Thanks! Tho, I hate almost every one of my videos besides a few of them I think are pretty good. I record almost everything with these guys because I'm always watching the videos back to see behaviors I'm missing in the moment or places where I could have or should have done something differently. I have 1000's of clips from the year and a half I been working with them. This one was pretty easy as it was only like 20 clips or so I had to chop up and I just threw it together in a couple hrs yesterday. My editing is pretty bad and my sound is absolutely horrid. I'm usually using the music to distract from my sound issues and my mumble-y voice - lol. Maybe some day I'll take a course or something and learn how to edit better, but, I already have a job and most of my free time is spent playing with these guys. I'm not trying to do anything professional with this channel or anything, cus, I'm not a personality and I would never pretend to be one, for all our sakes. There's just nothing like this out there - long form videos detailing the process, and this is the stuff I wanted to see when I was trying to figure these guys out. I have all these videos anyway, it's fun for me to make them, and of course... it's a bit of a humble brag for me. I knew nothing about these things 2 years ago and I think I'm doing something pretty unique with them.
A couple words of caution: * Be careful about roach dust. It can take years of exposure to build up an allergy, but it does happen. Roaches are such good breeders that I still keep a colony despite having a fairly strong allergy at this point, but I maintain a negative pressure seal on the cage and vent to the outside. Even HEPA filters are not enough for me. * Be careful about ackies falling. They're pretty good about falling stomach down and can easily handle 1 m drops in that orientation. However, if they're nose down, they'll look up to try and land on their front feet. This places their rear section and tail over their head and can create a C shape to their spine with the concave side opening towards the dorsal side of their body. If it were concave towards the ventral side, the internal organs would cushion things and prevent the curvature in the spine from becoming too extreme, but there's nothing on the dorsal side. My favorite female is still recovering from a spinal injury (or possibly pulled muscle - my vet couldn't tell) that occurred from landing wrong and her sister also suffered a pinched nerve at one point (but no long term consequences). Your ackie is still small enough in this video that it probably wont suffer serious injury of it falls from those heights (e.g. off the top of the cage or the tree), but you're playing with fire. They are not tree monitors.
Yeah, I heard about the issues with not just roaches but most feeders and allergies to frass over time. Not particularly worried about it. If you're referring to the dust that comes out of the egg crate onto the top of the enclosure, that's not frass, it's supplements. I don't keep a permanent colony, preferring to buy 150 or so at a time and keep them in a small bin which I keep pretty clean. I tried to keep a roach colony in the past, but it just wasn't for me. "Playing with fire" is a bit much, unless anybody walking around while carrying their ackie is also "playing with fire". I'd argue they're being more dangerous as a restricted monitor is a monitor that potentially doesn't want to be restricted and more prone to darting or struggling to get away. My monitors don't ever dart or run due to the fact that I don't ever restrict them to begin with. The ackie is not going to jump off the enclosure, she slides down between it and the wall every day. The furthest she can fall from the tree is like a foot and half due to the leaves/branches breaking the fall. If that's dangerous for her, they don't belong in the wild. She did try to jump off my shoulder twice in the first couple days of training her, but that was 6 months ago and there hasn't been a single instance since. I don't know your situation or how your two monitors got injured the way they did, but regardless, you can't apply what happened there to my monitors. The methods aren't the same and neither are the monitors. If you'd spent the amount time that I have, watching these guys traverse my living room, you wouldn't be as concerned. Sorry about your ackies, I'm sure that was horrible to deal with them getting injured like that, but I'm not worried about mine jumping off of anything. I know you left this comment out of concern, which I appreciate, but "playing with fire" is a bit strong.
Your Ackie seems to want interaction less than the trees. I think it’s scared of your arm and doesn’t like being high. Every time I see one of these videos, I notice that the substrate for your Ackie doesn’t seem to be very deep. One of the things I’ve noticed about Ackies from the videos I’ve seen is that they burrow. Out of curiosity, I looked it up: “An Ackie monitor substrate’s most important function is to facilitate burrowing. A reasonable Ackie monitor substrate depth would be around 6-8”. However, deeper is definitely better!” It may be that an animal that burrows is going to be less outgoing than one that travels through trees. If you provide him/her with the ability to burrow, you may see much less of him/her-and that would tell you something. It would also be interesting to know if this is a male or female, which might make a difference in that regard. As always, this is not intended as criticism.
