Dirt CRaZy

[asphyxia]

Man o man, I am totally fed up with my dirt situation.

After visiting 2 construction sites and steeling FROZEN dirt 2 times and thawing it and drying it, and picking out the rocks, and grinding it up, and the mess, +, +, +,
What should be the proper Silty alkaline dirt bla bla bla
that I thought was perfect is not.

I found out after I moisten the dirt and it dries out it turns into really fn hard dirt,WHAT CAN I DO!, add sand, add coconut substrate what!

What even P me off more is that you cant even buy this stuff
and the most common answer i get is ..Its the stuff in your yard go dig it up F. ITS WINTER and even when i did it sucked.

Well I feel a bit better now Good job I have untill the show to get it right....Any dirt farmers wanta give me some of your crop???

Down and dirty
Brian

[Steeve B]

Hello this time of year I go buy black earth or top soil from any hardware store, of the 20+ species of monitors I keep none seems to complain. About 3$ for 50L bags.
Cheers

[Dom]

For now Id get the black earth .. but Id stay away from the top soil - trust me it does not work well .. unless u mix it with an other wooden substrate to give it strengh ..

BTW - thats halarious Brian! I am glad you are having fun!

[asphyxia]

Thanks Gentelmin,

I am going to add sand to break up the clay.
I am going to add Coconut substrate to hold moisture.
I am going to add the black earth for good luck!

I will also keep some of that black earth to experimate wiht if the above does not work out

Thanks
Brian

P.S. BTW, I am glad someone is getting a kick outta this

[NiagaraReptiles]

I'm a little confused about all this as you have not stated what it is you are looking for in a substrate, nor the species for intended use of it.

Some things work for "living", fewer things work for nesting......and believe me it sure takes longer than a few hours to find out if it is suitable or not.

I'd suggest you do what you can for now and wait until spring thaw.......there is plenty of workable soil types in Newmarket ;)

Best wishes,

[John A]

hi, i dig my own dirt from the yard, even took a few loads from a construction site. its winter in new york city too, and while our dirt is very good quality, its frozen. i did find a pallet of dirt in 40 lb bags sold at a nursery yard for landscapers. it wasnt frozen solid yet, and thawed completely in 2 days. i added it to my cages in small increments so it doent change the ground temps too much. soon after, i added oak leaves by the "hefty" bag full, and they are ok to get during winter becasue they dont freeze. i now have a fresh smelling enclosure and the lizards are re arranging it as i type. btw i keep waters. my ny city dirt has less rock but litter and glass is found sometimes. yesterdays leaf hunt i found a few cigarette butts in my lizards cage, now i know my waters dont smoke....hmmm. -good day, -john a

[asphyxia]

Hi,

It will be used for: enclosure 1 -1 ackie 7" and
enclosure 2 -1 blackthroat 9"

Thanks,

P.S. watch those monitors dont get addicted...my dog loves chewing on found butts. LOL

[Dom]

Talking about dirt and the nesting erea for a savanah monitor .. I was wondering .. what percentage of the nesting box should be filled with dirt?? I would estimate a good 60% leaving enough to walk in it but also enough to cover one side fully of the nesting box if needed .. does this sound right?


..my nesting box is 3 feet and a half long, and 14 inches high and 18 inches wide.. it has 2 entry point at opposite ends enabling the female to enter but not the male...


Also I have got my temps between 86-89 in the nest box .. does thi sound right? What about humidity? or soil texture in the nest box.. Id love any help for the nest box as i think mine is not properly set up .. dirt wise and humidity wise..

Just looking for the proper box - I don't need it yet as i have no girls mated too or laying soon but I have lost one female (eggbound) and had an other lay slugs .. so i wnat to make sure its a ok when the time comes..

Plese critizize anything - I trully want to get this right..

Thanks a million guys for answering my millions of questions .. u have no idea how appreciated it is

Take care Dom

[Dragoon]

Hi Dom!
I am new to the nesting materials game, too.
Here is something that I read, that stuck out in my head.

They will want to lay their eggs somewhere where they will have a chance to hatch.

So look first to how they would be incubated. You said your temps in the box were 86-89 degrees. Yet most monitor eggs incubate a bit lower, around 81-84. So if I were a female monitor, I might not want my eggs laid in that box! It has been said that a proper dug nest will be able to hatch out the eggs on its own. We don't do that, of course, but its a start to get us thinking of how to set up the nest box.

Hope I helped some. D.

[Dom]

thanks that makes great sense... aany oneelse have comments..

[asphyxia]

Yea Dom,

Dont be gettin' any "Hots" till after the show

B

[NiagaraReptiles]

Originally posted by Dragoon
It has been said that a proper dug nest will be able to hatch out the eggs on its own. We don't do that, of course, but its a start to get us thinking of how to set up the nest box.



