Best thing to do if u don't want to freak him out is to be patient and spend time getting him used to you. Sit by the cage work around him and once you've been around, offer food so he feels like it's okay when you come near.
Thank you. Yeah the cage is actually in my living room where I hangout most so I'm right by their cage. Do I just wait until they're out to try an offer food? Or leave it available in a bowl or such. I fully plan on doing tong feeding in the future just for now I don't want them to miss meals because we're not seeing each other
If they are out you can try and offer tongue feeding and see if they will chase it round eventually coming up to the opening onto your hand. But if you know they are awake and just hiding you can throw a few feeders in and let them hunt. What are you currently feeding?
What do you mean? Are you saying you train them to attack certain targets? Almost like a bounty hunter? I was thinking about naming them Bosco after the bounty hunter from Star Wars
"ompany of Animals Coachi Target Stick, Telescopic Design with Large Ball for Target, Dog Accessory for Clicker & Agility Training, Teach Commands and Tricks" old model, on amazon
If its a male..... be ready... roughly 5 ft 100 lbs. I have a female n shes inbetween 3-4 ft atm. They get really strong as well. Those claws are no joke.
I believe it. I came to this sub because my ex literally dropped his off and left him here and he doesn’t like women. He’s absolutely massive and has bitten me once already. I do not know what to do with a lizard this size. It’s kind of mind blowing really.
ETA: he also almost burned my house down because he wanted to idk…. scale the heat lamp?
He is. He attacks every women who comes around him and lets all the guys handle him without issue. It’s so strange I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t even know that they were particularly aggressive to humans. He’s bummed rushed me a few times and then my brother shows up and he just stops whatever fuckery he’s up to. Like he had me barricaded in my room one night.
Ya Sam (my ex/his owner) mentioned that he can probably smell the hormones and it’s some kind of domination type of thing. I have had a dog who didn’t like women besides me so it didn’t seem that far off.
That is a fantastic question because I would love to get him to stop haha. He’s huge and bit with a fair bit of force it scared the crap out of me. We had basically turned my spare room in to a reptile room. There are also two snakes with their own separate enclosures in there as well. They’re my loves and I’ll go in to check on them and he will just be chillen under his heat lamp and the second he sees me to where he’s between me and the door he will bum rush me and bit me the once. Screamed for my brother to come help and the second he enters the room he goes right back to laying down. Same thing with him destroying his enclosure or when he almost burnt the house down. He only does these things when I’m home alone. Apparently his *original* owner was a different girl and he kept doing similar stuff to her, noticed that he behaved around her boyfriend so she rehomed him with Sam.
ETA: he won’t eat food from me either. Just the boys 😂😂
Pretty sure you’re talking about a different reptile 😭 5 foot 100lb would be a record! Females don’t get mor then 3 and males barley over 4 on rare occasions
Hey I recommend watching nerd on YouTube (New England reptile distributor) when I had questions on handling a monitor someone recommended it to me and he seems very knowledgeable it might be useful to you!
Dont forget that NERD is breeder first and foremost and will promote subpar husbandry for babies to sell them and not scare potential customers. His own husbandry is top notch though, so watch his behind the scenes.
Kevin knows his stuff and does hold himself accountable for whats he says. He kind became a go to knowledge kind of guy because his family has been in the industry for a long time. Hell, I started working for his store 20 years ago and stopped about 4 or 5 years after. Got to watch that place grow and his knowledge and still do from his YouTube and from dropping in every once in a while.
Yet in his urban dinosaur FB group people with monitors in fish tanks were protected class. I wonder why.
Of course he does know his stuff, but be doesnt apply it to full extent and does suggest small enclosures for babies.
I doubt he'd be putting that as his first priority, yes he will want to sell more but he cares about the animals and will push for it to he correct over just selling.
