Adopting a Sav

So here I am, new to the world of monitors, but not to reptiles, and I'd like some advice. I've searched this forum and read up as much as I could, so that's a start at least.

My aunt is having me take this monitor because I guess my cousin ended up in drug rehab for an indefinite amount of time. Apparently it's about 12" long and she says she thinks it's about a year and a half or two years old. Does that seem small? I obviously wouldn't know, but it just seems like it should be bigger than that at 2 years old. It hasn't been on any kind of regular feeding schedule though and he's been giving it one mouse (don't know which size) per week (or so). I guess it's not eating right now, but I'm not sure how long that's been going on. I'm hoping maybe the irregular schedule has something to do with that. It's a little aggressive too, but it's still young so I'm not real worried about that.

I won't be able to get it from her for probably 2 weeks because of how far away we live from each other, but I convinced my aunt to at least change the bedding when necessary and to try to feed it.

I'm aware of the size requirements and possible damage (to me and my belongings) by the claws and all that. A little background on my experience. I keep colubrids, so most of my personal experience is with snakes, although I have had smaller lizards in the past. I'm also a part-time keeper at the local zoo, dealing mostly with the reptiles. Everything from Tokays to gators to large boids, so I'm experienced with how to handle aggressive or dangerous reptiles somewhat. I figure if nothing else, I can just use my gator-handling skills with this guy...

Any help is very much appreciated, and I'll keep you posted on how this goes.

I would not say it is too small, the Spiny Tail Monitor is one of the smallest and only reaches a max length of under 2 feet. A good website on them is:

http://www.pythonpete.com/info/ackieinf.htm

Let us know how it goes. Hopefully this websight will help. Until it is seen it sure is hard to figure out what you will be getting. You do have quite the skills and for a small monitor I am sure you will be able to keep it from eating you.

I'd say it's small for 1 1/2 to 2 years old. I've seen them that big at six months. Have you seen it yet? If it's well fed you'll see the thick tail like with gators. They are cool critters though. I remember the first one I picked up from this kid going off to college. The first time I fed it, it was mashing the prey into the ground, crunching bones and gulp. I was like, "why didn't I get one of these before this?" They are good garbage disposals when one of your other reptiles doesn't eat due to shedding.

First I'd make sure it is a Savannah or check the age. Like David said it is easy to get them to that size very quickly. Maybe it's not a Savannah or maybe it has just been under fed. If you are sure it is a Savannah start feeding it, disposals they are! It's pretty neat to watch my big ones chase and catch the crickets, big lizard, little bug.We feed crickets or roaches every day, mice usually twice a week and let them gorge, eat all they want, usually once a week either on mice or peeps. Make sure he has good heat and plenty of hiding places. Enough substrate to borough in would be a big plus.

It sounds small, to me, for the supposed age. First thing you want to do is get your enclosure ready - figure out what you will be keeping him in, how you will heat it, substrate, etc. Personally, I feel that many people go too low with the temperatures on their monitors...and given the description (of size, feeding schedule, and current nonfeeding status), I'd guess that to be the case. For acclimation and rehabilitation, I would just set him up in an aquarium with a screen top (if you are planning to use something else, let me know - there may be ways to adapt things to work well). For temperatures, I would initially keep the range high...the "cool" side around 85 degrees. there should be a basking area with a temp of 110-115 degrees - as an example, I used to use 100w ceramic heat emitters on 20g aquariums, and 150w on 30g. Once he is eating and growing, you can mess with nighttime drops and/or slightly lower temps, but for now - hot is good.
Feedings should be on the smallish side, but frequent. Monitors are extremely opportunistic, and will eat when they can. Yes, they will gorge themselves... but it is better to go with smaller meals. Babies and very young should be fed almost every day, with slightly decreasing frequency as they get bigger. twice weekly as adults. Again, your goal is not to feed him to capacity each time - that will just get him fat. Without seeing this particular monitor, or at least a pic with a good size reference, I can't really guide you on prey items or amounts per feeding.
Keep handling to a minimum, initially. For monitors, not eating should be considered a bad sign - either the conditions are way off, or they have become ill...BOTH, is the most likely answer. luckily, they are pretty hearty critters, and can bounce back from alot. get the set up right, and minimize stress. Also, get back to us once you have it...esp if there is something that doesn't look right.

Originally Posted by Junkyard

I would not say it is too small, the Spiny Tail Monitor is one of the smallest and only reaches a max length of under 2 feet. A good website on them is:

http://www.pythonpete.com/info/ackieinf.htm

Let us know how it goes. Hopefully this websight will help. Until it is seen it sure is hard to figure out what you will be getting. You do have quite the skills and for a small monitor I am sure you will be able to keep it from eating you.

First of all, sorry I didn't reply to anybody yet. I'm a regular over on Faunaclassified's Corn Snake forum and I thought that it was just the email notifications over there that didn't work. Apparently I was wrong though because I've yet to get one for this thread even though I subscribed to it.

Anyway, I'm confused. Unless Spiny tail monitors are the same thing as Savannahs (I'm not being sarcastic, they could very well be and I wouldn't know it...lol) then we're talking about two different animals. I've been told that Savs should be around 2-3 feet at two years old. Is that right?