First of all I would like to say that I don't use nest boxes and never have. I feel they only narrow the margin of error and I've had enough problems over the past two years trying to figure out this whole monitor breeding thing......

Now, as to what Goon posted, I think a very important thought was left out. Not only are temps important to a gravid female monitor, but soil/dirt composition are as well. Just because it holds a burrow and holds a temp of whatever one thinks it should be, it doesn't mean it's good for her or her eggs.

If one was able to have a clutch hatch without ever digging up the eggs from the enclosure (I only know of one person that has done this.......by accident too), it would mean several variables were adequate, but most importantly the substrate was exactly what that monitor was looking for to lay her eggs. I believe this to be a primary factor in successful breeding, temps/humidity and whatever else is all secondary.

Just my thoughts......

[Dom]

then JonK please help me out lol explain the dirt composition to us lol (great post as always)

I have been going nuts trying to figure things out and taking many different ppls advise but many of them are just to vague.

I understand experience is the key but Ive been keeping monitors for over 3 years and i get the feeling my husbandry has barely improved lol I wish I understood them..

Dom

[NiagaraReptiles]

No offense Dom, but you're not thinking like a monitor :)

I realize it can be difficult to put yourself in that frame of mind (believe me, it took me some time as well), but keep at it.

I think you find answers so vague because there really isn't specific answers to the questions you are asking (often the case when talking monitors). They are individuals as much as you or I, and can behave totally different at your house than they would at my house. You need to figure out what works for <i>you</i> at <i>your</i> house with <i>your</i> monitors.

[CDN COLDBLOOD]

Hey guys, just a thought or two. I think that we may be sweating this whole soil issue a little to much. I don't beleive that the problems we see with breeding and egg laying have much to do with the composition of the substrate. They depend more on depth, temp., moisture content and the ability to hold a tunnel. Of course some substrates hold moisture and tunnels better than others, but I don't think digging up dirt from construction sites to get "silty alkaline soil" is going to make a significant difference to your success at breeding monitors in captivity. They'd probably lay in compost or cow manure if we used that as substrate.

Take ackies for example, they have a very large range in the wild and I highly doubt that the composition of they earth is uniform throughout their habitat, but yet they still breed, amazing! This suggests that females are more concerned with the moisture content and temerature of the soil, rather than it's composition. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they consider the composition of the substrate, but I think that is the least of our worries when trying to get them to nest in captivity. Mixing soil:sand in a 50:50 etc. etc. etc. is not going to make much difference at all in my mind. Hope this makes sense to to you like it does to me?? TTYL!
Brandon

PS. A large clutch of 14 yellow ackie eggs laid recently in nothing but pure organic soil. Great publication Ravi, it's not only a must sav keepers, but it's relevant to many other species as well.

[NiagaraReptiles]

Hey Brandon,

I've spent some time over the past couple years testing some of these thoughts for myself, and I have results that suggest soil comosition is important. Everyone seems to have different ways of descibing dirt in text, which is why I try not to do so. But I have found that certain organic materials in nesting medium can cause females to retain eggs longer than they would having a dirt with different properties. I have a few other thoughts about that as well, but have decided to stop playing around with it for now and just try to stay away from organic materials in the dirt I use altogether.

Funny thing though, one of the dirts I am using for ackies currently was dug up in Guelph, and I am very pleased with it :) Much better than most of the rich soil found around the Niagara area.

JonK

Just a quick elaboration - I'm not saying that there is only one type of soil/dirt that works with every species........different species require different substrates, and there are several different composistions that can "work".

[asphyxia]

Amen to that, CND

[Steeve B]

I once read that monitors lay there eggs in a dirt they recognise, there first encounter with dirt is as hatchlings, who dent this means that CH monitors who’d lay in per light or vermiculate ?

One more thing concerning to type of dirt, we have evidence that eggs from almost all indo monitors, where found in tree hollows covered by decaying wood scratched from the interior wall by the females.
These observation where made mostly in the rainy season, indicating that monitors may opt to lay above ground at least part of the year.

This dirt debate seems to me of little value to the monitors, the physical need of the eggs is much more important then its incubation medium, alkaline or acid or even minerals have no proven effects on egg development, only temperature and humidity has. This is not to argue anyone it’s just that I have never really bothered about dirt type; my only concern has always been its condition.
Cheers

[NiagaraReptiles]

I think we're drifting here a bit. Incubation is only part of the equasion. Nesting plays an important role on the initial condition of the egg. I don't incubate on/in the same substrate I use for nesting. That would just be crazy for a few of the reasons Steeve mentioned and more. I incubate only on perilite.

As for "recognisable" dirt, that's not to say that they have to have come in contact with it before. It simply means that it is a substrate that has the properties the species should recognise.