Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 2 savs: 1 wc, a little over 2 feet long around 8 months old and the other is cb, 2 feet long around 8-9months old. A month ago, the cb escaped was missing for 5 days. I eventually found him and he appeared to be in good health(he still had his appettite & was still very active). Over the weekend I noticed some bruising on his 'lips'. It appeared that he busted his 'lips' while attempting to escape again. He hasn't been eating but is still very active. I'm not sure if he's not eating because of his bruises or if its something else and starting to worry. This is the 1st time I've experienced this probllem since I've had them (about 7 -8 months now). I spoke w/the pet store a got him from and they told me to put some antibacteria med (IE neosporin, etc) on the cuts to prevent infection. My wc sav is fine(I always seperate them at feeding time) and the enclosure conditions are fine. Has anyone else experienced this before/any advice on how to get his appetite back to normal?

Thanx in advance.....

First, if you have any doubts about the health of your monitor, don't go to a pet shop, go to a vet, thats their job.

Also a normal healthy monitor heals very very quickly, even from very severe injuries. Its amazing.

You said your conditions are fine, but how do you know that? You know your conditions are fine when your monitor does normal monitor things, like feeding, growing, etc and healing quickly. Also good cage conditions eliminates the reasons for escape. If they think their cage is home, normally they do not want to leave. Unless they are hungry or thirsty or the temps are not right or to dry or wet. Or, they have no suitable place to hide.

Consider, only the monitors can answer these things. If you have a monitor thats constantly trying to escape, that means it has reason to. Please do not take it as something your doing wrong, as this will occur thru out the life of all monitors. They grow and change and its our task to accomdate them, as they grow and change. Or not, its the keepers choice.

So most likely if your conditions are fine, then there should not be a problem. But the need to escape may indicate, something is wrong.

Back to the top, have a vet make sure the injuries are minor. Good luck and enjoy your monitors. FR

More then likely both are w/c even if one was sold to you as c/b. However if you didnt have this problem until the new one came along could be bad company. Do you know what sex they are?

Thanx for the advice FR & JPsShadow. There was actually some progress made last night: he ate. I also noticed that the 'wound' is healing. So hopefully things will get back to 'normal' soon.
To FR: you're right. The reason he has been escaping and attemping to escape has been because he was hungry. I'm also in the process of building them a new enclosure and hopefully this eliminate the problem of attempted escapes (although its weird that my other sav has never even attempted to escape).

To JPs: They've been in the same cage the entire time I've had them (I got them two weeks apart from each other). The escapee was purchased last and they appear to get along. I seperate them when I feed them.