help! baby nile refuses food

My younger brother recently purchased a baby Nile monitor from a reptile expo. He has been trying to feed it crickets, but he isn't interested. He also offered some egg but it still hasn't eaten. It has been a week. Does anyone have any suggestions? Should we try a pinky?

 

If he is big enough you could try a pinkie, variety is good.

If he is just not catching the crickets you can slow them down by either pulling off their jumper legs or putting them in the freezer for a few mins.

 

Hi,
When you say "it's been a week" is this when you got him or has he just not eaten for a week but did before.
If your Bro has only had him for a week then he's probably settling in and may not eat for a week or two yet, they do take their time.
Try him on a pinkie by all means. Do you have a contact number or address of seller, if so ask what it was eating before you bought him.
In the mean time if you could post details of the setup
Tank size
Heating
Lighting UVB type and make would be useful, they do vary a lot.
Temperatures at basking spot, warm end, cool end.
What are temps being measured with, digital, stick-on, dial type.
Just in case they need tweaking.
I would also remove as much stress as possible, ie, no handling, only going into tank to change water and feed etc, left alone, all this will help.

 

He has only had it for a week. We were told it is about a month old...he is only about 6 inches long head to tail. We told him to stop trying to handle it. We went and dropped the pinky off for him, maybe tomorrow I'll hear if he ate it.

He is in a fairly large enclosure because we thought it would keep stress levels down to not have to change tanks too soon. It is 4'x18"x18" made of wood and nylon mesh. There is a heat rock covered with rocks and Reptibark for his hot spot, and there is also a heat light. He has a good size water dish for soaking or drinking. there is plenty of bark for him to bury under and also a lot of rocks that he hides under. His little brother hasn't finished the set up yet... he wants to make two circle holes in the top for a daylight and a nightlight. He wants to replace the nylon mesh with Plexiglas. He got it spurr of the moment from the expo because the price was unbeatable. I'm not sure what the temp or humidity is in his set up right now but I will try and find out and get back to you.

He has experience with caring for other lizards like Tegus and Iguanas. We actually gave him our tegu because it had a really bad attitude and now it is the nicest tegu I've ever seen. His Tegu and our Savannah monitor both eat like a horse too so we weren't expecting trouble I call him my little brother...but hes an adult...just younger than me. He tried to ask people on another forum and they were all really mean and ignorant to him! I figured I would ask you guys, Thanks.

I will definitely tell him to try pulling the jumper legs off it sounds like it might help the little guy catch them.

 

Hi,
If he's only 6" then a 4ft long may be a little too big for now, could be freaking him out.
Would it be possible to put a divider in there and reduce length to about 3ft for now till he grows a bit.
He will be definitely settling in and will take some time, if he looks good weight and healthy it's no great deal to not eat for a couple of weeks or so.
The setup sounds good, temps should be a gradient between 80 and 90F during day and a little lower at night 75/80. I wouldn't use a light at night so it doesn't disturb their sleep pattern, if night heat is required then a CHE would be far better. Humidity should be "moderate".
Make sure the water bowl is accessable and removable, they tend to poop in it, which makes cleaning easier.
With that height of tank the UVB light would better if it was a tube (strip) type, a MVB (mercury vapour bulb) may produce too much heat, best to avoid the coil or compact ones as there has been some issues with UVB output.
From what you say, it's just a matter of time and patience.
Why not invite your Bro to join us on here, we are a friendly lot.

 

Hey i had a feeling your bro was from herpcenter.com because of the situation.
But yea they are kind of snappy there, i was trying to explain the danger of feeding meal worms to a baby beardy and they were all ignorant.

The people here are Really knowledgable in reps so you should be in good hands here.

 

too stressed

not humid enough

wrong sort of basking spot (needs a floodlight, with a basking spot of around 45C)

 

I put in up there how we planned to change the tank to fix those issues

 

Your post does say that your brother 'wants to' do this and 'wants to' do that, but when?

 

whats your problem dude... did you not get the whole other thing about how we don't like talking to rude know it alls with an "I'm better than you" attitude
We came here to discuss this with other reptile enthusiasts...not get talked down to.

 

Crocdoc,
I think you were a little short in your replies, a fuller response and input, would have been better.
This lizard was purchased at an expo in a hurry due to price.
If you read the post again you will see they ARE aware of the changes that need making.

If you change the words "want" and replace with "will" or "is going to" and not take it literally as written, it makes sense.
The brother it seems is not totally a novice when it comes to large lizards.

 

I don't know why everyone took offense to my first response simply because I didn't give a lengthy, over-wordy answer but kept it short and sweet. I was trying to help this kid with his monitor and there was no rudeness in my post. The issues that monitor is having which are preventing it from eating are simple and clear from what the original poster stated. Most people were suggesting trying different foods rather than address the two main issues, which are dehydration and an improper basking spot (not to mention the probably handling).

As for my second post regarding when the Nile owner is going to do these things to the enclosure that he says he 'wants to do', I have been on internet monitor forums for close to 9 years and have read about countless monitors languishing for a while and then eventually dying after posts like these. You'd be amazed at the number of animals that die under the promise of 'gonna' (gonna make this change, gonna make that change). The people who keep them alive just 'do', rather than promise 'gonna'. It takes a single visit to a hardware store and less than a day to make the necessary changes, so there's no reason for the animal to have been living for even a week under those conditions.

