Small monitors that people would recommend as a first?

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HayleyChuck93

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I am hoping to get a monitor at the 2014 reptile expo and was just wondering people's opinions on what are some great monitor species to have as a first monitor? Preferably small.
 
Don't know if there for beginners but Ridge tails are small but they pack a whopper bite so gotta watch the angry ones
 
Hi there,
I bought a juvenile ackie about a year ago because I was told that
they were the best beginner monitor. So far he has been
really shy and isn't to keen to be handled but I believe he'll
be a bit better in a while. He has bitten me once and has hurt
considering how big he is. If you are interested in getting one
beware of the shedding skin on their toes, it gets caught and
then constricts the toes and stops the blood flow resulting in
the toes falling off. This happened to to my ackie and I regret
not being able to stop it quick enough. I would suggest using
a mixture of soil and sand as the substrate with a spot in the
enclosure being moist. Giving baths to the ackie while it is
shedding would be a great idea to loosen up the shedding skin.
They are very active and grow to about the size of a beardie.
Anyways, just an insight into the care for and ackie, good luck.
Jack
 
I recommend Pygmy Mulga Goanna as a first goanna.
 
Storr's. Never really gone out of my way to handle them, yet all have become highly sociable. Great personalities.
 
The Pygmy mulgas are excellent, keep a few in a decent sized enclosure, generally pretty active.
While they aren't an animal that should be handled my lot have become accustom to hand feeding and the occasional pet while I'm cleaning out their enclosure.

Next for me is the Ackie, wish I could keep 2 in the 2ftx6ft tank that the mulgas used to live in though.
 
I have kept ackies, various forms of tristis, storrs and pygmy mulga monitors. Out of these species I would advise the ackies as the best choice, storrs and mulga in the middle and tristis last (by a lot).

All are easy to keep but the ackies were always much easier to handle. The storrs and mulgas were super squirmy and the tristis (in particular the large western qld animals) were crazy.

As with any reply to this thread though, different localities and even individual animals will all act differently. I had Alice springs tristis which were alot calmer and smaller than the qld animals (still not like ackies though).
 
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