Monitor Question's I before purchase one

Been doing some research on these babys.

Read lots and lots on care, feeding and what not.

My focus has been primairly on Savannah monitors.

So what I was really looking for from you lucky enough to own these babys, is The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

Things that you wish you had known before you made your purchase.

Just in my own experience I have owned 3 savs and they all were fairly calm as juvs but no matter how much I handled them they all turned nasty as they got older. I found that they would posture and hiss at first then that turned into more tail whipping and then on to biting. Now im sure other people have had good experiences with there savs but like i said thats only my experience.

Originally Posted by Tha Barron

Just in my own experience I have owned 3 savs and they all were fairly calm as juvs but no matter how much I handled them they all turned nasty as they got older. I found that they would posture and hiss at first then that turned into more tail whipping and then on to biting. Now im sure other people have had good experiences with there savs but like i said thats only my experience.

Well this concerns me a great deal as I have children.

Thanks for the reply.

The thing with monitors is that so many people work under misinformation. Improper temps, underfeeding them when they're young, overfeeding them when they're older, less than ideal diet, etc. Many of the pics you see of adult savs depict lazy, obese animals...but those specimens are incredibly calm. Personally, Savs were one of the few monitors that never really did anything for me. I've taken care of them & worked with them, but I've never kept one for myself. It is not uncommon for them to develop a very sharp feeding response (the only one I ever really liked would literally jump to grab anything that was going into his enclosure...since the hand coming in usually pulled back quickly, he would tripod while he waited for it to return). That said, many people are able to calm their savs down - it takes time, patience, and lots of food. I add the food part because baby and juvi monitors eat alot...almost daily, in fact. Short handling sessions at first, til they realize you aren't going to do something horrible (like eat them); then as time goes by, you can handle them more. Make sure you support the body well while handling. Like kids and birds, monitors will go through a period similar to the "terrible twos". They act up, "learn" what they can get away with...and do it. If hissing, tail lashing, biting, etc gets them left alone, they're gonna do it. If it doesn't work, they will usually settle in

I have a savanah, nile, and tegu out of the three the only one i will handle without gloves is the savanah it is the nicest of the three and it was not handled anymore than the others.

of the three, I would have guessed the savannah to be the best, lol. no surprises there. (and if you noticed, my comments were more about monitors, in general, than Savs specifically)

and get a trio of red or yellow ackies. These are drawf monitors and stay small. I have a trio of yellow ackies with the male being the biggest at about 10-11 inches snout to vent. He's pretty mellow along with one of the smaller females...but the other female is a little snot. Most of time, she's ok, but once in a while she bites to let you know that she doesn't want to be held. The good part is, if you get bite by an ackie, you won't have to make a trip to the emergency room. Yeah, it hurts, but it's not serious.

Ackies have all the other big monitor traits like an insatiable appetite, but with smaller stomachs...2 dozen crickets every 3 days is good with mealworms, ground turkey, and the occasional pinky mouse thrown in for variety. Actually, they'll eat anything that moves...roaches, spiders, beetles, any type of larvel worm...lol. Another nice thing is that they don't take up a lot of space. You can keep a trio in a 4' by 2' by 2' cage, although they'd appreciate a 6 footer better. With handling, they usually calm down very nicely.

Scott Nellis

I have a few African, Indo-Australian hybrids, African monitors, and Australians, Ive had several monitors over the years from all 3 continents.
Ackies (V. acanthurus, V.acanthurus.brachyurus) are the best captives commonly available in the pet trade. If they were commonly available Storrs are great also, only smaller.
Here are red ackies the more expensive, prettier subspecies.

These are hatchlings, about 3 months old.

This is the second smallest species, a storrs, V. storri, a large male at 16 inches.

Of course if you are better equipped to provide much larger caging the best choice is also captive bred a flavi-argus cross, a bosc (American pet trade savannah monitor) is rarely ever CBB, in fact a few times in the US in the last 15 years by less people than you can run out of fingers counting on one hand. This is a flavi-argus, a hybrid between the V. panoptes (argus) and V.flavirufus (flavi), they also come in 3 way crosses with V.gouldi mixed in.
They are hardy, active, fast, eat almost anything, but never ever make the mistake of thinking they are cuddly.

If you have the space for a really big cage and consider just as more food than a flavi-argus, you could go with a large species, either way start with a dwarf, less damage, lower hospital bills when something goes wrong, believe me it can and does. This is a large species, there are many inexperienced keepers that get and keep large species, in the end its not good for either keeper or kept.
This is a blackthroat, V.albigularis. ionidesi, an African large species, they can get 5-7ft plus. This is the typical WC BT you find, only in bad health, never belive it means friendly, in fact this one was imported, hes healthy and dangerous also will get big.

Big, I mean big, this is a female, 6ft 4inches, a hybrid a BT/WT/ WT cross, males can get bigger.

Never make the mistake of thinking they are cuddly, Sobek and I have had an agreement from the start, shes a sweetheart to myself and a few others, not everyone, its her choice to be friendly to whom she wants when she wants.

Wow Shawn those are some nice pets there.

I have decided NOT to purchase any lizard until I can make a more informed choice.

After all there is no rush.

Better to be safe than sorry.