Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[DarrenW]

First things first:

Hi everybody, my names Darren and i'm an alcoholic.....

----- oops wrong forum -----

On a more serious note, i am looking for as much advice as anybody can throw in my general direction.

I feel i have to say though, before i carry on, i have kept iguana's in the past so am not all that new to caring for reptiles..

Anyway, i have been charged with fostering a Savannah (bosc) Monitor for - well may be a long time

He has apparently been off his food for some time now and has only had tit bits here and there, he is very lethargic - apparently as i dont know quite how much running around they do! and has lost a little weight ..... I wondered if he had worms or perhaps a parasite so started digging around a little and spoke to a couple of vets over the phone....

Now i always thought he was perhaps a little "tubby" but after looking at other pictures of these little beasts i think his main prob is he is a big fat lazy sod .

His History:
He is 4 1/2 years old, and is approx 2.5 feet long inc tail - weight unknown at this moment.
The owner followed advice given to her from other reptile owners, so please, dont rip apart some of the "bad" she may have done, she is young and thought the advice was sound and solid. She was told he was to be housed with temp of 75 to 80 and was to eat 1 to 2 mice every other day. The same people that gave this advice also said he could do with putting weight on.... I also think he is consitpated, his droppings are more like egg white than gray/white.

I have upped the temperature to 80 in the low and 95 in the high - more in fitting with monitors.

the Diet - this is where i need help, i am concerned that he is overweight - look at the piccies and you tell me! What should i feed him on to lower his weight - best forms of exercise etc.

So, please go easy on me and advise me

[dicy]

i dont keep savs but maby its your diet whut r u feeding it only mice?

[DarrenW]

I have only just took him in.

I am a little reluctant to feed him mice just yet. I thought it would be best to get him onto insects for a while and then a half grown mouse per week for a little while.

He has just take a couple of big juicy locust - had to practically had feed them to him though cos he a little big to run after them....

[DarrenW]

My plan...

what i had planned to do, after a little research was:

Bath him at least twice a week. I am told he loves to have a swim in some luke warm water. He gets a little wriggly at first, then he's off. I am told this should get his bowels moving properly too as well as exercise.

Have him out every eve for an hour or so, i have set an area out for him with his own sheet to keep him off the carpet and an extra log/water bowel - that he seems to love crawing over.

Feed him locust / crickets every couple of days and then a mouse or day old chick once a week. His crickets are to be coated in some suppliment. the larger meal to be teased with string to try and make him run for it.

I am hoping that this should help him loose weight and get moving around again.

It may sound strange but he almost seems like he has lost some instinct to run after his food at the mo. he will take it if you offer it to him but he isn't fussed to hunt it.

does this all sound ok? or way off? any other advice?

Cheers
Darren

[predator]

i really like your idea.
only one thing the one day chick i wouldn't do that caus the get runny poo from that, witch you don't want.

the rest with the locust and the swimming and running sounds great.
try it and see what happends.

i predict it won't take long before he's hae his size.
cause right now he's huge.

good luck with it, he's in good hands.

greets jelle.

[DarrenW]

Hi Predator.

Thanks for the words...

So - he deff well overweight then?

[dicy]

sounds like a good idea specialy the inseckt dieet it can take a while till he is back on normal weigth tho anyway i hope he gets whell soon good luck whit ur new projeckt

[predator]

yes he's deffinatly over weigth
her is a picture of what he should look like.
this isn't my picture though.

grts jelle

[crocdoc]

I would get yourself a non-contact temperature gun and measure the surface temperature of its basking spot. It should be around 120-130F on the surface below the light. That would increase its metabolism significantly. 95F doesn't cut it.

On the other hand, it has a surprisingly large belly for such a thin tail. Could you post photos of the top of its tail, around the hips? Although it has a male looking head, it's possible that it's an egg bound female. That would explain the massive belly and reduced appetite, too.

[Sam Sweet]

Good start, Darren

Crocdoc the quickdraw expert has hit some of the same points I was typing here -- even though he's first, I can be next.

It sounds as though the previous owner was doing the aquarium and newsprint method, feeding the animal a lot and keeping it too cool and perhaps too dry. The lethargy you are describing could be simply a consequence of obesity and low temperatures, or it may signify a more serious problem such as visceral gout (which is basically the result of urate/uric acid retention under dry and cool conditions). Either way you can make progress, but the starvation-diet method isn't a good idea, for reasons I'll describe below. As crocdoc notes, the extent of the obesity hints at a big female with a lot of retained eggs, but let's stay simple at first.

Probably the first thing you should do, as others have suggested, is to get the basking temperature up to 130-140 F using 2-3 floodlights (not spotlights) arranged on the ceiling of the cage so that the extent of the heated area is no less than the animal’s head and body length. Spotlights and small floodlit basking areas tend to cause burns when the animal sits too long trying to warm its whole body from one point source. A log or shelf raised up a foot or so above the cage floor can provide this while keeping the cage floor at 85 F or less. You also want to minimize air circulation in the cage (i.e., no wire mesh tops), both to save costs and (more importantly) retain some humidity in the cage.

That’s temps and part of humidity. A good addition to any sav cage is 2’ of a slightly damp dirt/leafmulch mix that will hold a burrow without having enough clay to get sticky when wet. Newsprint, pine shavings, Astroturf and the like are nice for you, but you’re trying to be nice to the monitor, right? Wild savs live in burrows and dense low grasslands, and probably spend most of their time underground. If you can’t do the dirt (yet, because every cage is only a temporary solution until you build a better one), at least provide one or more low shelters that the animal can get completely into – large diameter plastic pipes are good if large hollow logs aren’t handy. “Busy up” the cage with a lot of stuff at ground level, and provide a water pan that the animal can at least curl up in.

Sounds like a tall order? A 4x6’ cage 5-6’ high with 2’ of dirt is something to shoot for. What you’ll accomplish by doing these things is to give the animal the ability to come right largely of its own accord. What it’s been doing up to now is building up body fat for the cool dry season that never actually comes. With better temps and humidity plus the opportunity to dig and secure places to hide in, you will likely see a different animal in a matter of weeks. Feed it a bit every other day until it’s worked down to the girth you want, but make it work for the food – bury the mice, put them in logs it has to tear open, etc. Starvation is more dry-season business, wherein the animal will do as little as possible as long as it can to conserve its energy reserves.

At any one time there are tens of thousands of savs in captivity, but maybe only hundreds that are kept well. Aim for the latter and good luck!