Yeah, don't hesitate to comment. You ain't going to hurt my feelings. As to the substrate first, yes you are correct. I knew all this going in. As stated in the video, his new enclosure is coming soon, though he shouldn't have been in this one this long to begin with. As with the tree monitors, I didn't want to start with a full size enclosure because I wanted to try different things in the build and I wanted to study the animals behavior over time so that when I did build the final enclosure, I would know exactly what I needed to do and wanted to include based on the animals behavior. In the current enclosure, he has access to a bit over 8 inches of substrate within the dig box - that large structure on the right with the cave entrance. I knew going into this he would need a lot of substrate but since I was starting with a smaller enclosure to learn about him, I built the dig box so that he would at least have a decent amount to burrow until the final enclosure was built. Smaller enclosures that you buy off-the-rack usually don't have large lips to contain a lot of substrate. So the dig-box was included to supply more digging depth as a temporary solution. Since I designed the final enclosure myself, I was able to add a foot length lip at the bottom, so the entirety of the new enclosure will have around 1 ft deep substrate everywhere. I am again going to include a dig-box however, so he will likely end up with closer to around 16-18 inches of substrate in there. With the interaction, I disagree completely. It may look like the tree's crave the interaction more because of the amount of work done with them. Don't forget, the Ackie was mostly ignored for 7+ months, so he was comfortable in his routine and not being bothered, this is all still early days with him. In the moments when I am working with him, it feels to me that he is way more interested in interacting with me than the trees ever were. You have to factor in that tree monitors are natural climbers, so yeah it was very easy for me to bait them into interacting with me, but their goal is more to "get out" than it is to be working with me - hence all the behavioral conditioning I had to apply to them to get the amount of control I have over them now. Most of the stuff you see in my videos are the highlights where I'm demonstrating the benefits of the conditioning. But mostly, I let the trees out, take them to the Ackie enclosure, and go back to doing what I was doing. All monitors are really independent by their nature and you're always working with them on their terms. I can tell you from being in the moment with both the trees and the Ackie, the Ackie is way more down to initiate contact with me and is way more outgoing with his experimentation back with me. Just think about it...this dummy can't climb for shit, and yet I have taught him to climb me using only words and gestures. Think back to the earlier vids with him where he initiated the first few himself and even jumped to me several times. All this after being on his own for 7 months. Now when you talk about being "scared" of my arm, I'm not sure what you're referring to but I'm thinking it's possibly two things which I have answers for. If it's the fast scurrying up or down my arm, I assure you that is just because he has learned over time from slipping off, that it's in his best interest to clear the forearm as fast as possible, especially when there is an incline. Just like the trees, he's not gripping me with his claws, so if he didn't scurry like that he would literally be sliding down it or unable to scale it depending on the direction. the other thing I think you may be seeing, is his avoidance of my hand. And yeah, that's a thing, even with the tree monitors. I don't know exactly what it is, feels like they see the hand as a representation of you or your intentions or something, but even the tree's will sometimes walk past the hand and then climb onto me at the wrist or forearm. Keep a look out for them displaying this hand snubbing behavior now that I've mentioned it, and you should see it from time to time in my videos. Now, consider the fact I am working with the Ackie in a more constrained space, at his door or his small platform, and the hand snubbing becomes more apparent because he has way less room to maneuver around it. It's just way more apparent to him in these smaller spaces. Long story short, to me...the Ackie feels way more open to the general idea of "playing" with me and learning new things. I think the tree monitor's readiness to climb things, makes it appear they are more into me than the Ackie. I actually feel it's the opposite. I'm putting in way less time with the Ackie than I did with the trees at the start and he feels way more game to try and figure it all out. Remove ladder conditioning from the tree monitors and their behavior would likely line up a lot more with the Ackie. One thing you are correct on, is he is not comfortable being high, mainly on me while moving around. But they were all like that. He's only ever been on me while I was walking around like a half dozen or so times so far. Every time it's happened, you've been able to see it in my videos. Ajax and Kale used to jump off of me to things all the time when I was moving, and Kale would literally wrap his hands so tight around my forearm and hold on for dear life up until about 3-4 months ago, when I finally put him through ladder training and calmed him down. I made a video on this specific topic, chilling them down while you are moving. It's just going to take time with the Ackie like it did with them. Sorry for the book report reply, but I spend most of my free time working with these guys, and all of this is swirling around in my head at night. I've been studying and considering all these behaviors throughout this process and constantly rewatching my daily clips in bed at night. I think some of the context is being lost on the cutting room floor or something.
