Savannah monitor won't eat.. Please help

Hi, I have a sub-adult savannah monitor that is wild cought. He is really sweet but doesn't act like a monitor when eating. Won't eat dog or cat food. Sometimes eats eggs, and maybe a mouse a week. I have force fed him jump start so he won't lose anymore weight. He is skinny, I just don't want my buddy to die. I'm trying to see if anyone else has a monitor that is a bad eater. Any tips will be great! Thanks.

What's your enclosure like (temps, hotspot temp, substrate, etc).

Word of advice, get rid of the dog and cat food....for the most part stick with insects, ground turkey, and the occasional f/t mice and eggs.

he is in a smaller setup but his plenty of room to move. his heat is normal. between 80-90f daytime. he moves around alot in the day time. i had him on cypress but right now i have him on newspaper. he is too big to eat insects now and for a while was eatting mice and rats good. he just stopped about 3-4 weeks ago.

1. Trust me, he is not too big for insects....roaches, superworms, large mealworms, large crickets, etc would be excellent fare for him. Plus, chasing them around the cage will be good exercise.

2. You are going to need a hotspot of around 110 degrees for him to get up to proper metabolism temps. If you just have air temps in the cage in the 80's with no hotspot, he will not thrive. Also, his enclosure will have to be large enough for him to thermoregulate from hotspot to cooler end in the 80's.

You need to get your husbandry correct before he dies. Is he in a glass tank?

You need a hot spot of 120+, ambients of 80-90, humidity of 60%, about 1' of soil for him to burrow. Last but not least lots of bugs, roaches, crickets, worms.

He ate crickets last night. I am going to put him back on cypress tonight, I can spray it down to get the humidity up. I'm going to try a mouse tonight also. He looks to be doing better he ate a good bit of crickets last night. Thanks for the advice, I sock him every day also to help him.

Soaking is very stressful for Savannahs or any other monitor for that matter. Cypress is also a terrible substrate for them. If you get your setup correct you won't need to soak. Can you post some pics of his enclosure?

Yeah? Seems like my monitor loves it. And everyother lizard for that matter. I came on here for just some tips but seems like most people on here just tell you what your doing wrong. I use cypress on most of my reptiles. Don't see the problem there. And most people around here use it. But I guess I looked at the wrong place for some help.

Please keep us updated. You came here for help and I am trying to help. Cypress is fine for most reptiles, but monitors require a dig-able, burrowable substrate. They need a very hot basking spot to metabolize their food. savannahmonitor.org is a place to look if you don't want to take my advice.

You came to ask about your monitor NOT eating. That's serious. People are trying to help you get your animal set up correctly and that means that everyone is just "telling you what you're doing wrong"?

Come on. Monitors should not need to soak, much less every day. He needs dirt preferably. Proper humidity, temps(including the basking spot) and substrate are extremely important. People here tend to care about the ANIMAL first.

If you want good advice from people experianced in monitor care, you're getting it. If you want someone to tell you garbage like "Oh I'm sure he just wants to watch Golden Girls instead of MTV! He's fine!!" then I'm sure MySPace friends would tell you that.

Monitors need specialized care to thrive. Most savannahs do not survive more than a year after being bought and then kept improperly. People who love the species want to help keepers KEEP THE ANIMAL ALIVE AND THRIVING. That's why anyone bothers to asnwer threads asking about care tips. Please listen to advice and fix the issues rather than just getting mad that people are telling you what is best for the species.

It might not be as fun to listen to "You're doing this part wrong, you need to change to use this instead". But it's WAY less fun to look at a dead lizard. DO you want a thriving pet that's healthy and able to live stress free it's slanted lifetime?