Herbert's Growth

We have had Herbert for about a month now. When we first got him he was about 6 inches long from nose to tail tip. Today he measured in at 10 inches!!

Herbert's Enclosure

We purchased Herbert on a mild impulse. We had agreed to not buy anything that day in the pet store, but after seeing how awesome Herbert was we were incredibly interested. After about 15 minutes of research on google we had and idea of what we were getting into; a high maintenance reptile.

The pet store had minimal options for enclosures so we purchased a 20 gallon tank, reptile sand, water dish (right), basking lamp, couple pieces of wood, and a hide (left), knowing that this would be temporary.

First week we knew: 

Herbert liked to dig, and Herbert liked to swim. 

He would use his water dish for swimming, drinking and as his toilet. 

The sand worked, but it was very messy and if he had just gone for a swim he would be caked with sand afterwards.

Humidity and heat were lacking.

Herbert's Upgrade

From the ground up:
-New 70 gallon tank cost $150

-The substrate is made of plain organic soil mixed with sand $3 (Herbert now as 3 burrows! 1 under his hide, 1 under his drinking water and 1 under the log.)

-Hotter basking lamp, the max temp under it is 113, that side of the tank is around high 80s while the cool side is in the 70s. We put in a UVB lamp on the cool side of the cage to keep it well lit.

-Drinking water dish, Toilet water dish, Herbert uses water as his toilet and is smart enough to make one strictly for drinking.

-Top- we will eventually replace the screens with plexiglass, but for right now the aluminum foil is doing an excellent job at keeping the humidity where it needs to be.

-Front- this is the main reason we purchased this enclosure, it has the front sliding doors for easy access but enough space below to put in a pretty deep substrate for digging.

There was a VERY huge difference in Herbert once he had his new enclosure. He went from sluggish and mopey to a spazzy little lizard that explored, dug, swam and climbed. And I FIRMLY believe a happy animal needs an interesting enclosure that they can make their own.

One change we will soon be making is adding more dirt and sand so Herbert can dig deeper and more stable tunnels.

Herbert the Dinosaur

Herbet is a 4 1/2 month old Savannah Monitor who has been with us for about 2 weeks now. Having spent MANY hours on reptile forums and boards we decided it would be cool to record our own experience in owning a Sav from infancy to adulthood. We will write about anything from his eating habits to his likes and dislikes, to what his poo looked like today.

Hopefully this will be a fun thing for other owners to read and something for us to look back on someday.

Pictures, video and more posts are soon to come!