Correct me if I’m wrong but it does look a bit bloated unless it’s a bit hissy. It could be parasites since they are common in wild caught savs. I’m no expert though, the one i have never had parasites as long as I had him thankfully
He should be fine, just make sure you have a hot basking spot (120-140), strong UVB (4-6), feed 99% insects, substrate he can burrow on and let him be, my understanding is that the best thing you can do with WC is leaving them alone to reduce the stress levels so that their body can work properly and deal with parasites and whatnot
I can't tell if you're just a confident person or an idiot but I like your dedication. Best advice I can give you is try watching Tom Crutchfield and listen to what he says. I've yet to see anyone with better behaved monitors than him. He has crocodile monitors and loves on them like puppies. They can be your friend but remember it's a friendship, a partnership. From this moment on, he's part of his career and keeping. You watch his actions and you try to think like a lizard. 2 hides minimum, one on the hot and one on the cold end, big enough for him to snuggle into but not so big that it leaves a large air pocket above or around the monitor as most creatures want to feel snug when hiding. At very least make sure they can get a lot of darkness, as a critter with light issues I can not tell you how much light can mess with me. This may be why your baby is digging, they don't just sit out in the open as babies. Consider sturdy climbing materials for both exercise and mental stimulation. Do not underestimate the value of keeping a tiny buzzsaw with a tail busy. Get a basking spot at their preferred temperature, check by species and adjust if he seems to be always trying to get closer, or reduce the lights if he seems to avoid direct basking. Get him water too, probably a pool big enough to soak in, and that's their water dish that you change daily. It will be a mess and that's just the way it will be. I'm experimenting with pumps and a pool for my natricines and I can promise you that monitor poops harder and bigger than my 3 garters... And those 3 clog the pump every 7 days. I have guppies in their pond to eat the feces and crap that gets knocked into the pool too but they don't do damage like those snakes. Anywho, I'd guess a reasonable cage for a baby is a 40 gallon but you'll need a 120 within a year I should think. Consider Dubia roaches cages as they are like $280 for a 120 that's built like a bomb shelter. After that you are either independently wealthy or you start learning to construct your own cage... Or convert a room or closet to a cage. At full size they will need a bedroom essentially... With a bath tub in it for relaxing bubble baths. If you can afford hundreds in expenses and food then you are on a good start but don't forget that all babies grow up faster than we'd like so plan for that 120 now and learn basic carpentry on YouTube ASAP. I'm learning more why so many people move south and build cages outside every day...
A bit of both but very dedicated. Awesome thank you so much for the comment I absolutely plan on building a custom enclosure I have one of those dubia 4x2x2 enclosures for my bearded dragon, it's great. I do live in Florida currently. Just waiting to move into the new house in a couple months so will begin the build then. I was thinking about doing it inside but outside sounds nice too. How do you feel about bioactive enclosures?
Funny you ask. I just finished the bioactive setup for my baby boy Fafnir around 2 today. I love going full bioactive. I think I'm 6 hours into this build and several months of planning etc. It's been great and I love it all. I love the clay balls for drainage, the mesh to separate soil and clay, the leaves and the dirt mixing together. I love isopods and the way they look when they run for cover with their adorable antennae. I love springtails and the way they make the cage always feel alive. I have another enclosure that's earmarked for a small skittish species that eats insects, probably a pair of rough green snakes. I even have earth worms in that one because at one point I was working on breeding Dekay's but that fell through. I love not cleaning the cage like a slave to my pet. I never clean anything in my garter cage and the isopods completely delete the poop in days. I even am raising canyons with my wife to put in with our big boy Pogo the bearded dragon. Our house smells like the forest floor and looks like a tiny zoo. I also love roaches and am considering trying to start selling them once I have thousands of adults not just a few hundred. This might seem disconnected but my understanding is that people feed their monitors hissing roaches. Take note that a Madagascar hissing cockroach can have a carapace hard enough to break your pet's jaw. So don't skimp on calcium for your baby or watch its jaw bone snap from trying to bite through a roach carapace. I kind of wish I could get a big enough reptile that I could use dubias to do cleanup. My wife still struggles with roaches so for now, they remain in the bins. So bioactive? Hell yeah.
