Varanus99
12-14-2008, 06:59 PM
Hey everybody! Its ehhh you know who it is.
Wanted to talk about breeding monitors a little bit. Oh, who am I kidding? Go get a sandwich.
When it comes to lizards, with the exception of a few species, most folks already know its not quite as cut and dry as breeding snakes. There are more variables.
Ok, so you wanna breed monitors. Your first mission is get yourself a male and a female. That would be a good start! But baby monitors cant be probed or popped. And anyone who tells you they can probe a monitor is full of beans! It is extremely dangerous and inaccurate. Dont do it, dont let anyone else do it for you and if someone offers to probe your monitor grab it and run really fast. There are all sorts of legends and myths regarding sexing babies. Bottomline anything you do is at best an educated guess. So if breeding is your goal I would suggest aquiring at least a trio. That greatly increases your odds of getting a pair. Or if you're very lucky 1.2 which would be just ducky.
When setting up a trio try to get them as young as possible and raise them together. While most reptiles seem to do better if kept apart and brought together only for breeding monitors are the opposite. Attempting to introduce two adults who have never been exposed to one another can be tricky business. Its possible but they may fight or just ignore each other completely. When they are raised together they seem to "know" each other and your chances of romance developing are much better.
One thing you can look for when selecting your trio. Males tend to be bolder than females. So if you're looking at a cage with 10 baby monitors in it, 9 are hiding and one guy is perched up somewhere giving you the stink eye that COULD be a male. No guarantees as I said its just a guess. An experienced person can usually sex ackies at around 6-8 months. Males have larger heads, stouter necks, spurs and hemipenal bulges. To the untrained eye though they can still be hard to spot. By a year old its fairly obvious especially when viewing a group of animals.
Another good reason for raising your own breeders is you KNOW exactly what kind of care they have recieved. You know who gets along with who and all that good stuff. Purchasing adults can be a let down. You never really know what you're buying. Beware of adult females for sale. They could be burnt out breeders or incompatible animals. Animals that just arent cut out for breeding.
Alright so we have our trio and for fun lets say we have 1.2. Woohoo! What do we do to get them to breed? In the immortal words of Frank Retes "Heat'em and Feed'em!". Meaning we do very little besides having excellent husbandry. I dont cool them, I dont mess with light cycles, I dont take the male out do the hokey pokey and put him back in. I just leave them alone. I feed them very well. You want your females well fed and even a little porky. Not obese, just very well fed. Aside from that I leave them alone and they do their thing when they are ready.
You may or may not be able to tell when your female is ovulating. Sometimes its obvious, sometimes not so much. But you will notice your male taking much more interest in the young lady. He may follow her around for a while before the actual copulation takes place. If she is ready she will be receptive. If she isnt she may avoid his advances or even give him a nip to let him know she's not in the mood. Sometimes a male will be too aggression and may wear the females out. If this is the case he may need to be seperated for a time. And of course some males are simply too aggressive to be used as breeders. Bachelors for life.
So we have copulation. Fantastic. You might see it but you might not. Some species are secretive. Some could care less. Ive seen pics of argus breeding on a living room floor. They have no shame. The initial copulation might last a few days. After that they may lock up for shorter periods of time. You're probably looking at 10-30 days respectively before the female will lay her eggs. You will know when she's getting ready by her test digs, she will be very active and sometimes when she gets close she will stop feeding. But not always. I always offer my gravid females food. If they dont take it fine but its there if they want it. Gravid females also bask more often.
If the female doesnt drop the eggs by day 25 or so I start to worry. She not like the nesting situations you have provided. Time to tweak. The longer she holds those eggs the worse off you are. The eggs may indeed be laid but the babies my just die in the incubator.