@@TreeMonitorTraining Fine by me (on the length). I just don’t want to inadvertently insult you. Actually, I had something to send you and didn’t get around to it. (I will now). I also think you should find some way for this to be what you DO. I know, everyone has dreams, etc. But this obviously means a lot to you, you’re smart, and you’re on the right side of history. This is a time when the whole concept of the human relation to the natural world is undergoing a huge shift. I see it everywhere. If nothing else, it means a lot to YOU, so allow yourself this gift. Who knows where it will lead you? What might you miss if you don’t?
@@TreeMonitorTraining When I said “afraid of your arm”, I meant afraid to be ON your arm when you’re moving. Here’s this little guy that likes to be under ground who finds himself the equivalent of on a roof top-and it’s moving. And he doesn’t have the amazing feet and claws the trees have. (I know they don’t actually dig into your arm.)
@@Barbara-i7k1x nah... I have a career and I get paid well enough. I think I have a pretty good idea of what it would take to monetize this. I'm not a personality and it would bother me to try and pretend to be one. Then I'd have to make "top 10 blah blah blah" videos and "there's a snake in my boots" videos. Not to mention all the other instabooks and faceX I'd have to start using to farm new viewers and funnel them into my Paymemoneytronz, get them to join my army, and buy my merch. I'm too private of a person for all that jazz. This channel and reddit are the only online medias I use, and I'm only using them to talk about my monitors with other monitor enjoyers because nobody in my real life cares about reptiles. To be successful I'd also have to get more animals and I already feel like 3 is too many sometimes for what I'm trying to do with them. It's funny though, I feel like the people watching my videos are more invested in the success of this channel than I am. It's already a success to me, because I still want to upload. But I also like the crowd that actually ends up here. My videos are like a litmus test for weeding out tiktok brains. I really enjoy chatting with people in the comments, that's why I'm here. This channel is more of a giant reddit thread where I get to post about my three monitors. If I could go back now, I would have stuck to my love of reptiles as a child and tried to do something related to them. Imagine actually doing something you enjoy for a living, right? But I didn't. I already missed it. But I can enjoy them now through a few close bonds with a select few monitors and be happy in my free time.
My girlfriend and I just got the ackie specific enclosure from Toad ranch for our ackie. It’s great. Just make sure to order a few fans for humidity control. Enclosure can become very humid after moisturizing the substrate due to the enclosure being PVC.
Yeah dude for sure! My large tree monitor enclosure has 2 large fans on the side to pull air from outside the enclosure every 3 hrs for an hr because it will hit 100% in there if I don't. This is also why you see me leave my doors open all the time when I let Ajax out lol. Of course his is supposed to be real humid, but not that humid. I love these enclosures.
Smaller front one is this I believe: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3GZVVXH The two larger ones in the back are this: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C7M6TYT
Day-40 with my ackie and still hides when I'm presents, but now brings out half the body for a split second out of cork to grab the roach from my tong. Still no tongue flick though. I'm gonna assume that is still a small progress. I also noticed that mine would often take couple for few roaches (about 3/4 ~1 inch dubia size) and it becomes very hard for me to get him interested for more. I wanted to ask you that if this means he's full enough and don't want to risk for more roaches?
Could be a bunch of things... Heat, his fear of dealing with you. I can tell you my Ackie is a food demon and would eat until he died if I let him. how old is your Ackie? Those do seem pretty big for a baby so he might just be full. On taming him down. You just need to spend a ton of time in his view preferably doing shit unrelated to him. 4-6 ft, right in front of the enclosure. Read a book, do a puzzle, ignore him. show him you don't only appear when you come to his enclosure and mess with him. Find reasons to practice walking past his enclosure without spooking him all the while ignoring him. all this happened naturally with mine, being in my living room, and especially the trees with a front row seat to me sitting at my computer. anytime i went to the kitchen, they saw me stand up and walk past them. Early days they dart, then they half dart, then they just keep an eye on you, finally you become a ghost in the background noise to them. this is what you want, desensitize them to your presence. All of my monitor's were desensitized to my dogs presence before mine because the dogs are in that room with them all day while I'm at work. I could see them at work from a webcam and was astonished that they didn't react when my dogs would walk within a foot of where they were scratching at the glass while I wasn't there. Then I'd come home, and they'd dart for the hide when they saw me. That's when it clicked for me. Now that the Ackie's roaming, he even tries to come right up to the dogs within a foot or two to get a better look at them. It really is just time in presence where nothing bad happens. Of course I'm not privy to any mistakes or misunderstandings that may have already occurred that you might be atoning for with him.
