My monitor is not good... Please help!

[sSNAKESs.com]

Hey guys, i have a recent W/C blackthroat monitor and it is not doing good!!! I thought everything was getting better, he was eating 5 crickets a day, but sleeping ALL the time... Well today when i got home from work his tail seems to be a triangle and there is basically no fat at the base... I took him out and soaked him in shoulder high water and he drank, it must have been for 2 minutes straight and his body expanded, so maybe this i caused from dehydration.. now there was some pee in the soil or what i think is pee, so i am assuming he pee'd and it dehydrated his tail. Could this be possible?? I want to do any and everything i can for him, i am waiting for him to poop so i can take it to the vets... He didnt eat for me today, and when i pick him up he shows no interest in fleeing away from me.... *sigh* guys any and all help would be great...

Setup...

7" of dirt
130 Basking
92 Favorite spot
79 cool end
82 ambient air temp.

Hides, water bowl.

Thanks guys, i dont want to lose him!!!

[sSNAKESs.com]

*sigh* anyone??? :confused:

[asphyxia]

Hey Jeff,

Sorry to hear about your trouble...I hope all will work oyt for you.

Have you spoke to Trace or Dom yet as they worked on a baby
Blackthroat recently.


Good Luck
Brian

You may want to try a retes stack as an easy hide for him at any given temp.

[Trace]

Sorry Jeff.... I've been waiting for some of the "monitor" people to offer suggestions for you. I truly no nothing about their husbandry.

IMHO.... WC animals are hard aclimate into captivity. The stress of capture and shipping and quarantine once they arrive is too much. Because of that he probably hasn't eaten in weeks. They are usually parasite ridden and I find this is what the biggest problem is with them. Did you deworm your little guy?

As for the skinny tail.... a small urate will not do this to the tail in such a short period of time.

My vote: get him to a vet asap... don't worry about obtaining a poop sample first, the vet can always get one.

Good luck!

And keep us posted.

Trace

[Dom]

I had spoken to you previously about this.. I hope others with more experience can help..

Mine had the smae symptoms and died very quickly.. so I am very weary of what I can tell u as I lost my baby black throat.. All I know is I regret not deworming it in the first month I have had him...

Hopefully someone will be able to give u good insight.. Plz seek vetenerary attention ...

It maybe ure only hope.. I am so sorry as i do not know what to say to help out..

Dom

[Steeve B]

Hello Jeff fist let me say aim sorry the little one is doing poorly, now you have to know aim very hesitant to give advising simply because my husbandry is very different from every one else, but nevertheless I will say what I think if it may help you in anyway. From your photo you have a female, in albigularis female in general stress very easy and built lactic acid witch in turns poisons them, and this is why most long terms are males, CBB animals are less prone to this, but in WC you trigger a chain reaction, they harbour many pathogen stress weakens there immune system, so every time you stress her, gastrointestinal parasites take over until they take all essential nutrients from the monitor. The best thing is to not disturb the animal and let it recuperate on its own, buy providing what you have described and proper humidity, all neonate shod have increased humidity. Until she recuperate try to feed none moving prey, so she doesn’t spend energy overpowering them, I who’d also use a multi vitamins witch also stimulate feeding like Avitron liquid sold for birds, remember there’s a heck of a lot more recherché done in avarian products then reptiles. Now one more problem dealers have the bad habit of de worming monitors to counter there bad husbandry, in your case you know where the animal came from so you can ask. New studies show metronidasol (flagel) to kill reptiles in some cases even 2 years after treatment, flagel is considered one of the safest drugs; it’s easy to assume that droncit and all the rest of wormers to be potential killers as well. I can only say this; I know many will say what the heck is he talking about? Well I have done 100s of faecal examine and treatments with monitors (research) and I can say this, if treatment is needed it should only be administrated in very low dosage and for specific parasite, not be administrated buy assumption like to many peoples do vets and dealers, and above all never shod be given to a weakened animal but only to an animal feeding good with substantial body weight. I stop treating monitors for parasites years ago; funny that’s when I stop loosing them as well. Regards

[KaHane]

Great Post Steve, You covered alot, I too am a firm believer of not treating weak animals. I wrote in another thread about the reasons I believe in this.

[Ravi]

Hi Jeff

Thats a very difficult question to answer. The problem with monitors is they are just so darn tough and they are designed to hide thier sickness. It's usually not until they've become very weak that people are able to recognize that something is wrong.

Babies can dehydrate very quickly like Steeve said so be sure to keep the humidity up and make sure water is available. I'd actually use 2 or 3 small water dishes just so there will be one wherever he goes.

A vet visit may be in order but that's your call. Medicating an already weak monitor of that size may be hard on the little guy.

Try to be as hands off as possible even though I know its tough not to try to help him out.

I hope it all works out for you.

Regards

[Steeve B]

Very small pinkies are excellent to bring a monitor up they offer little struggle can be coated with a drop of avitron, but most of al they need less energy to digest as opposed to crickets eskeleton also colestrom in mothers milk is most beneficial to the monitors immune system. She ate 5 crickets this morning excellent but this will take much of her energy to digest wait 2 days and try with a small pinkie don’t forget the avitron that’s the secret. Cheers;)

[Jezabel]

Best of luck with him, keep us update.

[NiagaraReptiles]

Have you changed anything since last I visited Jeff?

If not, I'd say stress is getting the better of him/her.......

It's one thing to provide the temps and substrate depth, etc. that you see written in text........it's another to provide these things in a usable/recognizable fashion to your monitor(s).

This is one of my biggest reasons for pushing ackies as a first monitor. They are so much easier to provide for, thus, easier to learn to understand how a monitor mind works.

Best wishes,

[sSNAKESs.com]

John nothing has changed except i covered the top with plexi like we talked about and i even put paper up on all sides of the tank so he cant see movement outside... I think it is stress aswell... He ate 6 crickets or so this morning... He has really been under alot... from the store to the show then back to the store then 3 days later to my house, that has got to be stressfull for the poor little guy... Should i be keeping heat on 24/7?