Kimberley Rock Monitors

[BredliFreak]

Off topic, but, on the subject of Gillens. Very nice little monitor, heaps of character.

Are they adults? Could we have a full enclosure shot please, it looks very nice (particularly the triodia!)

 

[Stompsy]

Off topic, but, on the subject of Gillens. Very nice little monitor, heaps of character.

I met two of these guys last night, fully grown and I think I've made my decision.

Now to scope some out somewhere.

Anyone have any available?


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[imported-varanus]

As adults, they loose some of the patterning, but what you loose in colour, you gain in "personality". there is some variety in size and colour form, as you'd expect from such a wide ranging varanid.

 

[BredliFreak]

I love your enclosure! And in the last pic is that a baby or another species??

 

[imported-varanus]

I think it was a gilleni and a caudolineatus, that's why I deleted it.

 

[Stompsy]

As adults, they loose some of the patterning, but what you loose in colour, you gain in "personality". there is some variety in size and colour form, as you'd expect from such a wide ranging varanid.

I was also advised these guys will happily live together in one enclosure... I assumed that meant one male and one female but are you able to shed any further light on this?


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[imported-varanus]

I've never had any probs with any combination I've kept, but I have heard others mention having a few issues with introducing unrelated, older animals. Males are easily distinguished by larger size, especially the head. The second pic down is a male and two females. male/ male combat with Gillens is a comical affair, compared to say ackies, where they seem to often tear pieces off each other.

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VHS has an article on Gillens by Sdaji which pretty much covers everything re husbandry.

 

[Stompsy]

I've never had any probs with any combination I've kept, but I have heard others mention having a few issues with introducing unrelated, older animals. Males are easily distinguished by larger size, especially the head. The second pic down is a male and two females. male/ male combat with Gillens is a comical affair, compared to say ackies, where they seem to often tear pieces off each other.

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VHS has an article on Gillens by Sdaji which pretty much covers everything re husbandry.

Fantastic. I'll take a look. I'm thinking of getting a male and a female.

Thanks so much for all your help (and everyone else's)

And in regards to the thread derailment, it actually ended up being quite informative/entertaining!

Thanks again guys, I'll be sure to research my little heart out and keep you guys updated on any progress once I am able to obtain some of these little guys. [emoji851]


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[imported-varanus]

T'was your thread after all. Great choice imo and a positive first experience into the House Of Varanid!

 

[Stompsy]

I see your point, and it's a good one. But the people who do generally research their chosen species are not likely to go on a forum and seek help, and so we are more likely to see those who realized a little too late that their new pet lizard may in fact be "too much" lizard for them. My post was not just directly aimed at large varanids however, it was also aimed at other "advanced" species. Still, the same could be said for someone who obtained a Beardy or a Carpet Python. How many of them do we see that are up for sale for various reasons such as "don't have the space" or "don't have the time that they deserve". While these species may not be particularly lethal, although a large Carpet Python may have the potential, there are still people who fail to research before obtaining their reptile. The same could be said for any animal for that matter. Domesticated animals such as dogs and horses could also prove lethal and yet it is not required to obtain a type of advanced licence to keep them.

This is unfortunately very true! There are far too many posts on this site and others of this nature and while I understand in some cases, re homing an animal is required, if a little research is done prior to obtaining said critter, these things can usually be avoided. The only difference I see between keeping a horse or dog or any other domesticated animal is the husbandry requirements are at a more basic level, although you are definitely correct in saying they can and have been in the past, proven lethal.

And once I have these small monitors, I have potentially been offered a Mertens.... there will be a lot of thought put into that before I make a decision as I recognise that they are large monitors and need to ensure I can offer the care and environment they require. And I need to be confident that I can handle such a large animal also!

 

[pinefamily]

Wouldn't be an adult Mertens by any chance would it?

 

[Stompsy]

Wouldn't be an adult Mertens by any chance would it?

Hehe.... that one is spoken for but if breeding occurs....