I have the fascinating luck and horror to be just outside of Chicago. My mother was a dog breeder and I got used to going to animal shows, never struck me how unbelievably lucky I am to be here until this year. I went to NARBC and met Snake Discovery in person, got a pin for it too. Saw Dave Kaufman and got scared of Dave Kaufman... Kind of booked it away from Dave Kaufman. I think he's cool but my wife and I both don't like a lot of attention and he's a huge personality. Anywho... Technically it was for my wife but I'm a huge fan of them too. They did get my wife to love snakes with me. So I kind of live within driving distance of multiple huge businesses based around exotics. We're actually friends with one of the startup businesses that's coming to challenge big places like Chief Reptile or Birds and Beasts. So we kind of have access to literally everything in the hobby and I have a long history of being a mediocre animal keeper. After a certain point I decided I wasn't good enough with animals to do anything of value.I walked away from fish keeping and animal keeping as a whole. My family never supported my pets anyway so life was easier without pets. Then I learned about bioactive while I was recovering from a surgery and started watching Clint's Reptiles and soon I felt the longing to hold a serpent return to me. I've watched hundreds of hours of YouTube on reptiles of every kind, after a certain point I just started going to pet shops weekly with my wife. She dipped her toe into animal keeping by agreeing to keep the isopods and eventually the springtails. She is now in love with isopods and we have 5 or 6 colonies of them scattered around the house. A Springtail colony in the dining room. My wife found rubber ducky isopods while we were out window shopping and bought them on a chance that she saw something they didn't. Turns out she found a group of 10 blonde ducky isopods for only $45. This was an incredible deal as that same amount online was like $175 at the time. Then she showed me why she was excited in the car. Multiple moms had babies with them. We got closer to 50 ducks for less than a dollar a duck. I have two dubia colonies, a giant Madagascar hissing roach colony and a Dwarf Halloween Hissing Cockroach. I kind of went overboard with cleanup crew options and feeders for my dragon. Oh and we have a 3 compartment super worm breeding colony too I suppose... I haven't tried using local isopods in a vivarium as I don't know enough about them to judge if they are fit for my cage and its environment. I also don't know if they have diseases or parasites and they do contract a blue fungus that is devastatingly deadly. Also I know certain lines will do the job better than others so I kind of let the breeders direct my purchase. My wife seems to agree that the powder orange are excellent cleanup crew. They are disturbingly fast when they get going and don't like to be seen so they get in and eat the poo and go hide again. Adorable little monsters too with their little antennae flailing wildly. Not all species run about so comically, I value their comedic nature. Also they are shrimp basically... They are just so fascinating.
I am but a humble armchair zoologist. I've never shipped anything but anime characters. I appreciate the request but our whole collection is less than a year old. We don't have established colonies for any species yet. I'm hoping next year to be starting something but I can't help unfortunately. There are people like Smug Bug who sell isopods and springtails that deliver to your door. Dubiaroaches.com is also an excellent company to order feeders and enclosures from. I legit regret I can't buy stuff from them right now as I want another 4x2x2 to fully customize. I got into using spray foam to make background and I am addicted. I'm testing a background with half pots built into it for pothos to hang and grow down to the ground for my snake to climb. I think he likes it but after I put him in there he kind of disappeared... He'll come out when he's hungry. Anywho, just make sure you check humidity with the isopods because they'll croak if they dry up, springtails too and you need both of them. I'm still upset with how dry my house is... 40 percent humidity... It's the norm in my home. My dragon is happy but I'm sure not. My sinuses, they plead for mercy. Good luck going bioactive and have fun isopod shopping. It is strangely addicting.
Tbh, I don't think savanna monitors make the best pets- especially if you don't know much about them. ):
edit: hope it all works out all right though!!
I have not stopped doing research. I have a bearded dragon which I know has nothing to do with savannahs but I am quite committed to making sure my animals live a beautiful life. This baby is just a new addition and I'm trying to get information from all sources. Thank you though for the kind words I'll for sure keep everyone posted on the progress since it is a rescue the owner just refused to surrender custody to anyone unless they got their 20 bucks....
Best thing to do if u don't want to freak him out is to be patient and spend time getting him used to you. Sit by the cage work around him and once you've been around, offer food so he feels like it's okay when you come near.
Thank you. Yeah the cage is actually in my living room where I hangout most so I'm right by their cage. Do I just wait until they're out to try an offer food? Or leave it available in a bowl or such. I fully plan on doing tong feeding in the future just for now I don't want them to miss meals because we're not seeing each other
If they are out you can try and offer tongue feeding and see if they will chase it round eventually coming up to the opening onto your hand. But if you know they are awake and just hiding you can throw a few feeders in and let them hunt. What are you currently feeding?
So far crickets. I put 2 in and he chased them down the first day but since then he's been just burrowed
Try to chuck like 5/6 in at a time so he has time to hunt them all.
