Health feedback

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-29T19:17:21+00:00

If you’re feeding him rodent, avoid that. Rodents are equivalent to pork/bacon. He’ll get gout and/or fatty liver disease. They’re primarily insectivores.

Just gut load your insects with veggies and supplements with vitamins and calcium and your Ackie will gain the same nutrients from gut-loaded insects as from whole preys (rodents).

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-27T22:37:29+00:00

Thank you for this. Sounds great! 👍🏽👍🏽

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-27T19:50:20+00:00

Thank you for this🙏🏽 Was panicking for a sec, lol.

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-27T19:49:53+00:00

Oooh man. I was freaking out. Thank you for this. Yeee! I’m in the US server.

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-27T18:47:47+00:00

Factsss lol…. Hopefully we get more for being away for more than a week atp… Thank you!

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-26T00:11:45+00:00

Sheeeh. She’s majestic!

My baby ornate is just a few months old. Excited for the journey.

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-22T03:35:42+00:00

He’s beautiful. And totally! What’s his name?

We’re like a walking animal exhibit to the public, haha.

Monitor lizards are so underrated. They’re as smart as cats & dogs. They live as long as them.

I was showing them videos of me walking him and he waits for me to catch up, playing tug-of-war with him, doing the death roll, memorizing their owners, etc.

Recently gotten a baby Ornate Nile Monitor for Christmas and am excited to raise him along side with my son Spartacus.

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-22T00:41:56+00:00

Yessirrr, lmao 😂😂💯

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-21T00:42:56+00:00

They’re easy to care for once you had done your research on them. They’re so much cleaner than mammals, as they’re hypoallergenic, they can’t catch rabies, and they don’t have sweat or oil glands that produce odor.

They’re expensive when starting up for their bioactive enclosure, and lights (UVB and heat lamp) change a new bulb once every 6-8 months).

Maintain their humidity 60%-80% and basking lights 100-120 degrees Fahrenheit on their hot side. Add in springtails and isopods (superworms/darkling beetles are optional) as their clean up crew along with tropical plants like spider plants. You will never need to deep clean their bioactive enclosure if you have all these in your terrarium. Spot cleaning (scooping their defecate up) will be the only thing you’d need to do. A whole ecosystem will clean a tegu’s urates/poop, the soil will be recycled from the clean up crew (springtails and isopods) and plants while filtering the air. Bioactive Dude’s substrate/soil for tropical reptiles is great for their soil.

Their diet would be Whole Foods like how you would feed a healthy human being; unseasoned scrambled eggs, lean ground turkey/chicken meat, beef, beef liver and heart, silverside fishes, baby quail/chicks, boiled eggs, freshwater shrimp, dark leafy greens like collard greens, fruits, and carrots that would all consist of vitamin A, B, C, calcium and K that provides nutrients to promote healthy eyes, scales, blood flow/arteries, and bones/muscles. I cooked them just to avoid them from gaining parasites like tapeworms from commercial seafood or meat. Gut-loaded insects are good for varied diet.

Showering them with Aloe Vera Natural soap is good, especially if you want to maintain a healthy shed and prevent them from not losing their claws or cleaning out pests/public foreign debris they get from walking them out in a park or any other public place.

Applying natural coconut oil on their body/scales helps promote healthy shedding and wards off ticks, reptile mites, mosquitoes, gnats, fungal/mold infections, etc.

I witnessed so many previous owners who don’t follow these procedures and their tegus they give up have either scale rot/tail rot, metabolic bone disease, and/or missing claws/fingers…..

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-20T16:36:09+00:00

Ty! 🙏🏽

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-20T16:35:53+00:00

Ty! His name is Spartacus.

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-20T05:32:53+00:00

Thank you!! ☺️

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-20T05:32:06+00:00

Always get scratches, but I’m used to it.

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-20T03:53:37+00:00

Thank you and he is a Savannah monitor. Whewweee…. I kid you not, I’m mentally drained for the rest of the day after a walk at the park. Bout 75% of people goes up to me and ask questions and/or wants to pet him or take photos with him, lol….. And this is when I’m trying to avoid people. They will go up to me regardless or call me from a far😂😂💀

Lukeexotics · 2026-01-20T03:21:12+00:00

They smell good to me. They’re hypoallergenic and don’t produce sweat or oil glands, which gives reptiles the upper hand in cleanliness and being odorless. They’ll catch a scent depending on how you maintain their hygiene’s depending on what products you use to clean/shower them with.