 

[Nero Egernia]

@Oshkii, once again you have made a good argument for your point. It's not an easy fix, and I guess no matter what is put in place the idiots of the world will still manage to buy the reptiles. That's a good point about dogs in particular. When we went to the Animal Welfare League last year to adopt a dog, I was amazed at the number of "American staffy" types up for adoption. Same deal as the reptiles I guess, cute as puppies or good idea at the time, but then they grow and/or show bad behaviour traits (that's just a generalization BTW, I don't want a secondary line of debate on here lol).
And I only used the example of the person asking about breeding to show my point about lack of research. We read nearly every book we could find when we got our first bredli, as well as read thread after thread on here. Sometimes I think there are some who just can't be bothered. These are the ones we are discussing. And while we might not agree on the way to do it, I think we are all on the same page for the end result: well looked after animals.
And I have to apologise for going off topic as well.

Very true there. I'm always on the look out for more herp books!

This is unfortunately very true! There are far too many posts on this site and others of this nature and while I understand in some cases, re homing an animal is required, if a little research is done prior to obtaining said critter, these things can usually be avoided. The only difference I see between keeping a horse or dog or any other domesticated animal is the husbandry requirements are at a more basic level, although you are definitely correct in saying they can and have been in the past, proven lethal.

And once I have these small monitors, I have potentially been offered a Mertens.... there will be a lot of thought put into that before I make a decision as I recognise that they are large monitors and need to ensure I can offer the care and environment they require. And I need to be confident that I can handle such a large animal also!

I personally believe that keeping dogs in particular requires more responsibility than keeping reptiles. Dogs need constant exercise, attention, socializing, grooming, and hours of training, of which many owners fail to carry out and their dogs become nuisance animals at best and outright dangerous at worst. For me, reptiles are so much simpler and more enjoyable. Give them the correct housing and diet and you're good to go! But that's another debate for another time. Good luck with whatever monitor you decide to get!

 

[CrazyNut]

I agree with mertensi probably being the best step up into larger monitors they are relatively easy to keep very rarely bite and dont have a hard bite like alot of monitors of a similar size. However getting tagged by the tail around the ears will make u swear.

Its not that bad after the tenth whack! I have only seen one mertensi bite. My father was hand feeding my 4 year old a fish, he got the fish in his gob hole with one swift jump but also got the fingers in the process. Lets just say my farther learnt his lesson
[MENTION=41911]imported-varanus[/MENTION] very nice gillenii you have there! Love tjose guys, there sale alwasy escapes me grrrr
[MENTION=41840]Oshkii[/MENTION] and [MENTION=38465]pinefamily[/MENTION] VIC has the scaled licencing fee system. It sucks. Advance is almost double the cost of basic. You have people that have money and no experience and it doesn't effect them at all since you don't need to have basic for x ammount of time. Than you have people like me who have all the neccessary experience yet can't afford the jump from $93 a year to $173 a year. This system just causes frustracian. Plus there are so many advaced species on the "basic" licence and so many basic species on the "advanced" licence it makes it absolutely useless and unecssary. I have said so many times and will continue to say so, species like varanus varius belong on advance only, species like Nerphurus asper belong on basic.

 

[pinefamily]

Advanced here in SA also costs nearly double, but you need referees to show you can keep a particular species. Also, there is a review under way to "simplify" our basic and advanced lists. Mostly good, except that all larger monitors will be on advanced. Currently most of the larger monitors are on basic, except for lace monitor and perentie.

 

[Stompsy]

I believe to keep anything venomous on an advanced in Victoria you need references too, but for everything else you can just go straight to it. I got my advanced straight away because I wanted a roughy.


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[CrazyNut]

Advanced here in SA also costs nearly double, but you need referees to show you can keep a particular species. Also, there is a review under way to "simplify" our basic and advanced lists. Mostly good, except that all larger monitors will be on advanced. Currently most of the larger monitors are on basic, except for lace monitor and perentie.

Thats not a bad idea. Not the best idea but certainly not the worst. At least you can keep perentie.

