Need Savannah advice.

I just got a Savannah monitor and could use some advise in caring for her. She is basically a rescue. The woman that runs the local humane society bought her and 3 gerbils off a guy that was living in his car and had been traveling with her in the car for quite awhile. He was selling her and the gerbils for gas money, so she bought them all.

Then she walks into my store and says "Here Cheryl 3 gerbils and a lizard" She is in pretty bad shape. Missing half her tail and most of her toes. She was very dry (dehydrated) but had good weight. He had been feeding her stew meat. I am sure she is loaded with parasites so will be hitting her with panacur now that I have her calm enough to handle pretty well.

It is a real trick getting washed playsand in my area. Only one place carries it and they sold out before I could get down there. The Savannah needs a cage change as I don't know how long that sands been in her cage. I will get that done as soon as I can get some safe sand.

The gerbils were not much better off. 3 of them in a small wire and plastic cage, filthy dirty and soaking wet. I have had them about 2 weeks now and they are doing much better.

I have soaked the Savannah several times to get her re hydrated and she is feeding well on venison and superworms dusted with calcium and reptivite. I fed her a small mouse today and she really enjoyed that. I have a basking light above a large cave style hide that she can either lay on top of to get more heat or be inside of.

I will be tearing down my 55 gallon fish aquarium this weekend and putting the fish in a smaller tank then I will house her in the tank as that is the largest thing I have available. She is in a 20 long right now that is to small for her. She is probably 16-18' long but would probably be over 2 feet if she had her whole tail.

I do have a couple sliding glass doors from an old counter display that I can maybe use to build her something else if I have her very long. Right now I just want to get her healthy then find her a new home. I have had several people try to buy her already but they have never had a lizard before so I "discourage" them from taking her on. I will only send her to a home where they know what they are getting into.

Sorry for the long post but any advise would be appreciated. I have read several care sheets but a lot of the info is contradictory so I am asking here at fauna where I feel can trust peoples knowledge and experience. Thanks for your help.

If you have advise that is controversial please state your reasons for your opinion to help me make a decision on that particular issue. Thanks again

Sand with monitors is messy.

I've successfully used newspaper and pineshavings. The only drawback to pineshavings is your lizard eating too much of it if you feed in the cage. The only drawback to newspaper is they crawl through their poo.

It sounds like you've got things well in hand. I'd skip the sand if I were you and go to paper or shavings just for the ease in use.

On a side note, you could handle your gerbil housing by letting them room with your monitor. LOL.

Good luck.

Hey Wes thanks for the help. Don't the oils and dust effect the monitors the way the do small mammals? As for the newspaper, I have plenty but thought the monitors had a big "need" to dig. She usually poos in her water so would not be dragging it around the cage too much. This girl always digs the sand around inside her hide/cave before settling in. She spends most of her time on top of the cave though. I feel bad for her as with all her missing toes she has a heck of a time even getting on top of the cave, Then she falls off sometimes. I Put a smaller rock against the side to give her a "step up" (I think shes a girl anyway. On Leos and Beardies you can see the hemipenal bulges and I don't see any on this lizard) Boy she sure moved good when I dropped that mouse in today though. How often should she get the live mice? Is the dusted venison okay for a staple? She has stopped eating the supers. She really liked them at first but now does not touch them. I have a large bowl in the cage with several supers in it but shes not eating them. She eats the venison though and seems to really like it.

Originally Posted by wilomn

On a side note, you could handle your gerbil housing by letting them room with your monitor. LOL.

I actually started the mice to settle a housing issue. I had 2 litters born and 6 were male and only 2 were female, so have way too many males now. The gerbils just had a litter too so we will see what happens there.

You can feed frozen/thawed mice to give her an easier time on the whole capture thing and they will also be healthier for her. Even though you dust the venison you are not getting all the nutrients that an entire animal will provide. The oils won't be a problem as far as I know provided your shavings are dry and not fresh. I've kept my water monitors on pine shavings, don't use cedar or any of he aromatic woods, for years. I used shavings for the savanahs back when I kept them with no problem as well. I'm not surprised she stopped on the supers. As babies most monitors love insects but as they grow they want larger food.

Google savanah monitor and I'm sure you'll find a bunch of info on them. I don't know anyone working with them in particular but there should be lots of good feeding and keeping info out there.

Have fun.

Thanks for the advise Wes. I did a goole search and got so many conflicting answers it was ridiculous. I have been trying to sort through the various material and sort out what makes sense. I am sure when i first got her she was pretty hungry, probably why she went for the supers so hard. I wish I had gotten more females out of these mice as I plan on freezing my own as soon as I get a good breeding colony established. Should I freeze the mice then thaw them prior to feeding? Will that kill any parasites they may have? Should i gut load them prior to freezing them? Gads I have so much to learn still. Thanks for your advice.

Feed your mice a good quality rodent chow or dogfood and your lizard will get it when she eats the mice. I don't think you need to worry too much about parasites, especially if you're raising your own mice. The freezing will kill some but not others.

I didn't realize there were so many conflicting bits of information out there. You might try email Seamus, he used to be active here and he knows a lot about almost everything. He and I have had a discussion or two about monitors and their feeding needs.

Once you've got some experiance you'll be amazed that it ever fazed you at all. Savannah's are REALLY easy to take care of.

Have fun.

i had a savannah for 8 years. i bought him as an infant. he was the best, smartest pet i ever had. I think the reason he only lived 8 was because I probably over did the eggs. I gave him 2 a week, too much cholesterol. he was obese. If you give the lizard eggs, dont use butter or grease in cooking it and also, crush up the shells for calcium. Then scramble it up and cook it in the microwave to avoid using grease required to cook it in a frying pan.

my savannah ate crickets, giant meal worms, raw catfish. Never, ever give raw ground beef as I was told that will give it worms. Basking light should be 75 to 100 and get a good UV light (for calcium intake). My savannah was also house trained. I spent about 30 minutes a day (at least) holding the lizard to get it used to me. If you skip too many days holding the lizard, he will poop on you and the smell is atrocious. I would take mine out and when he wiggled and squirmed I would put him down and he would poop outside.

I started doing that all the time and eventually he was actually house trained. After 2 or three days I would just take him out and set him down in the grass and he would poop then come inside and scratch on the door!! I would always do that when people would visit cause it would shock them how smart he was! He was awesome.

You are a great person to take in all those sick animals. I wish you well with the savannah. If I can give you any more ideas, let me know.

Grace