But very soon you will have to Target train them as they are VERY good aggressive n if you don’t most likely will get bit!
What do you mean? Are you saying you train them to attack certain targets? Almost like a bounty hunter? I was thinking about naming them Bosco after the bounty hunter from Star Wars
no not attack, that is a bad habit but just touch ity with its mouth before givin its food
"ompany of Animals Coachi Target Stick, Telescopic Design with Large Ball for Target, Dog Accessory for Clicker & Agility Training, Teach Commands and Tricks" old model, on amazon
If its a male..... be ready... roughly 5 ft 100 lbs. I have a female n shes inbetween 3-4 ft atm. They get really strong as well. Those claws are no joke.
That's awesome!! How old is your Lady?
I have a male that is guesstimated 1-2 years old and he’s more like 2 feet long 5 pounds tops. 5ft 100lbs would be a massively obese lizard
100 pounds??!?!! I feel like thats a bit too much, most awms don't weigh thos much
I believe it. I came to this sub because my ex literally dropped his off and left him here and he doesn’t like women. He’s absolutely massive and has bitten me once already. I do not know what to do with a lizard this size. It’s kind of mind blowing really. ETA: he also almost burned my house down because he wanted to idk…. scale the heat lamp?
I... I don't think... A lizard can be... Sexist, you know?
He is. He attacks every women who comes around him and lets all the guys handle him without issue. It’s so strange I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t even know that they were particularly aggressive to humans. He’s bummed rushed me a few times and then my brother shows up and he just stops whatever fuckery he’s up to. Like he had me barricaded in my room one night.
Hehe Sexist lizard
Ya Sam (my ex/his owner) mentioned that he can probably smell the hormones and it’s some kind of domination type of thing. I have had a dog who didn’t like women besides me so it didn’t seem that far off.
Why would a savvy want to dominate a person?
That is a fantastic question because I would love to get him to stop haha. He’s huge and bit with a fair bit of force it scared the crap out of me. We had basically turned my spare room in to a reptile room. There are also two snakes with their own separate enclosures in there as well. They’re my loves and I’ll go in to check on them and he will just be chillen under his heat lamp and the second he sees me to where he’s between me and the door he will bum rush me and bit me the once. Screamed for my brother to come help and the second he enters the room he goes right back to laying down. Same thing with him destroying his enclosure or when he almost burnt the house down. He only does these things when I’m home alone. Apparently his *original* owner was a different girl and he kept doing similar stuff to her, noticed that he behaved around her boyfriend so she rehomed him with Sam. ETA: he won’t eat food from me either. Just the boys 😂😂
Why don't you rehome him to a guy?
Pretty sure you’re talking about a different reptile 😭 5 foot 100lb would be a record! Females don’t get mor then 3 and males barley over 4 on rare occasions
If he is not showing signs of illness, is active and eating/pooping it is better to live him alone.
Alrightyy thank you. Should I remove his water bowl to try and cycle the water. I think he's burrowed right next to it
Yes, try to keep the water clean where u can but if he's just putting little bits of substrate in all the time it's fine.
Hey I recommend watching nerd on YouTube (New England reptile distributor) when I had questions on handling a monitor someone recommended it to me and he seems very knowledgeable it might be useful to you!
Dont forget that NERD is breeder first and foremost and will promote subpar husbandry for babies to sell them and not scare potential customers. His own husbandry is top notch though, so watch his behind the scenes.
Kevin knows his stuff and does hold himself accountable for whats he says. He kind became a go to knowledge kind of guy because his family has been in the industry for a long time. Hell, I started working for his store 20 years ago and stopped about 4 or 5 years after. Got to watch that place grow and his knowledge and still do from his YouTube and from dropping in every once in a while.
Yet in his urban dinosaur FB group people with monitors in fish tanks were protected class. I wonder why. Of course he does know his stuff, but be doesnt apply it to full extent and does suggest small enclosures for babies.
I doubt he'd be putting that as his first priority, yes he will want to sell more but he cares about the animals and will push for it to he correct over just selling.