Oh, and the people ALWAYS tell us how experienced they are. If the person owning this monitor really had as much experience as everyone here is claiming, he probably:

1. wouldn't have bought a Nile on impulse, now matter how cheap it was. Niles are ALWAYS cheap and the $5 he saved on it now will not mean much when it is a huge adult living in a room sized enclosure that cost thousands of dollars to set up and is eating several hundred dollars worth of mice and rats yearly. And has a cranky temperament.
2. wouldn't have housed it in a nylon mesh enclosure, even temporarily
3. wouldn't have set up a heat rock as its main heat source
4. would have stated the surface basking temperature
5. wouldn't have wondered why the animal wasn't eating, given the nylon mesh enclosure and heat source (ie would have made these changes immediately and then saw whether or not it was eating before posting).

 

ignore the troll. he specializes in picking out concerned new owners and stressing them with the spectre of doom and death by a thousand assumptions. he lives for the drama and has been warned before, here. i do believe the sticky on this forum was inspired by his behavior on a previous occasion.

 

Yeah, ignore me. I'm just a troll. What would I know about monitors, anyway.

 

Haha. Too funny. I've been reading your posts for nearly four years Dave.
Crocdoc has always freely shared any and all experiences on many fora and continues to do so even. I admire his patience as no matter how rude or belligerent people are toward him, he continues to educate, or at least try, on a daily basis. He has been a HUGE asset to this hobby, especially with respect to breeding and hatching varanids, which by the way he has litterally gotten down to a science. I've seen him talk quite a few individuals through the incubation process, which from what I understand is not such an easy task, to successfull hatchings. The day I hatch my first nile, Crocdoc will be first on my list of those I owe thanks.
Had I ignored the advice of Crocdoc and a few others I doubt I'd still be doing this.....


Nile monitors are a huge responsibility. The expense alone, not to mention the amount of work involved drive all but the most dedicated away from keeping them after only a few months in most cases. Unfortunately, most who acquire them only see a neat $10-$50 lizard that get's really big, and wind up killing them or pawning them off when they don't become "Tame" as they were mislead to believe could happen with "regular" handling.

 

I definitely meant that i was going to fix the enclosure as soon as possible and as soon as i find my camera ill take pics. Today we went and picked up a few things ; plexiglass, new heat lamps with temp control, uva/uvb bulbs, and he even ate some crickets after i slowed them down thanks to wearentfree420's advice. We knew ahead of time that they weren't known for having a nice attitude, but they aren't all mean I've actually met the nicest Nile in the world, Larry, he belongs to Jesse at forgotten friends reptile sanctuary in Lancaster County, P.A. You can see him on youtube if you want. I'm well aware of how big he can get and the attitude he can have, but i spend a lot of time with my animals and i have plenty of extra rooms in my house so i don't think ill have any problems. I breed my own mice since i have as many snakes as i do and soon enough ill be breeding rats too, Niles shouldn't be living off of a straight diet of rodents any way, they should be given a variety of insects, eggs and fish along with it. I'll be picking up some calcium powder after I get done work tomorrow.I also need to go get some more temp/humidity gauges. My brother gave the monitor to me last night since i can take care of it more easily then he could (more money, space, and time). I might not have as much experience as some of you but my Savannah is just fine. Thank you every one who gave me some positive input and those who weren't so nice just wait ill be sure to prove you wrong.

 

Absolutely! I've been blown away once by someone's quick actions - he sent me a photograph of his updated enclosure the very next day. I was gobsmacked and told him as much.

Thanks for being so understanding. You've hit the nail on the head. I certainly have become jaded over time for it does usually fall on deaf ears. Even back when I was far more 'wordy' and polite in my responses, too. :blink:

Absolutely right once again.

 

Do you have videos on youtube??? If so then I have seen them all

Ohh... by the way today he was actually out in the open basking instead of hiding under rocks... maybe he's finally starting to relax and trust us some. Now if only he would let us watch him eat!! I read the other day that it was possible for crickets to actually cause damage to lizards and now I don't want to leave them in there.

with the changes we made to has tank...
His overall temp is about 80f on one side and 90 on the other... right under his 150 watt reptisun light is about 100 and we have a lot of nice rocks to help radiate the heat and the humidity is up around 60% we put in a good bit of repti bark he likes to hide out in the rocks and under the bark he has a decent size water bowl...haven't gotten to see him go for a swim yet though... we threw a sock in there... heard that it will help them to get used to your presence...
So we have seen that the crickets disappear but he still hasn't eaten a pinky.

 

Yes, I have a number of videos under the name of crocdoc2 (long story, but eventually I'll reload them as crocdoc).
For now, I'd worry less about socks and getting the monitor used to you and concentrate on getting the husbandry down pat so it continues to do well. 100F isn't a hot enough basking spot - you should try to get it up to 110-120F for now, then even a bit higher when it is bigger.
Have you replaced the mesh walls of the enclosure with something solid?
If you're worried about the crickets chewing on the monitor, leave some pieces of carrot in there for them.