Monitor?

[rosybreeder]

I've been looking into getting a monitor, and then I realized that having two beardies and a Uromastyx does not qualify as proper experience to buy and have a monitor. I would like to know what animal is good experience for a monitor so that I could eventually be prepared for one.

 

[Keseo]

This is all my experience only.

My first reptile was a black and white tegu. Mean little bastard lol. I later trade him for a savannah monitor and haven't regretted it since. Savannah's if given proper housing and attention can be super tame pets. Never fully trust one because it is a lizard tho! Mine usually is very well mannered but occasionally had an off day when he tried to kill my hand. I tried everything to stop it so one day I picked him up and bit him on the arm back. Sounds crazy but he hasn't tried it since! Another thing is be sure to set up a designated feeding tub so it knows when its in the tub food is coming. Do not feed in its home or it will try to eat anything that moves, including your hands. Just know once they know food time is when they are in the bin they get impatient and will jump for anything that moves over it. Do not allow dogs or other animals in the room when feeding. Diet is really important with monitors. Be sure you research what yours eats well and see if it is readily available before you buy. They eat A LOT! I hear ackie monitors are cool too never had one myself but I know they stay reasonable sized unlike your nile or black throat monitors

Hope this helps!

 

[rosybreeder]

Kill your hand?..... Sounds brutal
A tegu sounds good, although I've heard they can be nasty sometimes. (Then again so can a monitor)
Also, what type of monitor do you think is.... The best?
I'm looking for something relatively docile, Size is not my priority (I know what BIG means in terms of reptiles), and something intelligent. My pet Tortoise is about as intelligent as a sack of potatoes, and I don't much care for animals that can't tell the difference between green newspaper and lettuce. Any suggestions?

 

[BrettG]

I would just bite the bullet and get a Red Ackie.Great beginner monitor.

 

[Deftones90]

I would just bite the bullet and get a Red Ackie.Great beginner monitor.

+1 on that. There are other species that stay smallish (storr's) come to mind but I don't believe those are commonly available.

 

[lizardminion]

With proper commitment and knowledge, you can always take on anything. You don't have to do the homework before the big test to pass the test, although it helps. (That what a school-related metaphor, if you haven't noticed.) People have gotten pets recommended for intermediate and advanced keepers as their first reptile, but that didn't stop them from having great success with them. Red ridge tailed monitors, also called red ackies, stay fairly small and are easy pets, provided they are available to you. If you're up for the challenge though, you can try and get a savanna monitor.
Lacking experience does not stop you from buying the reptile and taking care of it. Your budget will, though. You're commitment (which goes along with knowledge) will determine how successful you are.

 

[Arianji]

I have to agree with lizard minion on this one, getting an animal to prepare yourself for another animal seems unnecessary because no 2 species are exactly alike in care. If you have managed to keep beardies and uromastyx well then you definitely know your agamids. Especially if your uromastyx is healthy, then you understand the importance of diet and thermoregulation. So if you're wanting to try a larger lizard go ahead, you've already got more experience with reptiles than most.
As for monitors if your wanting a decent sized more "tame" lizard then the ackie is for you. They're more expensive, but they don't get to the "kill your hand" size. I personally love savannahs because they are adapted to eat primarily invertebrates, and its recommended you only feed them that, which is also the trick to finding arthropods large and cheap enough to satisfy a 4 foot lizard. Water and black throat monitors are always a gamble it seems, I have heard good stories, but a lot of bad stories about them, never experienced one personally though.
Size is probably your main concern when purchasing on reptiles, they're all cute when they're little, but they get big fast if you feed them right. And its not the size of the animal that is the deterrent, it is the size of the enclosure. If you get a large monitor or a tegu, you will have to be prepared to devote a 6 foot by 4 foot space for them, complete with hide, water access, and basking spot, and that is the minimal. If you can devote that space and expense then get as big a lizard you like. I am standing by the suggestion of an ackie, but savannahs are pretty awesome if you find a juvenile captive bred, and you do your homework on their diet. Though if you're already buying leafy greens for a uromastyx their diet is not too different from an iguana, which also gets big and is fairly intelligent.

 

[rosybreeder]

Thanks for all the advice! Just a few more things, I've heard that some people give an entire room to their monitor, any thoughts on that? Also, how do you think a monitor would do with dogs? I have two dogs, and I would not like either dog or monitor to be hurt. Thanks again for all of your advice!

 

[lizardminion]

I have two dogs, and I would not like either dog or monitor to be hurt.

That's exactly what will probably happen.

 

[Shrike]

I'm not sure I agree with some of the advice that's getting doled out in this thread. Yes, everybody's different in terms of their husbandry capabilities. Some people might be able to successfully care for a large monitor lizard with little to no previous experience. Others...not so much. Even with the best of intentions and utmost preparation there are aspects of keeping certain animal species that you simply can't prepare yourself for with prior research alone. Would you apply the same logic to keeping venomous snakes? Or wild cats? Reading what a species is capable of doing in a book isn't the same as seeing it in person and developing a comfort level based on both research and experience. Developing that experience in order to prepare yourself for challenging species could make the difference between finding success as a hobbyist and making a painful, even tragic mistake.

