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To the food "washing" of racoons, or to food peeling by agoutis. Present beetle larvae on hard ground, arguses will often dig and scratchĪround to try to "dig up" their food. I find that argus monitors in particular often like to dig at For animals undergoing medical care or quarenteen, or for those in need of temporary housing, newspaper, care fresh, or cypress mulch or aspen chips can be used. Other substrates can be used, but the difference a good dirt makes is so significant that I would not recommend anything else over the long term. The big problem with dirt is that it is heavy, you need a lot of it, and so you have to do a lot of hard labor to get it into your monitor enclosures. An alternative it so buy a truckload of dirt from a landscaping company. Unfortunately, topsoil probably varies quite a bit from vendor to vendor and from region to region even with the same vendor. If you are going to buy it, you can mix together about 12 50 lb bags of playsand with 12 40 lb bags of topsoil for something that works reasonably well for an 8' x 4' enclosure, if you buy the right topsoil. If you are going to haul it, you'll need at least a pickup truck bed's full of dirt for a typical argus enclosure. If you can't get dirt from your backyard, you have two options: dig it up somewhere else and haul it back, or buy it. When I tried this, the dirt quickly turned into a fine dust everywhere that it didn't get wet, and became a reeking sticky oozy paste everywhere it did get wet. Some people are lucky enough that they can just go out in their back yards and dig up dirt for their monitors. Argus monitors prefer a sandy dirt, other monitor species like different kinds of dirt and some of them can be awfully particular about it. In addition, there are good dirts and bad dirts. The trick is, it has to be deep enough to make a good burrow in, 30 to 60 cm of dirt seems to work just fine. A burrow in dirt is the best possible hiding spot for an argus, because not only does it provide security, but it allows the monitor to use the burrow for water conservation and thermoregulating like a monitor would naturally do in the wild. In particular, covering the entire cage with dirt lets the argus monitor digs its own burrow just where the conditions are best.
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That's what they are good at, and they love to practice their trade. The best substrate for an argus monitor is dirt. This is narrower than the ideal stack, but Dash and Varanica seem to use the various levels to good effect. Get closer to the heat lamps, which can be a good thing.Ī plywood stack. Lower hide spots are progressively cooler. The top hide spot, right under the heat, will be nice and Whole bunch of them, and stack them on top of each other underneath the One idea is to take the plywood and spacer design described above, make a To provide several hide spots, so the monitor can choose one that has the What seems like a fine burrow to us mayīe uncomfortable or even unacceptable to a monitor. Temperatures and humidities, but us people just do not seem to appreciate Monitors know that a burrow needs to have the proper combination of The outside temperature drops too low, and to help conserve moisture. Wild monitors useīurrows to cool off when it is too hot, to keep from getting too cold when Cork rounds also work well if they are about the diameter of the monitor, they seem to emulate the hollow logs that can be found in the wild.Ī hide spot is important for more than just security. Wood, or just lay a sheel of wood on top of a loose substrate so the monitorĬan make its own burrows under the wood.
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For smaller monitors, replace the 2x4s with thinner pieces of Support it a small distance above the ground is readily accepted by larger A piece of plywood with 2x4s screwed into the bottom to A cardboard box with a hole cut in it does not really work, it is
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The hide box pressing up against its back and belly. This enclosure could also hold a mating pair of arguses or other mid-sized monitors. These cages are made with a base consisting of an entire 8' x 4' sheet of plywood resting on a large galvanized steel stock tank. Opinion, the minimum sized cage for a small female argus monitor would beĪbout 1 meter by 2 meters. Need enclosures large enough to accomadate their active natures. That not only are monitors large animals, they are also quite active. If you can provide these, you'll probablyĪs far as caging goes, you've got to realize Probably the four most important things when caring for a monitor areĬaging, substrate, temperature, and food. An Argus Keeper's Tricks An argus keeper's tricks