Reptile & Amphibian Forums

FR, how was your success with the white throats? Since these are known to be primarily ground nesters in most of their territory, did you provide deep ground nest space for them?

How long did the female white throat last? How many clutches/babies? Was there ever any reabsorbing of the eggs even though there was (assuming) no nest box?

Cheers,
Rick

I bred many females, not one. Two original founder stock, and females from several generations.

They are ground nesters and amazing as it seems, they never had nesting problems or infertility problems, ants did not bother them and I should have kept them. They nested well both indoors and out.

I think its time to remind folks on this board the reality of husbandry and primarily nesting. Once you know how to do it, it then becomes a maintenance task. nesting is not static. Its not just a method, but you must maintain the right conditions for EACH AND EVERY EVENT. That folks is trying and tiring. And its that, that leads to nesting failures. Once you understand the method, its the maintenacne that causes failure.

While most of you think in terms of once a year, which allows you to think its easy. Well thats not how it works.

Here we had hundreds opon hundreds of nestings a year. So after generations of success with a species, I simply got tired of the work it took to do the same thing over and over.

So there is no keeping a pair forever here at Goanna Ranch, or seeing how long one would live if you babied it. I did so that to some individuals, but in most cases, when I lose interest, I stop digging up eggs and then sold or traded off the females, or neglected nest maintenance and they failed.

I also know what your going to say, but We want those and will pay and bla bla bla. Sir, its not about the money and its not about what you want. That is something thats very tiring and actually caused me to lose interest in varanids.

I produced hundreds or even thousands of many many species, so I did my part. After that, its up to you folks to keep it going. No keeper is responsible to the wants of other keepers.

At this time I am retired for breeding monitors, yet we still produce more monitors and more species then most here or in the world, which is very sad. I have been working fairly hard at not producing them, but there is one problem, I love them, so some still pop out.

Recently I am getting some new species, types that are not known to be good captive breeders, that way, I do not have to do so much work, hahahahahahahahaha

I have always said, monitors are not hard to breed, they are the easist of all the reptiles, they are just a friggin ton of work.

Whitethroats are earth nesters and therefore a ton of work. Each time one nested, I moved between 100 and 3000 pounds of dirt. Do that three or four times a day, then get back to me, hahahahahahahahahahahaha month after month, year after year.

So if you want to work your bum off, keep this thread going.

Whitethroats are the cutest babies on earth, but not all that fun as adults. For making money, Whitethroats are great because they are the cutest babies on earth and would consistantly sell first and sell out at any and all reptile expos I took them too.

Sorry for the rant, Best wishes

Sorry, they could easily lay 3 to 4 clutches a year, which is not as many as other species, but they do lay large clutches of large eggs.

Hatchling pilbara's are waaaaaayyyyy cuter than ANY albigularis could ever hope to be. Sorry, but its true. I will never forget that day old one you showed me. A living gem to be sure. And I would be remiss were I not to claim that baby rudicollis are pretty damn cute as well!

Frank, while I'm rather certain we discussed this in the past, I don't recall the details(dang, getting old's a [bleep]..), but have you ever done much work with roughnecks? As I recall, at one point you said you were waiting for some from my pair, but as we know, those all went to the males love of omlettes... should never have let him go to France to " find himself" Anyway, just a thought.
guy

I actually gave a limited attempt. Once a local reptile shop got group in and they were fresh hatched babies. I asked where they got them. They told me. It was a friend of mine. So I called him up and said, I told you to keep an eye for for really nice of some of these indo species.

he said, Yea, those were captive hatched from a wild caught female. He said he sold them all, but had more JUST LIKE THEM.

So he sent me 6 wild caught babies in various stages of death. Unfortunately, That was a week before a six week trip to Ozz. By the time I returned there was two left, so I got rid of them.

So NO. not much experience with them.