@@TreeMonitorTraining My Ackie currently is 6 months old (born in Oct 2023) and I did reduce the size of the roach and still seems that way. Today I could not get him to eat any roaches so I sent some down his way and I heard 1st sound of eating but rest, none. Ambient temp wise its around 95F the hottest and 150F~ top basking area. I believe it's mostly caused by the fear. I usually try to do my best to sit around him, watching youtube and reading articles on my tablet, or have coffee and a muffin but recently have been busy and didn't get much chance to do so. Only thing I didn't do it right possibly is that I was sitting up pretty close, less than 2ft, probably closer to 1ft. Before I thought being around like that was spooking them out but now I know it's a beneficial thing so thank you for that answer, something that no one on reptile discord or forum could give me a proper answer. For whatever the reason my dog does not want to come down to basement so I'm considering moving my PC and desktop down to the basement where i keep all my animals and spend majority of my time there. Only thing im worried about is disturbing ackies sleep if I'm working or playing games at night, will that be a possible issue?
@@EXOScaper-sf1mu 6 months old... So judging by date of your videos, you only had him like a month and a half and he was like 4-5 months old when you got him? That makes more sense cus I see you being really careful with movement so I'd expect to see a lot less fear. But you only had him a month or so, ok. Temps seem perfect so I don't see how he's not more hungry unless he is just that scared. Maybe from before you got him or something. 1-2 feet is probably too close just based on his behavior at the moment. You want him to be able to see you but not think you are there for him. That's why I suggest like 4 feet or so, not too far tho so they can recognize its you still. Since it was something you already considered...yes I would move my computer down there. And no the sound doesn't matter. My computer is 5 ft in front of my first tree mon enclosure and that is 100% the number 1 reason I am where I am now with all my guys. They need to seee you a lot. I also game and real late sometimes too. It's going to bother them of course in the beginning but they get used to the sounds they are around and it eventually fades into the background for them like everything else. I dont know if you've seen the videos of my dogs barking and charging past where my monitors are sitting and they dont even react. Everything is scary until they realize its not a threat to them. I was worried about the sound too, but I promise you they stop caring and its helping them get used to you. All my guys still hear me playing there late into the night and every morning they wake up the same and still want to hang out with me. Just play your games, keep tong feeding but leave him be mostly besides that for a while... you should see him moving around more in your presence once he realizes ur a permanent fixture down there now. Whatever you do with that log... don't feed him until he comes out to get food. If he refuses to come out... just get up and leave, come back a few minutes later and try again... dont cave. They can go weeks without eating and be fine it shouldnt take a day or two to motivate him the small amount required to come out to get food.
@@TreeMonitorTraining I'm getting ready to do a good cleaning in my basement and move all my rigs downstairs. Thank you for answering pretty much all of my questions i had in mind, I think I have a good idea what to do next. I think I've been worrying too much trying to feed him as much as I can everyday.
@@EXOScaper-sf1mu Yeah, I'm sure he's going to calm down more once he gets used to you being around more. Once he gets a bit more comfortable about you feeding him, you can also split the meal out through the day. Feed him a cricket then go play some game, come back 30m or an hr later and give him another one. This is one of the things I did with my Ackie and you will see he will begin calling you to come back by coming up to the glass and pawing or just staring at you from across the room. I'd wait in your case to do this though because the process of tong feeding itself is still an issue with this dood.
![Quando Rondo - Life Goes On [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eIf3fhMXAow/mqdefault.jpg)
![Summer Walker - Heart Of A Woman [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SFddctbZzw8/mqdefault.jpg)
What always gets me is it's always easier to record a video than it is to edit it. Good job man. The music and voice overs are great.