Ive already covered nesting so I wont go too into that. Suffice to say NOW is when your substrate or nesting box is vital. If she doesnt like what you have provided she may scatter her eggs around the cage or die eggbound. But lets say you did a good job and she has nested probably. Awesome. Now its time to get the eggs. Very carefully dig them out and place them in the incubation box. I use a plastic shoebox with a hearty layer of perlite and water at a 10-7 ratio. Ive tried 1:1 and it was too wet. Ive had better results with less water. Your mileage may vary but this is what works best for me. Some folks punch very small holes in their boxes. I just open the box once a week for air exchange. More often when it gets close to hatching time.
Depending on the species you could be looking at 90-120 days or more. Ive read about green tree eggs going 5 months. Water monitor eggs can easily go 180 days. Ackies tend to be in the 90-120 range. Suffice to say they take a long time. Dont give up on them! If they look good leave them be! Even if they dont look soo good leave them be unless its obvious they have gone bad.
I incubate at 85 degrees. Some prefer 84, others 86. Personally I dont think it matters much as long as your incubation box is set up properly, your temps dont fluctuate much and you have viable eggs to begin with. But 85 is pretty good mark to shoot for I think.
After the babies emerge I let them stay in the incubator for 24 hours. Then I move them to their nursery cage. Which is very similar to an adult cage only smaller. For a few days after hatching I like to keep them on moist paper towels. Just to give their umbilicus scar a chance to heal. They hate it and I hate doing it to them and in all honesty it may not even be necessary but I get paranoid of particles getting into the scar. I do provide a humidity shelter during this period. After this break in period they go onto my monitor substrate mix. Deep enough to dig a burrow which they will do right away usually.
I keep my basking temps slightly lower for hatchlings. I stay in the 120-130 range but no higher. Still give them a Retes Stack though. Babies usually start to feed 5-7 days after hatching. I jump the gun a little and offer them fresh ground turkey right away. Cant hurt. I start them on the turkey and small crickets. Once they start eating look out its party time. I feel its important to feed them daily. I offer crickets every day and keep a small dish of fresh turkey in there at all times.
So there ya have it. A very general overview of monitor breeding. Whew. :cheers:
Wanted to talk about breeding monitors a little bit. Oh, who am I kidding? Go get a sandwich.
When it comes to lizards, with the exception of a few species, most folks already know its not quite as cut and dry as breeding snakes. There are more variables.
Ok, so you wanna breed monitors. Your first mission is get yourself a male and a female. That would be a good start! But baby monitors cant be probed or popped. And anyone who tells you they can probe a monitor is full of beans! It is extremely dangerous and inaccurate. Dont do it, dont let anyone else do it for you and if someone offers to probe your monitor grab it and run really fast. There are all sorts of legends and myths regarding sexing babies. Bottomline anything you do is at best an educated guess. So if breeding is your goal I would suggest aquiring at least a trio. That greatly increases your odds of getting a pair. Or if you're very lucky 1.2 which would be just ducky.
When setting up a trio try to get them as young as possible and raise them together. While most reptiles seem to do better if kept apart and brought together only for breeding monitors are the opposite. Attempting to introduce two adults who have never been exposed to one another can be tricky business. Its possible but they may fight or just ignore each other completely. When they are raised together they seem to "know" each other and your chances of romance developing are much better.
One thing you can look for when selecting your trio. Males tend to be bolder than females. So if you're looking at a cage with 10 baby monitors in it, 9 are hiding and one guy is perched up somewhere giving you the stink eye that COULD be a male. No guarantees as I said its just a guess. An experienced person can usually sex ackies at around 6-8 months. Males have larger heads, stouter necks, spurs and hemipenal bulges. To the untrained eye though they can still be hard to spot. By a year old its fairly obvious especially when viewing a group of animals.
Another good reason for raising your own breeders is you KNOW exactly what kind of care they have recieved. You know who gets along with who and all that good stuff. Purchasing adults can be a let down. You never really know what you're buying. Beware of adult females for sale. They could be burnt out breeders or incompatible animals. Animals that just arent cut out for breeding.
