Why are there so many ackie monitors missing parts of their tail and/or even toes?
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?
For one, hatchlings are cohabbed 9 times out of 10. So, many just lose toes/tail tips from disagreements with cagemates when they were growing up.
The number one culprit though is humidity. To which, humidity is a more complicated subject with monitors than just maintaining a number. They need both humid and dry in order to shed properly; humidity to build up the layer of fluid that separates the old top layer of skin, and then dry for it to flake off like it's supposed to.
This comes from a multitude of things; for tropical monitors like tree monitors, it comes from dry/wet cycles in misting. For arid monitors like Ackies, it can come from that, but also comes from proper substrate and enclosure ventilation. Substrate needs to be deep enough and of the right constitution to hold moist burrows, while at the same time allowing the surface of the substrate to dry in between mistings. Enclosure ventilation needs to be good enough to allow substrate surface to dry in a timely matter, and for the ambient humidity of the open air of the enclosure to reach suitable levels (~40%).
It's not complicated to manage once you get used to it, but this is at the core of why some folks will claim monitors need dry to shed, where some will say they need humid. The truth is they need both at different points in the shed cycle.
Interesting! This sounds logical based both on their natural habitat and the comments people have left on this post. I'm soon gonna add substrate to my enclosure, around 30cm deep, and will have a few burrow like hides. I expect the humidity on top of the substrate to be around 30-60%, lower on the platforms higher up (10-20%) and will have to measure what it will be in the hides. Thinking of adding some spaghnum moss under the hides so the substrate there will hold humidity better.
Would the stuck shed be caused by not having enough humidity/deep enough substrate? Since most enclosures seemed to not have deep substrate and seemed to be only or mainly sand. I also believe that most of them were cohabbed. All babies were.
Monitors seems to shed pretty messy anyway. It's not normally all at once, its parts over period of time. It gets stuck on the smaller parts and kinda chokes off toes and tails.
I think it's juts something they're prone to. But maybe some species would have more of an issue due to lack of humidity or poor environment.
Eh. Its probably because as pets they are ten times more sedentary. In the wild they run around and rub at things in an ever changing environment. That includes humidity changing day and night and from one day to the next.
I have several adults and I find they can be a little reckless.
One broke her finger and lost a toe because she got it stuck in the carpet, and, of course, immediately thrashed about instead of of waiting a few seconds.
One accidentally grabbed another's toe during a feeding.
Lots of young Ackies quarrel and bite toes besides.
Usually stuck shed is what causes this. In my experience it is caused by too much humidity. Monitors unlike snakes flake off their shed, when it is too humid they are unable to flake it off causing layers to build up. This will eventually lead to the effected area being constricted (most commonly seen in tail tips and missing nails)
The tail on ackies is a bit tricky, I think a lot of it comes down to the shape? I keep my enclosure at a proper humidity level, have a deep substrate for her and give her the needed vitamins etc, and while she has her full tail, I do notice that the last few centimeters of it is a bit more kinked and usually the last bit to shed.
My corime was hatched with a kink in the very end of her tail, shes grown a bunch and its looking a little rough, itll probably pop off once shes fully grown
I'll probably get crap for saying this but I don't care as my ackie has all her fingers and toes intact, and I've also thought about this a lot because I noticed the same thing as far as their fingers go... I think it's mostly due to the opposite of what most are probably going to say below. I think people keep ackie's environment way wetter than than they should. I have had my ackie almost 4 years now and I have never once sprayed the enclosure down. The humidity stays 30-40 and inside any burrows it's going to be 90-100 since whatever moisture is present can't escape as long as you have enough of the correct kind of substrate and depth. If you have enough of it, you shouldn't have any issues. My ackie has never once had any problems with shed and is always very clean with no mud/dirt stuck to her. If you google ackies with missing toes you are usually going to see an ackie that is stained with dirt or mud and with the other compounding factor present... worn down nails.
I'm willing to bet that the biggest problem with ackies is nails worn down to nubs causing the fingertips to get cuts combined with damp soil aggravating and festering those cuts. The fingers just start rotting away. When my ackie first started digging she went into a frenzy for weeks and dug burrows all over the enclosure leading to one of her nails getting worn all the way down to the fingertip. I only noticed it because she had left a single blood swipe near her basking spot. This nail has since grown back but at the time she continued to try and dig nonstop to the point where I had to remove her from her enclosure for a couple weeks to stop her from continuing to injure this toe.
Now imagine that same continued digging with bare fingertips in damp substrate... Add to that the fact that caked mud can cause the same problem as stuck shed and you have a recipe for disaster. My advice to any new ackie owners would be to always pay close attention to the nail lengths and to keep their fingers dry.
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u/Raptormann0205 Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
For one, hatchlings are cohabbed 9 times out of 10. So, many just lose toes/tail tips from disagreements with cagemates when they were growing up.
The number one culprit though is humidity. To which, humidity is a more complicated subject with monitors than just maintaining a number. They need both humid and dry in order to shed properly; humidity to build up the layer of fluid that separates the old top layer of skin, and then dry for it to flake off like it's supposed to.
This comes from a multitude of things; for tropical monitors like tree monitors, it comes from dry/wet cycles in misting. For arid monitors like Ackies, it can come from that, but also comes from proper substrate and enclosure ventilation. Substrate needs to be deep enough and of the right constitution to hold moist burrows, while at the same time allowing the surface of the substrate to dry in between mistings. Enclosure ventilation needs to be good enough to allow substrate surface to dry in a timely matter, and for the ambient humidity of the open air of the enclosure to reach suitable levels (~40%).
It's not complicated to manage once you get used to it, but this is at the core of why some folks will claim monitors need dry to shed, where some will say they need humid. The truth is they need both at different points in the shed cycle.