My savanna monitor will ONLY eat pinkies, and she doesnt always eat THOSE what might the problem be?

Question

stress wise everythings fine, the cage is of suitable size, there is always water readily available, and places to hide are available (which she uses). In the begiing she would not eat any insect, ive tried crickets, zoophobas, and madagascan hissing cockaroaches, she would only eat pinkies whcih i fed to her with tongs. she used to eat them readily whenever i presented them. Now i try to feed her 2-3 pinkies twice a week -though she is over a foot long and i dontthink that is enough- she doesnt respond and turns her head away. When i leae them in teh cage on a dish for a while, about 2 of them will dissapear overnight but taht is about as successfull as i get nowadays with feeding her. She is pretty skinny, skinier then when i got her, but i cannot get her to eat that much !! what can i do~?

Answer 1

You can tryb bringing it to a vet that doesn't sound like it is eating enough it may be sick I have a bunch of monitors. Maybe you should try feeding it fuzzies.

Answer 2

I can think of four possible reasons the monitor isn't eating (I won't say "she" because it is extremely difficult to determine gender of monitors, unless it's laid eggs).

1) Is the tank warm enough? Hopefully you use heat lamps, a ceramic heat emitter, or undertank heating pad - hot rocks are bad for any type of reptile!). If it doesn't have enough heat, it can't digest it's meal.

2) Do you use any UVB lighting on the tank? You monitor should be getting enough dietary calcium from the rodent bones, but it needs vitamin D3 to process the calcium. It can make the D3 itself with UVB light, or if you add D3 in a powered form. Otherwise, it may be getting a metabolic bone disease.

3) What type of substrate is the lizard on? It it possible it ingested some when eating? Do you find feces after it eats the pinkies? If not, it may be impacted. Let it soak in a dishpan of warm (not hot) water for about 15-20 minutes. If there's no feces (and there hasn't been for a while), you will have to go to a vet.

4) If the first three aren't an issue, the monitor may have internal parasites. Take it (or a fresh fecal sample) to a vet to check.

Answer 3

what type of litter are you using in the cage? I know this can be an issue. I have heard to only use aspen or a type of sand. some of the other tree bedding can make your lizard sick. also the monitor might be cold and when they are cold. they dont want to eat. also up to the first year savanna monitor have a high death rate. I had one that lived for over 5 years. before my heat rock died and he froze to death. i got a second baby one and he only lived for about 3 weeks. he ate fine but just died. it happends alot with these types of lizards.

if she is over a foot long then might want to try adult mice. but take it to a vet and find out whats wrong. you using vitamin powder to shake the pinkies in? sometimes they are picky eaters. mine would eat mice crickets but the can monitor food he would never touch. now my friends monitor lizard would eat it like it was live food.

Answer 4

Healthy monitors should readily eat whenever its offered to them.
You should find a good reptile vet to make sure she is not suffering from a metabolic defiency or hepatic lipidosis. A juvenille typically eats 2-4 pinkies twice a week.

Answer 5

I had a savanah computer screen some years back and he stopped ingesting via alter. attempt putting some crickets into his tank and go away them there. count quantity them so as which you will comprehend what proportion he eats. additionally video demonstrate contraptions seem to love there foor alive so do no longer feed thawed or ineffective mice and pinkies. in case you think of he seems great undesirable thern you will desire to have the vet seem at him. solid good fortune. and luxuriate on your computer screen.

Answer 6

Are you knocking her food out? Fuzzies and hoppers have claws that monitors don't like to deal with. They can't constrict you know. We kept the larger mice in a bag, and smacked the bag against the wall to knock the mice out. She ate them fine after that. I know it sounds barbaric, but it worked.

Answer 7

I have a Sony monitor and sometimes I give it the middle finger because the pinkie just isn't harsh enough.