do you know that NOBODY has ever tracked the weight of a growing sav from baby to adult? you could be first! after all- how can someone have a solid idea what is healthy weight until this is done?

I'm not sure that I agree with you, My monitor got to the point I felt he was pressing fat. Yes I am going off of what I feel appears like a healthy weight to me. We can use common sense on what the build is in nature and comparison to similar monitors and lizards to justify what we feed and how often we feed. Yes it is just my good judgment, which is why I came here to ask others their opinion.

I do feel you dont use the best of judgment allowing them to eat as much as they want whenever they want

this gorging behavior exist in fish as well right before a hurricane, pressure changes to irregular levels they go into a feeding frenzy, it is survival they dont know when their next meal is so eat while it is available Monitors have not been in captivity long enough that their instincts have hidden, it is eat until you cant any more because you never know when your next meal is. Starved children do the same thing
And I highly recommend you stop hand feeding/lip feeding. The bacteria in their mouth is nasty and can cause infections, And reptiles by no means are a dog, they will bite the hand that feeds and loyalty is not their top priority

dont mean to be offensive but that is what "my" good judgment says

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Randy

I plan to live forever... And so far its working

0.2.0 Ball Python (Jaxxie and Kyree)
1.0.0 Savanah Monitor (Sullivan)

i wouldn't for the world discourage you from doing with your animal entirely as you please. that's what rights are all about, and respect.

experimentation is how discoveries are made. anything that's made objective is a useful lesson, even mistakes.

i think that until there are enough records, there can be no proper standards, therefore all of us are experimenting.

i don't give advice or seek it, but only report my own first hand observations and sometimes some conclusions and sometimes some speculation.
the value lies in that I report what I see, not a second hand opinion, and I support any conclusions with the evidence and process of reasoning that led me there. the facts I observe are not debatable; only my reasoning can be criticized. if it can be falsified, then I have to reject it and find the explanation that is always true. that's no problem; that's science. i want to know, really really.

in response to your concerns, though, i really think my savs mouths are extremely clean. if they've got any bacteria I didn't give them, i must be immune because kissing for food is how they let me know they want it and the only way they get it. in other words, it's not a rare occasional thing, it's an entrenched habit.
we are all creatures of habit, and I am supremely confident that the savs could no more bite me than a 3 pack a day smoker could quit cold turkey. they won't even eat food off the ground cuz once they've done something one way and only one way for so long they refuse any other way out of habit. habits are as good as instincts for governing behaviour. look how we ourselves live- and we're so much smarter...lol.

the main thrust of my experiment is to design and construct the habits that work well for the animal to be integrated into a family as a housepet.
my results are not opinions- they are facts on display for anyone to evaluate.
the savs' entire life with us is available for view. it is what it is.

no, i don't have to share any of it. nobody else has a right to it or a claim on it. i've been banned from more forums than I can easily name for presenting this, so i'm quite inured. if it causes a problem here, i have my own forum which is not publically accessible. if i'm not rewarded for my generosity, i'm under no compulsion to persist. (we are all volunteers.) if it's too much for anybody and it threatens their bliss, i do have better things to do...lol

And i'm sure there are plenty of people who will be happy to give you all kinds of answers about growth rates of savs in captivity. There is no shortage of people with answers. Was I able to make my point?

Oh, Boy! I'm sorry, But I've never heard so much nonsense in my life!
Yes! I will discourage you from doing "What ever you please" with your animal!
We don't experiment on our animals here!
And there are proper standards! We don't know as much as we do about dogs, But that is not a liscense to just toss what we do know aside!
I'm not going to overfeed my sav just to know how much he can eat and see how fast he will grow!
Savs are gorge feeders because they don't know when they'll eat again in the wild. Gorging everyday is not good! But they're small brained creatures and they don't know any better. It's up to us to to make sure they have a proper diet so as not lead to obesity or renal failure! In the wild they're lucky to get one meal a day! Not three, four or five!
"Mistakes"? mistakes can lead to a dead animal!
"The facts I observe are not debatable"? Huh? Not everything is what it seems.
I can see why you have been banned from so many sites. Your quest for knowledge seems to be more important than the well being of your animal.

Are you a real scientist? Are you in a position where you can have your results published in, Let's say,"The Journal Nature"? Where the whole world can learn from your results?

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Git'er Done!

No, you have no rights nor permissions concerning my animals.
Why? because you have no rights nor license concerning anybody or anything you do not own. I'll leave it up to someone else to teach you this very important and sometimes fatally costly lesson.

this is just one of your assertions that has no reference, no evidence, no substantiation and no proof.
the rest of your assertions are similarly lacking in merit.
in aggregate, they appear to represent a typical collection of hearsay and prejudices i've come to recognise as a dogma unworthy of attention.

lol- i wonder, since there is no published research whatsoever about habits of V exanthematicus in the wild, how it is that you presume to speak so authoritatively? What divine revelation came unto thee?
well, guess what- that was a rhetorical question and you don't have to answer it, do you? no, you don't...lol
thank you for making my stay as brief and painless as possible. now you may have the field to preach your gospel. Make sure to keep people informed so the next generation of keepers under your guidance have the best chance of success. as I remarked earlier, there is never a shortage of people with answers but i'd rather have questions I can't answer than answers I can't question.

I Have the right of freedom of speech.
There is published research. You just have to put the time in to hunt it down.
No revelations, Just common sense.

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Git'er Done!

now, dan bennett, in his latest book on savs, says on page 19:
"Their habitat makes observing individuals difficult and there has never been a study of the behaviour of adult animals in the wild."
.

I'll begin my post by reminding all of our rules.
Bashing

The HC Network is a friendly site. If you are looking for a place where you can openly insult another member or simply engage in bash like posts, you may as well not bother registering with this site.
If you are found intentionally bashing, being rude, or being disrespectful to the members and staff of the HC Network, you WILL be removed from this site. We take our friendly atmosphere VERY seriously and you and no other member will disrupt what we have created.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

I agree that Savs have the instinct to continually eat. They are foragers and would undoubtedly eat whatever they came across. Of course that creates issues in a captive environment where they walk 3 to 4 feet in any direction to find food.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa

Note taken.

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Git'er Done!