Thanks! Tho, I hate almost every one of my videos besides a few of them I think are pretty good. I record almost everything with these guys because I'm always watching the videos back to see behaviors I'm missing in the moment or places where I could have or should have done something differently. I have 1000's of clips from the year and a half I been working with them. This one was pretty easy as it was only like 20 clips or so I had to chop up and I just threw it together in a couple hrs yesterday. My editing is pretty bad and my sound is absolutely horrid. I'm usually using the music to distract from my sound issues and my mumble-y voice - lol.
Maybe some day I'll take a course or something and learn how to edit better, but, I already have a job and most of my free time is spent playing with these guys. I'm not trying to do anything professional with this channel or anything, cus, I'm not a personality and I would never pretend to be one, for all our sakes. There's just nothing like this out there - long form videos detailing the process, and this is the stuff I wanted to see when I was trying to figure these guys out. I have all these videos anyway, it's fun for me to make them, and of course... it's a bit of a humble brag for me. I knew nothing about these things 2 years ago and I think I'm doing something pretty unique with them.
A couple words of caution:
* Be careful about roach dust. It can take years of exposure to build up an allergy, but it does happen. Roaches are such good breeders that I still keep a colony despite having a fairly strong allergy at this point, but I maintain a negative pressure seal on the cage and vent to the outside. Even HEPA filters are not enough for me.
* Be careful about ackies falling. They're pretty good about falling stomach down and can easily handle 1 m drops in that orientation. However, if they're nose down, they'll look up to try and land on their front feet. This places their rear section and tail over their head and can create a C shape to their spine with the concave side opening towards the dorsal side of their body. If it were concave towards the ventral side, the internal organs would cushion things and prevent the curvature in the spine from becoming too extreme, but there's nothing on the dorsal side. My favorite female is still recovering from a spinal injury (or possibly pulled muscle - my vet couldn't tell) that occurred from landing wrong and her sister also suffered a pinched nerve at one point (but no long term consequences). Your ackie is still small enough in this video that it probably wont suffer serious injury of it falls from those heights (e.g. off the top of the cage or the tree), but you're playing with fire. They are not tree monitors.
Yeah, I heard about the issues with not just roaches but most feeders and allergies to frass over time. Not particularly worried about it. If you're referring to the dust that comes out of the egg crate onto the top of the enclosure, that's not frass, it's supplements. I don't keep a permanent colony, preferring to buy 150 or so at a time and keep them in a small bin which I keep pretty clean. I tried to keep a roach colony in the past, but it just wasn't for me.
"Playing with fire" is a bit much, unless anybody walking around while carrying their ackie is also "playing with fire". I'd argue they're being more dangerous as a restricted monitor is a monitor that potentially doesn't want to be restricted and more prone to darting or struggling to get away. My monitors don't ever dart or run due to the fact that I don't ever restrict them to begin with. The ackie is not going to jump off the enclosure, she slides down between it and the wall every day. The furthest she can fall from the tree is like a foot and half due to the leaves/branches breaking the fall. If that's dangerous for her, they don't belong in the wild. She did try to jump off my shoulder twice in the first couple days of training her, but that was 6 months ago and there hasn't been a single instance since.
I don't know your situation or how your two monitors got injured the way they did, but regardless, you can't apply what happened there to my monitors. The methods aren't the same and neither are the monitors. If you'd spent the amount time that I have, watching these guys traverse my living room, you wouldn't be as concerned. Sorry about your ackies, I'm sure that was horrible to deal with them getting injured like that, but I'm not worried about mine jumping off of anything. I know you left this comment out of concern, which I appreciate, but "playing with fire" is a bit strong.
Your Ackie seems to want interaction less than the trees. I think it’s scared of your arm and doesn’t like being high.
Every time I see one of these videos, I notice that the substrate for your Ackie doesn’t seem to be very deep. One of the things I’ve noticed about Ackies from the videos I’ve seen is that they burrow. Out of curiosity, I looked it up: “An Ackie monitor substrate’s most important function is to facilitate burrowing. A reasonable Ackie monitor substrate depth would be around 6-8”. However, deeper is definitely better!”
It may be that an animal that burrows is going to be less outgoing than one that travels through trees. If you provide him/her with the ability to burrow, you may see much less of him/her-and that would tell you something. It would also be interesting to know if this is a male or female, which might make a difference in that regard.
As always, this is not intended as criticism.