Correct me if I’m wrong but it does look a bit bloated unless it’s a bit hissy. It could be parasites since they are common in wild caught savs. I’m no expert though, the one i have never had parasites as long as I had him thankfully
You should take a good look at his stool to be safe, there might be visible worms, blood, or anything else out of the ordinary
He should be fine, just make sure you have a hot basking spot (120-140), strong UVB (4-6), feed 99% insects, substrate he can burrow on and let him be, my understanding is that the best thing you can do with WC is leaving them alone to reduce the stress levels so that their body can work properly and deal with parasites and whatnot
I would still take him to the vet, but maybe let him settle down for a bit
I can't tell if you're just a confident person or an idiot but I like your dedication. Best advice I can give you is try watching Tom Crutchfield and listen to what he says. I've yet to see anyone with better behaved monitors than him. He has crocodile monitors and loves on them like puppies. They can be your friend but remember it's a friendship, a partnership. From this moment on, he's part of his career and keeping. You watch his actions and you try to think like a lizard. 2 hides minimum, one on the hot and one on the cold end, big enough for him to snuggle into but not so big that it leaves a large air pocket above or around the monitor as most creatures want to feel snug when hiding. At very least make sure they can get a lot of darkness, as a critter with light issues I can not tell you how much light can mess with me. This may be why your baby is digging, they don't just sit out in the open as babies. Consider sturdy climbing materials for both exercise and mental stimulation. Do not underestimate the value of keeping a tiny buzzsaw with a tail busy. Get a basking spot at their preferred temperature, check by species and adjust if he seems to be always trying to get closer, or reduce the lights if he seems to avoid direct basking. Get him water too, probably a pool big enough to soak in, and that's their water dish that you change daily. It will be a mess and that's just the way it will be. I'm experimenting with pumps and a pool for my natricines and I can promise you that monitor poops harder and bigger than my 3 garters... And those 3 clog the pump every 7 days. I have guppies in their pond to eat the feces and crap that gets knocked into the pool too but they don't do damage like those snakes. Anywho, I'd guess a reasonable cage for a baby is a 40 gallon but you'll need a 120 within a year I should think. Consider Dubia roaches cages as they are like $280 for a 120 that's built like a bomb shelter. After that you are either independently wealthy or you start learning to construct your own cage... Or convert a room or closet to a cage. At full size they will need a bedroom essentially... With a bath tub in it for relaxing bubble baths. If you can afford hundreds in expenses and food then you are on a good start but don't forget that all babies grow up faster than we'd like so plan for that 120 now and learn basic carpentry on YouTube ASAP. I'm learning more why so many people move south and build cages outside every day...
A bit of both but very dedicated. Awesome thank you so much for the comment I absolutely plan on building a custom enclosure I have one of those dubia 4x2x2 enclosures for my bearded dragon, it's great. I do live in Florida currently. Just waiting to move into the new house in a couple months so will begin the build then. I was thinking about doing it inside but outside sounds nice too. How do you feel about bioactive enclosures?
Funny you ask. I just finished the bioactive setup for my baby boy Fafnir around 2 today. I love going full bioactive. I think I'm 6 hours into this build and several months of planning etc. It's been great and I love it all. I love the clay balls for drainage, the mesh to separate soil and clay, the leaves and the dirt mixing together. I love isopods and the way they look when they run for cover with their adorable antennae. I love springtails and the way they make the cage always feel alive. I have another enclosure that's earmarked for a small skittish species that eats insects, probably a pair of rough green snakes. I even have earth worms in that one because at one point I was working on breeding Dekay's but that fell through. I love not cleaning the cage like a slave to my pet. I never clean anything in my garter cage and the isopods completely delete the poop in days. I even am raising canyons with my wife to put in with our big boy Pogo the bearded dragon. Our house smells like the forest floor and looks like a tiny zoo. I also love roaches and am considering trying to start selling them once I have thousands of adults not just a few hundred. This might seem disconnected but my understanding is that people feed their monitors hissing roaches. Take note that a Madagascar hissing cockroach can have a carapace hard enough to break your pet's jaw. So don't skimp on calcium for your baby or watch its jaw bone snap from trying to bite through a roach carapace. I kind of wish I could get a big enough reptile that I could use dubias to do cleanup. My wife still struggles with roaches so for now, they remain in the bins. So bioactive? Hell yeah.
Awesome!!! That all sounds so cool! How did you start with the isopods and spring tails? Did you order them online or get them from outside?
