Your Reptile and Amphibian Resource and Information Site

Back to Monitors Forum   Forums   Home   Members Area  

Monitors Forum

MikeCalz   Rokdog   Crocdoc   Reptadude   Crocdoc   Mdf   MikeCalz   Crocdoc   Rokdog   Crocdoc   Krusty   MikeCalz   Crocdoc   Varanus_odom   Varanus_odom   Krusty   Krusty   MikeCalz   Manymore   Turtle Hatter  
 Member  Message

 #2190866


MikeCalz
View Profile

 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

I’m thinking 3-4 weeks? But, not sure. Can somebody help?
12/03/10  10:24pm

 #2190871


Rokdog
View Profile



   Message To: MikeCalz   In reference to Message Id: 2190866


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

thats a new born size....and a small one at that.....



12/03/10  10:45pm

 #2190886


Crocdoc
View Profile



   Message To: Rokdog   In reference to Message Id: 2190871


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

Depends on what time of year it is. Almost all baby savannah monitors in the pet trade come from eggs laid by WC females so they’re quite seasonal. I can’t recall when savannah monitor hatching season is, but one can usually tell by the hoards of new forum members joining with questions about baby savannahs.

7-8" definitely isn’t a newly hatched savannah monitor, regardless.
12/03/10  11:52pm

 #2190902


Reptadude
View Profile



   Message To: Crocdoc   In reference to Message Id: 2190886


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

i’d say 7 to 8 inch is about 3-4 weeks. savs hatch out at like 4-5. they are very tiny.
12/04/10  02:24am

 #2190933


Crocdoc
View Profile



   Message To: Reptadude   In reference to Message Id: 2190902


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

Quote:

i’d say 7 to 8 inch is about 3-4 weeks.



It depends on what time of year it is. If you see a hatchling that’s 7-8 inches long within a few weeks of hatchling season, then it’s a few weeks old. If you see one that size six months out of hatchling season then it’s around six months old, but just hasn’t been kept well.

Size is not a reliable indicator of age. It only works in one direction - You can safely say that a full size, adult sav isn’t four months old, but you can’t say how old a small sav is.



12/04/10  03:34pm

 #2190934


Mdf
View Profile



   Message To: Crocdoc   In reference to Message Id: 2190933


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

i remember seeing some held back savs a few years back on the net, been held back a year so they claimed & they were still only 8/10" long!
12/04/10  03:39pm

 #2191000


MikeCalz
View Profile



   Message To: Mdf   In reference to Message Id: 2190934


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

He/she was a captive hatched monitor, and was said to be a baby (all his/her siblings and such were all sold at the same time, this and last week) This one has a tremendous feeding response and quite active and curious. Thanks.
12/04/10  09:02pm

 #2191004


Crocdoc
View Profile



   Message To: MikeCalz   In reference to Message Id: 2191000


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

Quote:

He/she was a captive hatched monitor



As I said, ’captive hatched’ =

Quote:

eggs laid by WC females



The ’siblings’ you saw were just other babies that came in the same shipment.

Given that they probably hatched some time around September/October (at least I think that’s when the season is for wild ones) and then went through the process of being shipped from Ghana and distributed through pet stores in the US, that would make it two or three months old.



12/04/10  09:23pm

 #2191005


Rokdog
View Profile



   Message To: MikeCalz   In reference to Message Id: 2191000


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

I’ve heard of CBB savanna’s hatchlings as large as 11’"s.......



12/04/10  09:24pm

 #2191015


Crocdoc
View Profile



   Message To: Rokdog   In reference to Message Id: 2191005


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

... and I’ve heard of 10m carpet pythons.

Doesn’t make it true.



12/04/10  10:15pm

 #2191080


Krusty
View Profile



   Message To: Crocdoc   In reference to Message Id: 2191015


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

The "season" for the influx of imported baby Savannahs is fall (Oct/Nov) here in the US. There were a ton for sale in November on the various online fora and pet shops.

