Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey, so i recently had to find a new home for a nile monitor i had, and someone offered to trade me a three foot "tame" american alligator. He had it in a 30 gallon that it touched nose to tail, but would let it wander the house a lot

suprisingly to me the alligator is actually very calm and really seems to like having an enclosure he can turn around and really move in.

my question is, I dont think it has ever had a heat lamp on it. Does anyone know if it will become more aggressive as I heat him up?

When I let him out he follows me around the house and wont leave my side and even lets the cat sit with him.

Ummm...yea...good luck with the cat. Whether or not the animal becomes more "aggressive" when it heats up, should not dictate whether or not you provide it with the appropriate temperatures. Sounds like this situation has great potential to be another shining example of why some people just shouldn't own crocodilians. Hopefully for our community, this won't turn into just another news story with a bad ending for the animal.

oh good i was hoping to get some judgemental garbage advice from someone sitting on their high horse...

he will never be released outside, i already have a home lined up for when he is much bigger. And secondly I came here actually hoping for advice to become a better owner, but thanks for being a jerk instead, that helps a lot

my best advice is google search alligator care sheets and u will find out all the husbandary needs of your animal. for the light issue and due to the age i would use both a heat source and ubv lamps or mercury vapor bulbs and for his size and size enclosure he should have your going to need a few of them. for the size of the enclosure the very least he should be in is 9foot by 9 foot with 3/4 water 1/4 land to bask in. speaking of heat your going to need to heat the water with out your gator eating the glass heater (which will happen if not protected).
Now from what i take of the piss poor care that had been given to him before you got him i can assume his "friendly" behavure is due to illness but only a vet should determine that and it should be done a.s.a.p. Trust me when i say that due to i lost 2 dwarf caimen from not acting the second i noticed something wrong.
lastly dont be too upset when people sound angry when someone such as yourself posts they have a animal that walks freely around that even at its size can do some real damage or if it is allowed to roam 2 yrs from now and decides a foot looks yummy then its on national news "pet gator attack". and thats why people such as my self have get permits and declare each animal we have and pay fees for each one (well in ny thats how it is)and congress over a few bad examples pass bills to out law our hobby. Another upsetting to people is u saying how you just took on care of him, most people the are going to do things right owning a alligator or caimen research for years and already have a nice portion of their property set aside to care for the animal.
wish you the best of luck, please becareful and treat the animal the best that he deserves after the crappy start he had to life.

ps. the 9x9 cage requirement is for now tho, adult gators need about a 20x20 area to be kept right.

thanks for the advice i greatly appreciate it.
he is eating finally now that I got a heat lamp on him, the kid we got him from said he was "hibernating" and hasnt tried to feed him for months.
Do the shatter-proof turtle water heaters usually work for them?

Never said anything about you releasing it outside or not having someone to take it when it gets bigger. But the reality is, I watched your thread over in the monitor forum, and to me it seems like your just someone who get's something because it looks cool for a bit, and then when it gets to be more than you can handle you hand it off to someone else...like you did with the impluse buy monitors. And since we currently own 4 alligators who came from similar predicaments, because they got dumped off at a local rescue organization OR confiscated by animal control, It can be a little frustrating at times. Especially knowing that the reason these animals got dumped is because people don't do the research BEFORE they get the animal. And like the other poster mentioned we have to have the proper permits and have to jump through hoops to keep these animals in our state. Do you have the 9 by 9 enclosure already? Or are you doing what you did with the monitors and shoving this thing into a fish tank you have lying around? Don't take it all personally. But the fact of the matter is, there are those of us that end up cleaning up other people's messes, and it's always the animal that ends up suffering. Just expressing the frustration that comes from continuously getting animals that are drastically undersized and underweight due to improper care.

As far as the monitor thing goes, I had gotten two babies and when they started to fight was when I decided to find a new home for one of them. My monitor is currently in a 4' x 2' x4' I made for it after getting advice from the other forum (the monitor is only about a foot long right now).

I currently have the alligator in a 6'x4' enclosure, but after the post earlier I will be working on a bigger enclosure immedietely.

I also have a question about his behavior.
As I had said before I got him he was in a 30 gallon tank with no water, he's three feet and touched both sideds of the tank. When I put him in his new enclosure here he simply puts his head on the edge and wedges himself in the corner a lot. Do you think this is because he is so used to being crammed in somewhere? or is it just gator behavior?

Yea, I wouldn't consider that "normal" gator behavior. But it could be that he's stressed and is attempting to hide. Do you have any kind of "hides" in the cage? And what are your temps like?

he has a hide, but refuses to go near it. He just stays with his head propped up against the side and his body fully exposed of under the heat lamp where he gets some cover, but even then he finds the closest wall that he can tilt his head against.
His basking temp is about 90-95 and the rest of the enclosure ranges from about 75-80

he has a hide, but refuses to go near it. He just stays with his head propped up against the side and his body fully exposed of under the heat lamp where he gets some cover, but even then he finds the closest wall that he can tilt his head against.
His basking temp is about 90-95 and the rest of the enclosure ranges from about 75-80

Do you have a water heater/know what the water temps are? It didn't sound like you've had him terribly long, so he may just be adjusting. All of our gators are very outgoing, but admittedly our spec does lots of hiding...just spends most of the daylight hours underneath something or other in the cage. Again though, in the interest of full disclosure, the caiman is very very small, the gators are all 3 foot plus, so there's obviously going to be behavioral differences. Exactly how long have you had the gator?

we only got him new years eve. we were going to just go look at him and then get his enclosure fully set-up first, but after seeing him crammed in the 30 gallon I took him right away.

He is about three feet nose to tip of tail. He is pretty skinny, he hadnt eaten in about three months the guy said. but after I got the heat lamp on him he has eaten three mice so far.

I had a regular aquarium heater in there, but he whipped it. So I was thinking of going with a shatter-proof turtle heater. Any suggestions?

Put the heater in a piece of pvc with holes drilled in it. Dont forget to protect the cord as well