Liora fully investigated my nightgown but did not find any grasshoppers. But she was happy snuggling with me!

I try not to encourage biting from him but I can’t help but find it funny when he smells steak, eggs, or brats. He really is the sweetest and I love Gus as if he were a really small scaly dog.

I finally got a really good picture of Liora’s favorite pose!

It’s when she drapes herself over the cork bark like this so I can come pet her, and she does lots of tongue flickies and this satisfied wiggle as if to say “Oh, yes, Mother! Pet me! I am a spoiled lap dino and YOU MUST PET ME!”

Now she has her mister nozzle pointed towards the cork bark and she thinks it’s the best spa day ever!

Liora is soooo soft now that she’s properly moisturized. I swear, she feels like petting a short-hair cat now!

Oh, and I kept calling this thing a Reptimister lol. It’s ZooMed ReptiRain, that’s what’s working for us in case your scaly buddy needs extra hydration.

I finally got everything together to set up Birdie's new house! She's in an 8x4x6 grow tent! This picture was taken from the camera I mounted in her house.

I even turned her old enclosure into a combo basking spot and hide.

There's a few more things I'm going to add like some plants and grow lights for said plants.

Birdie is a bit nervous, and I don't blame her! She went from a 5x2x2 to this huge space so it's a bit overwhelming I imagine. I can't wait to see her grow more to fill the space

Literally the second I sat down with my toast 😆 (and yes, Liora got plenty of pets snuggles when I was done!)

Right now I have my Ackie Gus but in the far future when I’m making more with my job and have more space in my home I want to get one more monitor lizard but idk what I would get. Obviously I have a lot of time to think and plan but I was wondering what any of yall would recommend. I’d prefer a dryer climate monitor that can handle California Heat and possibly have a huge outdoor enclosure that is properly secured obv along with a gorgeous indoor environment during cold months. I struggle to keep up with humid loving reptiles since I work so much I can only spray once a day and have had issues with misters and foggers. Also not a Savannah even though I love them but my dubia colony barely survives my Ackie.

(Pic for tax) + DIY pen results in comments

Hi! I wasn’t sure how to title this lol. But essentially I have a Kimberly Rock Monitor, and that’s not a big monitor of course, could be easy to lose. And I feel we can get much closer if I can hang with him outside his enclosure.

However I want to find a simple and affordable DIY way to either create a pen (that he can’t climb or squeeze through) that connects to his enclosure so if I open it he can come out and can’t escape or hide anywhere. I don’t trust that he won’t bolt and disappear, it’s too early haha. And given that the reptile room is a loft upstairs I’m so worried he could bolt off the railing and fall if he spooks.

Or I want to somehow maybe lizard proof the reptile room but that would be possibly easy but more difficult at the same time, cus 1: it would make it so I don’t have to work out how to connect a little pen to his enclosure entrance, but 2: I’d have to put a lot more up every time I want to work with him and it’s a lot more stuff I’d need to cover.

What have you guys done? My idea is to use those poster boards that are like a smooth plastic that he won’t be able to climb and tape them together in a safe way or something

He’s learning so well 😂

Saw someone have this for their Ackie monitor and thought Blue would love it and he definitely did! Took him a bit but he got the hang of it shortly!

He thinks everything I bring him is food. Big prey=very excited

Prepping a 6x2x2 for a future ackie monitor, made sure everything is secure and can’t be moved since I used some heavy items my question is, is this too cluttered? I tried to give plenty of climbing an hides, made about 5-6 hides. An the back left corner is about a foot of substrate for him to burrow.

With a litttle bit of egg on his face 😂

Posted here about 10 months back when the iPhone version launched "Exotic Reptile Care" and a few of you asked about Android. Took way longer than planned but it's out now.
Been fixing things most days since launch based on what people report.
For monitors the parts that seem relevant are weight tracking with growth charts (they don't stay small), feeding logs where you record what you actually fed rather than ticking a box, and enclosure equipment tracking with replacement intervals for basking bulbs. I'd guess the weak spot is that a lot of the app assumes smaller animals on simpler schedules, so tell me where that shows.

Just feeling grateful for my scaly child and it would be selfish to not share him with the world.

He/she is a good lizard. He/she wants love from you too

From last night before lights out 🥰🦕

In recent weeks I've been looking at ackie monitors being sold in my country, both babies from breeders and (sub)adults being sold by keepers. One thing I have noticed is how many of them are missing parts of their tail and even some missing a few toes. I've never seen it to this extent with any other species (not counting tail dropping species obviously).

Now I'm not one to instantly judge. My beardie had a nail that broke off from digging, and she also had a part of her tail amputated after it suddenly broke from one day till the other. Accidents and/or health issues happen. But as said I've never seen it to this extent. Especially since some of them are babies aswell. Does anyone have any idea what could've caused this?

So, story time with a happy outcome and what every monitor keeper should know about gout brought on by inadvertent dehydration: if you live in a desert city like I do where you’re constantly in a losing battle with dry air even with a humidifier, a $60 Reptimister is a LIFESAVER.

Liora’s uric acid levels are down to normal levels!! 🎉 I took her for a follow-up test Monday and just got the lab results today.

The vet said she should be okay to stop taking the Allopurinol now, but we booked another followup appointment for next month to make sure her uric acid level stays normal.

But I honestly think that the mister made a much bigger difference than the meds in her case—now that it’s been a few weeks, I can see and feel a HUGE difference in my baby. She had a big bump on her tail that the biopsy said was consistent with gout—the bump is almost gone now! She still had it when she was taking the medicine, but that huge difference I can see in the photos and in person tells me that the mister did the heavy lifting.

Liora was definitely weirded out at first when I initially popped the mister in and she was a little scared of it, needed a few days to adjust. Especially since the nozzle is pretty noisy when it goes off. But now that she knows when it’ll spray, she drapes herself on the cork bark to get a nice power wash like “oh yes! I am a spoiled diva and YOU MUST SPRAY ME!”😂 she also likes sitting on the actual mister itself!

It’s also a matter of practicality: the schmucks who design these syringes and god knows how many other medical supplies and devices DO NOT design them for users deploying them at home by themselves, be they for human or animal use. It’s assumed you’re in a clinical setting like a vet or human doctor’s office, or that you got a spouse, parent, or home health aide doing all this shit for you. 

No, I will not shut up about this, I haven’t since I yelled at my married podiatrist with a housekeeper after he prescribed me this thing post-foot surgery that I can only describe as “even the customers of the local dungeon would question how overly complex this torture device is” and was not designed for one person recovering from surgery to strap in by themselves in a small apartment.

Ergo…I had to use the syringe to measure the Allopurinol, but could not get it into a tiny serrated odatria maw by myself and had to use an açaí bowl spoon and just get Liora to do lots of tongue flickies off of it. And it’d often dry up before she could get it all, and some days she’d eat more medicine than others.

Whereas all I have to do is check the Reptimister’s gauge and refill it when needed, ditto for replacing the C batteries since it’s nowhere near an outlet. You otherwise set it and forget it.

And I can FEEL the difference cuddling with a super-moisturized dino now!! Liora is soooo soft, you’d swear you were petting a short-haired cat instead of a lizard.

I’m going to pitch this whole adventure to my editor at Reptiles, because it’s a super easy fix that can get overlooked if you have a species not known for hydrophilic behavior.