 

[rosybreeder]

I agree completely with Shrike. The thing I'm worried about is that I don't really have any experience with large lizards that require quite a bit of care. While I really would like a monitor, one should also think about the pet and it's health/life expectancy when you take care of it. So back to my original question: What animal could help prepare me for a monitor?

 

[BrettG]

Honest to god,if you can afford it,start with an Ackie(Ridgetail)If you are going to get a monitor at some point anyways,just start with this one now and get it over with.They can be quite calm,social,and are tough as nails/bulletproof.Perfect monitor for either a beginner OR an experienced keeper.They stay small.wont need their own room,and have fantastic personalities.Ours is our first( and only) monitor and if we had to do it all over again we would not change a thing.And honestly,if you have done well with the beardie then you should have ZERO issues with an Ackie.ZERO.

 

[rosybreeder]

Sounds good! I'll look into it

 

[BrettG]

Have fun! They are one of the MOST sought after Monitors for all the reasons I already stated.We are fortunate enough to have a local guy that has had great success breeding them.The babies are one of the cutest things EVER!!!!!!!!If I could afford it we would have a small army of them.

 

[pitbulllady]

Thanks for all the advice! Just a few more things, I've heard that some people give an entire room to their monitor, any thoughts on that? Also, how do you think a monitor would do with dogs? I have two dogs, and I would not like either dog or monitor to be hurt. Thanks again for all of your advice!

I'm gonna put in my .2's worth now. I've kept four species of Monitor: Mangrove, Savannah, Black-Throat, and Asian Water. The latter was an adult, around six feet long, overweight(around 70 pounds), probably the most intelligent animal I've ever dealt with, and that includes a fair portion of my own species. How smart? Smart enough to figure out to push a kitchen chair up to the counter, climb to the counter top, across to the refrigerator, then on top of the 'fridge to get something he wanted to eat. Smart enough to use a doorknob to open the door, whether it opened in or out. Smart enough to use his fingers to compress and open the locking mechanism on a large kennel crate...from inside OR outside. Smart enough to put his own harness on, short of actually buckling it(I had to help with that since the buckle was on the back). He figured out how a sliding glass door at a friend's house worked in less than a minute just from watching us go in and out. This animal seemed to spend every waking moment of the day figuring out ways to outsmart or second-guess me. Although he was super-tame with people, and loved to lay across my lap as if he weighed no more than a pound, he developed a deep hatred of dogs. He wound up literally ripping off the lower jaw of a rescued pit fighting dog I'd taken in, on a Sunday, when no vets were around to put the dog out of its misery, forcing me to shoot the dog, so the Monitor got re-homed with another friend of mine who wasn't a dog person. The Monitor actually opened the dog's crate and went in after the dog, with silly me thinking he wouldn't actually do that.

Savs can become very tame, and while probably not as intelligent as an Asian Water, they're not stupid by any stretch. They are gluttons, though, and do tend to pack on a LOT of extra weight if you're not careful with their diet and exercise . Mangroves, while not bitey, never settle down and seem like nervous wrecks, and will spray poop all over you while clawing your hands to the bone every time you pick 'em up.

Some of the Monitors I've been around, but never owned, that I think would have great potential are of course the Ackies, expensive or not, the Peach-Throats, and Timors. I've also handled some really sweet Argus, but again, you're gonna shell out some major bucks to make a habit out of that last one. There's a guy who goes around to the southeastern Repticon shows who has a HUGE Black-Throat, that is leash-trained and fairly well obedience trained; he understands what "sit" and "stay" mean and follows those instructions if he feels like it...sorta reminds me of a Catahoula Leopard Dog or Akita, lol. There are videos on YouTube of keepers playing tug-of-war with a dog toy...with one of their large adult Komodo Dragons. I know, I know...you don't want to believe a lizard can play, do you? If you've ever seen a Komodo EAT, or go after anything it considered food, and compare that to the behavior in the video, it's obvious that the animal IS playing. It knows that dog toy is NOT food, and it knows how to "pull its punches" even when a petite female keeper is holding the other end of the toy, in spite of the fact that it could probably break her wrist just with one violent shake. One of the former keepers at the National Zoo in DC, where that video was made, used to train police and military K-9 dogs, and compared the intelligence of a Komodo Dragon to that of a well-bred, working-line European-bred German Shepherd or Malinois, the dogs sought after by our law enforcement and military. That's something you have to keep in mind with any Monitor.

pitbulllady

 

[rosybreeder]

Very impressive, I never imagined a lizard, or even a reptile, could be that intelligent. I'm sorry about your dog, if I ever got a monitor I would imagine that my dogs could be a (serious) problem, my Australian shepard never backs down from a fight. I think if I ever did get one, it would be one of the smaller types of monitors, such as a ridge tailed or timor to avoid possible injury to my dogs. Thank you very much for all of your advice, I find it very usefull.

 

[Gilberator]

What about a red tegu? Those get to 3-5 feet and seem to be tame-able to an extent