Originally Posted by TrpnBils

Anyway, I'm confused. Unless Spiny tail monitors are the same thing as Savannahs (I'm not being sarcastic, they could very well be and I wouldn't know it...lol) then we're talking about two different animals. I've been told that Savs should be around 2-3 feet at two years old. Is that right?

no, you're not confused. spiny tails and ackies are very different from Savannahs. different sizes, different appearance. Savannahs get bigger, and grow faster. And the size you mentioned 2 feet is very attainable by 2 yrs of age. when you get it, check some pics online to verify that it is, in fact, a savannah. the only monitors you might confuse it with would be whitethroats and blackthroats (which at one time were considered subspecies of V. exanthematicus). if you have a problem with identification, let me know...I can probably help you out.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

It sounds small, to me, for the supposed age. First thing you want to do is get your enclosure ready - figure out what you will be keeping him in, how you will heat it, substrate, etc. Personally, I feel that many people go too low with the temperatures on their monitors...and given the description (of size, feeding schedule, and current nonfeeding status), I'd guess that to be the case. For acclimation and rehabilitation, I would just set him up in an aquarium with a screen top (if you are planning to use something else, let me know - there may be ways to adapt things to work well). For temperatures, I would initially keep the range high...the "cool" side around 85 degrees. there should be a basking area with a temp of 110-115 degrees - as an example, I used to use 100w ceramic heat emitters on 20g aquariums, and 150w on 30g. Once he is eating and growing, you can mess with nighttime drops and/or slightly lower temps, but for now - hot is good.
Feedings should be on the smallish side, but frequent. Monitors are extremely opportunistic, and will eat when they can. Yes, they will gorge themselves... but it is better to go with smaller meals. Babies and very young should be fed almost every day, with slightly decreasing frequency as they get bigger. twice weekly as adults. Again, your goal is not to feed him to capacity each time - that will just get him fat. Without seeing this particular monitor, or at least a pic with a good size reference, I can't really guide you on prey items or amounts per feeding.
Keep handling to a minimum, initially. For monitors, not eating should be considered a bad sign - either the conditions are way off, or they have become ill...BOTH, is the most likely answer. luckily, they are pretty hearty critters, and can bounce back from alot. get the set up right, and minimize stress. Also, get back to us once you have it...esp if there is something that doesn't look right.

Okay, where to start....

Housing - he's got it in a 20L right now, but I'm getting a 4x2x4 cage off of Ptdsnr on the cornsnake forum (see picture below - hope she doesn't mind me posting it). She kept an adult Sav in it and said it worked out real well. As far as what else I know I have at my disposal right now, there's some sort of heat lamp. I don't know if it's an infrared or white lamp, or if it's even strong enough to use in a bigger cage like this.

Food - I keep finding conflicting advice from people who have successfully kept and bred savs. Some say that it's possible to feed an adult sav inverts with the occasional mouse thrown in, others say to go with strictly rodents. I talked to my aunt last night and she said that my cousin was terrible at keeping on a schedule with this lizard (which could also account for the 5 uromastyx he's killed in recent years). She said it was being offered one mouse (don't know what size) per week, and that it hasn't been eating lately. I'm going to try to find out exactly what "lately" means next time I talk to her (hopefully tonight).

Health - I'm also going to ask her to get pictures of it so I can take a look at the tail/pelvic region. I'm expecting it to be very thin, expecting it to have parasites possibly, and expecting it to have other health problems when I get it. As a result, I'm looking for a herp vet up this way (Erie, PA) so I can at least get a fecal done soon. At the very least, I can always ask the zoo vet to do one for me. As far as age is concerned, I'm not real sure. It's at least a year old because my cousin moved back in with my aunt a year ago and he had it then. She said he had it for awhile before he moved back, but it's no older than 2 years.

Temps - I'm guessing he's kept them low based on the size of this lizard (if it's even a Sav - I never even considered misidentification until reading your replies here), and the deaths of his uromastyx. I doubt he even measured temps at all, because I know damn well he didn't do any research. I can remember him asking me for advice on his uros a couple of years ago. I've never kept them in my life and I was still more knowledgeable than he was about them. I'm going to get a probe thermometer before he arrives and get the whole cage set up (Sunday hopefully).

Lighting - I see that some people use UVB lighting and others don't. I've found "scientific" papers showing evidence for both schools of thought. Any input on this?

Hides/Water - I don't know what he's been using for either, but I'm expecting it to be dehydrated at least a little because the cage was apparently very rarely cleaned, so that's my first priority when the lizard gets here. I'm going to get a litter box for water on the bottom of the cage, and other various things for hides. If he (she?) is in fact dehydrated, would a moist hide be beneficial or just overkill with the water too?

I'll keep you all posted, and hopefully I'll start getting email notifications with this thread so I don't overlook it again. As soon as I can get pictures either by myself or through my aunt, I'll post them here so hopefully you all can tell me whether or not it's a Sav. I'm not experienced enough with the monitors to know the differences easily just through looking at pictures.

In the meantime, thanks for the help so far, and here's the cage picture I mentioned before. If uses AIM, my screen name is the same as my username on here.

- Jeff -

A couple corrections/clarifications:

it's kept in a 20 Gallon-Long aquarium at their house right now, that 20L doesn't mean 20 liter!

If it has been eating mice so far, is it generally easy/okay to switch it back to inverts while it's still this small?

Jeff,

Everything that I have read and heard says additional UV is unnecessary for monitors. An adult Sav is going to be around four feet (or more) in total length, of which the tail will be about 60%. 4x2 feet of floor space may turn out to be too little. Time will tell. It's more than enough for a 12 inch animal and should be for awhile anyway.

A moist hide may be overkill. Give him/her a good soaking and plenty of water and dehydration will correct itself.

Heat, heat, heat and lots of it. They like it hot.

As for diet, I agree, they are opportunistic eaters and will eat anything they are offered. At this size I would think that insects would form the bulk of their diet. As they get larger they will need more vertebrate prey. I also give my monitors scrambled eggs and ground turkey. They may also accept high quality canned cat food.