 

[pinefamily]

Not sure, but I think there is a scale for vens. You can start with a certain species, then work your way to others. Not sure of the details.

 

[Sdaji]

Those are some very nice pictures of Gillen's Monitors! I spent a few years breeding oodles of them, they're absolutely brilliant little critters, one of the reptiles I miss most. When I started thinking about keeping them, few Australians could manage to even keep them alive long term. I looked at what the Americans were doing and basically copied them with my own tweaks, and they utterly thrived and bred like flies. For a while I tried to tell people how to keep them when they were buying them, but no one would believe me and they were having the same troubles as ever, then I wrote an article for Reptiles Australia magazine which was in print so people took more seriously and it seemed to help a lot of people (and I'm sure around that time other people started copying the Americans and also working it out independently, I'm not trying to single handedly take credit). I saw someone mention the brief care sheet I wrote for the VHS, I can scarcely remember it, it was a long time ago now, but there doesn't seem to be much information about them (back at that time I was getting phone calls and online requests for information about them all the time, it was crazy Yet even then almost no one wanted to take my advice and still kept them like snakes with blue globes on a thermostat set to 28 degrees for heat ).

You could almost boil the care sheet down to one sentence: Blasting hot basking spot.

Or a paragraph:
They're not pythons. They need a blasting hot basking spot of at least 50 degrees, and up to 80+ degrees is great. I've had them bask close to 90 degrees, yes, Celsius, and touched them when their skin was so hot my hurt my skin a little. That's the #1 mistake people used to make with them. At a flat ambient temperature of 30ish degrees, as most people used to use, they're going to be lucky to survive.

I used to get them to breed at under 12 months and produce a clutch every 3-5 weeks during the breeding season. I also never had an infertile egg and I never had one fail to hatch. If I ever live in Australia again I'll probably get back into them, I really loved them.

 

[user 23122]

Those are some very nice pictures of Gillen's Monitors! I spent a few years breeding oodles of them, they're absolutely brilliant little critters, one of the reptiles I miss most. When I started thinking about keeping them, few Australians could manage to even keep them alive long term. I looked at what the Americans were doing and basically copied them with my own tweaks, and they utterly thrived and bred like flies. For a while I tried to tell people how to keep them when they were buying them, but no one would believe me and they were having the same troubles as ever, then I wrote an article for Reptiles Australia magazine which was in print so people took more seriously and it seemed to help a lot of people (and I'm sure around that time other people started copying the Americans and also working it out independently, I'm not trying to single handedly take credit). I saw someone mention the brief care sheet I wrote for the VHS, I can scarcely remember it, it was a long time ago now, but there doesn't seem to be much information about them (back at that time I was getting phone calls and online requests for information about them all the time, it was crazy Yet even then almost no one wanted to take my advice and still kept them like snakes with blue globes on a thermostat set to 28 degrees for heat ).

You could almost boil the care sheet down to one sentence: Blasting hot basking spot.

Or a paragraph:
They're not pythons. They need a blasting hot basking spot of at least 50 degrees, and up to 80+ degrees is great. I've had them bask close to 90 degrees, yes, Celsius, and touched them when their skin was so hot my hurt my skin a little. That's the #1 mistake people used to make with them. At a flat ambient temperature of 30ish degrees, as most people used to use, they're going to be lucky to survive.

I used to get them to breed at under 12 months and produce a clutch every 3-5 weeks during the breeding season. I also never had an infertile egg and I never had one fail to hatch. If I ever live in Australia again I'll probably get back into them, I really loved them.

I found varanus.net the us Varanid keeping forum an absolute wealth of information when I was keeping my Glauerti. They have some very active senior forum members who have been breeding small monitors species such as glauerti and pilbarensis for decades. A lot of the information about keeping glauerti over here was a little bit conflicting, but the end of the day it boiled down to three things. A hot basking spot, numerous crevice like hides around the enclosure and bit of humidity they seemed to thrive. Damn I miss those lizards.