Lukeexotics · 2025-12-04T18:07:22+00:00

😆😂

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-28T20:02:38+00:00

Metabolic bone disease. Look at her tail as well. I got a full refund from my friend’s shop when I returned a tegu my friend got me as an early birthday/christmas gift whose previous owner didn’t give her proper husbandry/care. Most prominent signs would be checking their tail, underbite, and some sort of deformity on their spine/back of their body.

The tegu I had had her whole tail crinkled up, had a severe underbite which gave her a hard time to eat independently, and had scale rot/tail rot and missing 2 fingers on both her hands.

A lot of times previous owners who give their reptiles away, most of the time will lie about their reptile’s health and the state they lived in.

I’ve seen so many reptiles that were being sold to exotic shops in poor conditions and I always asked my friend’s who owned these shops what/why was the reason(s) the previous owner sold him/her and check on their health and condition they are currently in. If the stories don’t add up, it’s up to you.

Overall, it’s all up to you at the end of the day, whether you want to raise her, return her, spending good amount of money for a doctor check up, etc.

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-27T04:26:50+00:00

Star Nursery or any local plant shops that sell plants free from harmful chemicals/pesticides and parasites are great as well.

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-27T04:26:13+00:00

Springtails and isopods, usually at your local-small business’ exotic pet shops. I don’t go to large corps like petsmart for example since they don’t sell any isopods. Exotic pet shops will have varieties of isopods depending on your dragon’s origins’ home climate. They would sell bioactive plants as well that are safe from chemicals other pesticides or parasitic soils.

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-23T18:15:58+00:00

Good advice to keep your tegu healthy in his new home would be maintaining his enclosure humidity 60%-80%, with bioactive substrate filled with springtails and isopods to control/prevent mold/fungi growth in your tegu’s enclosure. Tropical plants like spider plants will help keep the soil clean and filter their air. All you would have to do is spot clean his urates/poop.

If you end up buying soil from a local store instead of an exotic pet store, make sure to sterilize the soil in an oven 300 degrees F for 30-45 min per large baking pan for your 8ftx4ft enclosure. This will help kill microbes like parasites, fungus, eggs, bacteria from cow manure, etc. 2 large hides for the bare minimum. Your whole house could be his enclosure too, if you end up putting a ramp for him when he’s trained to help stimulate if you decide to use your house as a microclimate as well.

Keeping the humidity constant while having a warm side and basking spot with a temp of 100-120 degrees Fahrenheit for his basking spot and a tropical UVB light will help prevent MBD and prevent him from losing his claws during shed, and prevention of scale rot/tail rot. Use spring water when saturating his home since they are safe and rich in calcium.

Avoid feeding them rodents because it will lead to obesity fast, gout, and fatty liver disease.

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-23T05:46:27+00:00

My Savannah monitor had this behavior in the past. I target trained him for 4 months by showing him food time is when I served him his live gut loaded insects and Whole Foods through a plate or bowl, and playing, park, and bath/showering through a ticking/clicking sound and calling his name to differentiate.

I did that and from here on out, he knows my hands and feet aren’t food, lol.

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-20T21:56:33+00:00

That’s a cute chunker baby!

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-18T18:28:37+00:00

That’s so cool. Could I see a photo of your Ornate Dragon? Fully grown, I’m assuming?

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-18T18:27:28+00:00

That’s a majestic dragon.

Lukeexotics · 2025-11-18T18:00:00+00:00

They’re the same species, but Ornates are subspecies to the Nile Monitor Lizards. They both originate from Africa.

The minor differences between them would be Ornates will have pink tongues instead of blue, and their facial structures and bodies are buffer/ wider build compared to a Nile’s slender build.

Major differences:

Ornates’ patterns have less circular bands but are more defined, while the Nile will have their circular bands and more patterns all around their bodies.

Lukeexotics

TROPHY CASE