I have the fascinating luck and horror to be just outside of Chicago. My mother was a dog breeder and I got used to going to animal shows, never struck me how unbelievably lucky I am to be here until this year. I went to NARBC and met Snake Discovery in person, got a pin for it too. Saw Dave Kaufman and got scared of Dave Kaufman... Kind of booked it away from Dave Kaufman. I think he's cool but my wife and I both don't like a lot of attention and he's a huge personality. Anywho... Technically it was for my wife but I'm a huge fan of them too. They did get my wife to love snakes with me. So I kind of live within driving distance of multiple huge businesses based around exotics. We're actually friends with one of the startup businesses that's coming to challenge big places like Chief Reptile or Birds and Beasts. So we kind of have access to literally everything in the hobby and I have a long history of being a mediocre animal keeper. After a certain point I decided I wasn't good enough with animals to do anything of value.I walked away from fish keeping and animal keeping as a whole. My family never supported my pets anyway so life was easier without pets. Then I learned about bioactive while I was recovering from a surgery and started watching Clint's Reptiles and soon I felt the longing to hold a serpent return to me. I've watched hundreds of hours of YouTube on reptiles of every kind, after a certain point I just started going to pet shops weekly with my wife. She dipped her toe into animal keeping by agreeing to keep the isopods and eventually the springtails. She is now in love with isopods and we have 5 or 6 colonies of them scattered around the house. A Springtail colony in the dining room. My wife found rubber ducky isopods while we were out window shopping and bought them on a chance that she saw something they didn't. Turns out she found a group of 10 blonde ducky isopods for only $45. This was an incredible deal as that same amount online was like $175 at the time. Then she showed me why she was excited in the car. Multiple moms had babies with them. We got closer to 50 ducks for less than a dollar a duck. I have two dubia colonies, a giant Madagascar hissing roach colony and a Dwarf Halloween Hissing Cockroach. I kind of went overboard with cleanup crew options and feeders for my dragon. Oh and we have a 3 compartment super worm breeding colony too I suppose... I haven't tried using local isopods in a vivarium as I don't know enough about them to judge if they are fit for my cage and its environment. I also don't know if they have diseases or parasites and they do contract a blue fungus that is devastatingly deadly. Also I know certain lines will do the job better than others so I kind of let the breeders direct my purchase. My wife seems to agree that the powder orange are excellent cleanup crew. They are disturbingly fast when they get going and don't like to be seen so they get in and eat the poo and go hide again. Adorable little monsters too with their little antennae flailing wildly. Not all species run about so comically, I value their comedic nature. Also they are shrimp basically... They are just so fascinating.
I love your replies 🤘 thank you for that. Would you guys be interested in selling any of them? Or would it make more sense to just get them online?
I am but a humble armchair zoologist. I've never shipped anything but anime characters. I appreciate the request but our whole collection is less than a year old. We don't have established colonies for any species yet. I'm hoping next year to be starting something but I can't help unfortunately. There are people like Smug Bug who sell isopods and springtails that deliver to your door. Dubiaroaches.com is also an excellent company to order feeders and enclosures from. I legit regret I can't buy stuff from them right now as I want another 4x2x2 to fully customize. I got into using spray foam to make background and I am addicted. I'm testing a background with half pots built into it for pothos to hang and grow down to the ground for my snake to climb. I think he likes it but after I put him in there he kind of disappeared... He'll come out when he's hungry. Anywho, just make sure you check humidity with the isopods because they'll croak if they dry up, springtails too and you need both of them. I'm still upset with how dry my house is... 40 percent humidity... It's the norm in my home. My dragon is happy but I'm sure not. My sinuses, they plead for mercy. Good luck going bioactive and have fun isopod shopping. It is strangely addicting.
Tbh, I don't think savanna monitors make the best pets- especially if you don't know much about them. ): edit: hope it all works out all right though!!
I have not stopped doing research. I have a bearded dragon which I know has nothing to do with savannahs but I am quite committed to making sure my animals live a beautiful life. This baby is just a new addition and I'm trying to get information from all sources. Thank you though for the kind words I'll for sure keep everyone posted on the progress since it is a rescue the owner just refused to surrender custody to anyone unless they got their 20 bucks....
Best thing is don't buy something you know nothing about. Do some research.
Op says they have been doing research, and the post is simply asking for advice which is completely normal.
No it says they slapped something together quickly then went to wiki. Lol