Alright so we have our trio and for fun lets say we have 1.2. Woohoo! What do we do to get them to breed? In the immortal words of Frank Retes "Heat'em and Feed'em!". Meaning we do very little besides having excellent husbandry. I dont cool them, I dont mess with light cycles, I dont take the male out do the hokey pokey and put him back in. I just leave them alone. I feed them very well. You want your females well fed and even a little porky. Not obese, just very well fed. Aside from that I leave them alone and they do their thing when they are ready.
You may or may not be able to tell when your female is ovulating. Sometimes its obvious, sometimes not so much. But you will notice your male taking much more interest in the young lady. He may follow her around for a while before the actual copulation takes place. If she is ready she will be receptive. If she isnt she may avoid his advances or even give him a nip to let him know she's not in the mood. Sometimes a male will be too aggression and may wear the females out. If this is the case he may need to be seperated for a time. And of course some males are simply too aggressive to be used as breeders. Bachelors for life.
So we have copulation. Fantastic. You might see it but you might not. Some species are secretive. Some could care less. Ive seen pics of argus breeding on a living room floor. They have no shame. The initial copulation might last a few days. After that they may lock up for shorter periods of time. You're probably looking at 10-30 days respectively before the female will lay her eggs. You will know when she's getting ready by her test digs, she will be very active and sometimes when she gets close she will stop feeding. But not always. I always offer my gravid females food. If they dont take it fine but its there if they want it. Gravid females also bask more often.
If the female doesnt drop the eggs by day 25 or so I start to worry. She not like the nesting situations you have provided. Time to tweak. The longer she holds those eggs the worse off you are. The eggs may indeed be laid but the babies my just die in the incubator.
Ive already covered nesting so I wont go too into that. Suffice to say NOW is when your substrate or nesting box is vital. If she doesnt like what you have provided she may scatter her eggs around the cage or die eggbound. But lets say you did a good job and she has nested probably. Awesome. Now its time to get the eggs. Very carefully dig them out and place them in the incubation box. I use a plastic shoebox with a hearty layer of perlite and water at a 10-7 ratio. Ive tried 1:1 and it was too wet. Ive had better results with less water. Your mileage may vary but this is what works best for me. Some folks punch very small holes in their boxes. I just open the box once a week for air exchange. More often when it gets close to hatching time.
Depending on the species you could be looking at 90-120 days or more. Ive read about green tree eggs going 5 months. Water monitor eggs can easily go 180 days. Ackies tend to be in the 90-120 range. Suffice to say they take a long time. Dont give up on them! If they look good leave them be! Even if they dont look soo good leave them be unless its obvious they have gone bad.
I incubate at 85 degrees. Some prefer 84, others 86. Personally I dont think it matters much as long as your incubation box is set up properly, your temps dont fluctuate much and you have viable eggs to begin with. But 85 is pretty good mark to shoot for I think.
After the babies emerge I let them stay in the incubator for 24 hours. Then I move them to their nursery cage. Which is very similar to an adult cage only smaller. For a few days after hatching I like to keep them on moist paper towels. Just to give their umbilicus scar a chance to heal. They hate it and I hate doing it to them and in all honesty it may not even be necessary but I get paranoid of particles getting into the scar. I do provide a humidity shelter during this period. After this break in period they go onto my monitor substrate mix. Deep enough to dig a burrow which they will do right away usually.
I keep my basking temps slightly lower for hatchlings. I stay in the 120-130 range but no higher. Still give them a Retes Stack though. Babies usually start to feed 5-7 days after hatching. I jump the gun a little and offer them fresh ground turkey right away. Cant hurt. I start them on the turkey and small crickets. Once they start eating look out its party time. I feel its important to feed them daily. I offer crickets every day and keep a small dish of fresh turkey in there at all times.
So there ya have it. A very general overview of monitor breeding. Whew. :cheers: