (one which is notorious for going long periods without food in the wild no less!)force feeding becomes a necessary measure to take???

Doesn't make much sense to me why such a measure would be necessary.....

It doesnt have to make sense to anyone. Its his animal, so its up to him how he wants to deal with it. Considering hes had her for this long, and spent god knows how many thousands of dollars on her, I highly doubt hes going to do something to kill her.

The first week was different, but something was wrong, normally she fasts for a few weeks without loss of weight, without being dehydrated. This was the 2nd week I set the appointment to get a second opinion and suggestions. Today was over 2 weeks, she had lost a suprising amount of weight (4 lbs), which warranted this decision, IV fluids (which did not bother her, except one of the needle sticks), water given orally (2-3 ounces), and attempting to force feed as the vet put "the most nutritious food items possible in normal feeding portions".
Also understand that the end of the second week was after almost a week or more of only eating half of a rat.
Its a bit hard to explain, but I should have worded it differently.

"Out of suggestion by the vet I attempted to force feed her"

This was suggested by the vet, after she was rehydrated today, besides maybe your definition of force feeding and mine are a bit different. Mine involved getting the food item into the front of her mouth, then she ate on her own. It didnt involved forcing it down her throat, all it took was getting it into her jaws.
This is also from an experienced keepers standpoint, shes not a stressed out, half dead, sickly, diseased, bag of skin straight from the local petstore or off the plane.
What I did disturbed her for a few minutes, then she went about what she normally does.


Would a stressed out scared monitor after being assisted in eating approach you outdoors from a few hundred feet away then climb all over you??? I dont think so. You need to understand what is possible with the animal you have, and its condition, also you need to be able to recognize when something is needed. Ive made more than my own share of mistakes, they teach you alot if you let them do so. Kinda like when I tell people "if you dont know what your doing, dont attempt to pop a monitor", its a double edged sword, if you dont know what your doing, dont try to treat it yourself.

Think it has anything to do with whatever happened to your two males? Or is she going through something different?

Over the next 2 weeks from the vets suggestion she will get 1 hour of outdoor activity in the sun daily or as close to that as I can. If she doesnt eat in one week she is to be force fed again if needed proportional amounts to normal feeding. In that time Ill give her pedialyte as needed on occasion. After recieving the IV fluids, getting time to absorb it some, and some water by mouth her energy level was up. She wasnt to a point where just anyone would have noticed it, to me it was appearant in her skin on her neck and earlier today some in her sides.
The vet said slightly dehydrated, she also said that shes the most beautiful creature shes ever seen, also the largest lizard shes seen aside from a komodo.
If you look at the pics I took today (posted above) and compare to this one you can see the difference, this one was taken 2 nights ago, look at her neck. Of course the pics from today you can see the bulge of IV fluids still in her side before it absorbed.
I had her checked, and rehydrated as close to the begining of the problem as I could to prevent it from getting to a point where medicine or treatment may be needed. This way the minimum amount of stress, and least amount of disturbance is used while shes still very strong and healthy. The slight dehydration was the only problem that could be found period. I know Id rather catch a problem early and deal with it before it gets bad, this gives you time to fix what caused it. With her egg binding I was given a few suggestions by a few people, at the time suggestions were given to allow her to go as is and see if she lays them, Im glad I didnt take that, shes recovered, and healed, faster and better after surgery at around 4 weeks than she would have if allowed to go 5-6 weeks. Im glad shes as tough as she is, the last whole animal prey item she ate was a half of a rat 2 weeks ago, since then a few ounces of other not so good food items just helped some. Now at least she has 4 adult mice and a large rat cut in half in her stomach to hold her over for a while.
This was taken 2 days ago.

This was taken tonight in her burrow after several hours of absorbing the small amount of fliuds and a good start on digesting her food. I know I can see the difference.

Thats a briefcase in the making! Haha! j/k

Glad to see shes doing well.

I found out that my savvy was dehydrated today.he lost his appetite and i thought that he was sick.He was spending much of his time on the cool side.he ate a couple of crickets but then he lost his appetite again.So today i poured water to make his cage more humid,as soonas he heard water pouring he came out of his borrow and he tried to drink water from the ground.The reason he was dehydrated was because i change his cage around puting the water bowl in the other side of the tank without the light hitting it.I dont really know why he didnt even attemp to go in the water bowl while it was in the other side but as soon as i put the bowl back and when the water seemed to warm up he dipped right in (I know he dipped in because the water turned really dirty)and i also seen him drink some water.i hd put some supplement from extro-terra called electrolize it suppose to rehydrate him.Hopefully tomorrow he will start to act more active and his appetie will start to come back.good luck on your monitor shvar