To the original poster - these babies are from wild-caught "WC" female Monitors who are penned up and the eggs are incubated in Africa to be exported to the US. The sellers use euphamisms like "CH" (captive-hatched) or "farmed" to try to divert your attention away from the fact that the mothers of these lizards are snagged from the wild and it’s still a wild-collected practice. Someone online even had the audacity to import and then ship gravid (pregnant) female adults to anyone who’d buy them. This is all contributing to the WC practice in essence. Those gravid females who lay eggs in Africa and then dumped wild (or shipped to the pet industry) have a very poor chance at survival I would imagine.

All these Savannahs have a tough journey getting here with cold temperatures, dry conditions in shipping crates, communal disease spreading amongst the imports and various other obstacles that kill off a fair number of them before they get here.
12/05/10  10:45am

 #2191169


MikeCalz
View Profile



   Message To: Krusty   In reference to Message Id: 2191080


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

I saw those ads for those gravid females...some people will do anything for money. But, I knew that she/he was from a WC female.. etc. I still think its better than a WC baby. I did, however, try to find a CBB savannah monitor but could not. Thanks.
12/05/10  05:43pm

 #2191221


Crocdoc
View Profile



   Message To: MikeCalz   In reference to Message Id: 2191169


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

It’s much worse than a WC baby. When you remove a baby out of the wild it’s one small animal with limited chance of surviving, anyway. When you remove an adult reproductive female you are removing an animal that can produce 20-30 babies a year for a number of years.



12/05/10  09:37pm

 #2191421


Varanus_odom
View Profile



   Message To: Rokdog   In reference to Message Id: 2191005


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

Quote:

I’ve heard of CBB savanna’s hatchlings as large as 11’"s



LOL



12/07/10  12:03am

 #2191422


Varanus_odom
View Profile



   Message To: Rokdog   In reference to Message Id: 2190871


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

No, this is not a newborn size and much less "a small one". "Hatchling" Savannah’s are usually about 4".

Crocdoc’s guess is as good as you are going to get. October is the season and with the time it takes to be exported from Africa - to the States - to a few different ’pet shops’ - to your house... about 3 months.




12/07/10  12:09am

 #2191457


Krusty
View Profile



   Message To: Varanus_odom   In reference to Message Id: 2191422


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

Quote:

It’s much worse than a WC baby. When you remove a baby out of the wild it’s one small animal with limited chance of surviving, anyway. When you remove an adult reproductive female you are removing an animal that can produce 20-30 babies a year for a number of years.



This is EXACTLY correct!!!! It’s a WORSE practice than paying kids a nickel to go grab some babies they find in a harvest field or grassy Savannah area in Ghana. The reproductive population is affected worse by taking an adult gravid mother that can repeatedly lay eggs each season in the wild. From Bennett’s work on looking at numbers, it seems that the pet trade in V. exanthematicus specifically is not too big of a deal, but in some other Monitor lizard species (say small Island endemics) it’s a friggin’ nightmare if you consider the potential.
12/07/10  02:45pm

 #2191459


Krusty
View Profile



   Message To: Krusty   In reference to Message Id: 2191457


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

Oh, and somebody in Miami, FL actually posted a local craigslist ad for baby Savannahs showing mating adults, eggs, babies hatching from eggs and sold the babies relatively cheaply as well. Totally legit ad selling the babies locally, so it is a rarity to find real CBB’s, not an impossibility.
12/07/10  02:47pm

 #2191468


MikeCalz
View Profile



   Message To: Krusty   In reference to Message Id: 2191459


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

Yeah, I did my best to find them around New Jersey but to no success. Thanks for the knowledge for the future!
12/07/10  03:16pm

 #2194731


Manymore
View Profile



   Message To: MikeCalz   In reference to Message Id: 2190866


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch savannah monitor is?

i’m selling one ahah anybody interested in buying?=]
12/27/10  11:55pm

 #2194746


Turtle Hatter
View Profile



   Message To: Manymore   In reference to Message Id: 2194731


 How old do you think a 7-8 inch Savannah monitor is?

I Bought a baby Savannah in April of 2009 (probably hatched in the fall of 2008) that was roughly 5.5" half way through June it was over 7.5". By the next April (2010) it was almost 20". If you just recently bought it in the past month or so I am thinking it is a little over a year old. Yours is either stunted or it was fed a ton.
This is said assuming that all savannas are hatched in the fall. Good luck with your new friend.



12/28/10  01:12am


Back to Monitors Forum   Forums   Home   Members Area