Yeah, don't hesitate to comment. You ain't going to hurt my feelings. As to the substrate first, yes you are correct. I knew all this going in. As stated in the video, his new enclosure is coming soon, though he shouldn't have been in this one this long to begin with. As with the tree monitors, I didn't want to start with a full size enclosure because I wanted to try different things in the build and I wanted to study the animals behavior over time so that when I did build the final enclosure, I would know exactly what I needed to do and wanted to include based on the animals behavior. In the current enclosure, he has access to a bit over 8 inches of substrate within the dig box - that large structure on the right with the cave entrance. I knew going into this he would need a lot of substrate but since I was starting with a smaller enclosure to learn about him, I built the dig box so that he would at least have a decent amount to burrow until the final enclosure was built. Smaller enclosures that you buy off-the-rack usually don't have large lips to contain a lot of substrate. So the dig-box was included to supply more digging depth as a temporary solution. Since I designed the final enclosure myself, I was able to add a foot length lip at the bottom, so the entirety of the new enclosure will have around 1 ft deep substrate everywhere. I am again going to include a dig-box however, so he will likely end up with closer to around 16-18 inches of substrate in there.
With the interaction, I disagree completely. It may look like the tree's crave the interaction more because of the amount of work done with them. Don't forget, the Ackie was mostly ignored for 7+ months, so he was comfortable in his routine and not being bothered, this is all still early days with him. In the moments when I am working with him, it feels to me that he is way more interested in interacting with me than the trees ever were. You have to factor in that tree monitors are natural climbers, so yeah it was very easy for me to bait them into interacting with me, but their goal is more to "get out" than it is to be working with me - hence all the behavioral conditioning I had to apply to them to get the amount of control I have over them now. Most of the stuff you see in my videos are the highlights where I'm demonstrating the benefits of the conditioning. But mostly, I let the trees out, take them to the Ackie enclosure, and go back to doing what I was doing. All monitors are really independent by their nature and you're always working with them on their terms. I can tell you from being in the moment with both the trees and the Ackie, the Ackie is way more down to initiate contact with me and is way more outgoing with his experimentation back with me. Just think about it...this dummy can't climb for shit, and yet I have taught him to climb me using only words and gestures. Think back to the earlier vids with him where he initiated the first few himself and even jumped to me several times. All this after being on his own for 7 months.
Now when you talk about being "scared" of my arm, I'm not sure what you're referring to but I'm thinking it's possibly two things which I have answers for. If it's the fast scurrying up or down my arm, I assure you that is just because he has learned over time from slipping off, that it's in his best interest to clear the forearm as fast as possible, especially when there is an incline. Just like the trees, he's not gripping me with his claws, so if he didn't scurry like that he would literally be sliding down it or unable to scale it depending on the direction. the other thing I think you may be seeing, is his avoidance of my hand. And yeah, that's a thing, even with the tree monitors. I don't know exactly what it is, feels like they see the hand as a representation of you or your intentions or something, but even the tree's will sometimes walk past the hand and then climb onto me at the wrist or forearm. Keep a look out for them displaying this hand snubbing behavior now that I've mentioned it, and you should see it from time to time in my videos. Now, consider the fact I am working with the Ackie in a more constrained space, at his door or his small platform, and the hand snubbing becomes more apparent because he has way less room to maneuver around it. It's just way more apparent to him in these smaller spaces.
Long story short, to me...the Ackie feels way more open to the general idea of "playing" with me and learning new things. I think the tree monitor's readiness to climb things, makes it appear they are more into me than the Ackie. I actually feel it's the opposite. I'm putting in way less time with the Ackie than I did with the trees at the start and he feels way more game to try and figure it all out. Remove ladder conditioning from the tree monitors and their behavior would likely line up a lot more with the Ackie.
One thing you are correct on, is he is not comfortable being high, mainly on me while moving around. But they were all like that. He's only ever been on me while I was walking around like a half dozen or so times so far. Every time it's happened, you've been able to see it in my videos. Ajax and Kale used to jump off of me to things all the time when I was moving, and Kale would literally wrap his hands so tight around my forearm and hold on for dear life up until about 3-4 months ago, when I finally put him through ladder training and calmed him down. I made a video on this specific topic, chilling them down while you are moving. It's just going to take time with the Ackie like it did with them.
Sorry for the book report reply, but I spend most of my free time working with these guys, and all of this is swirling around in my head at night. I've been studying and considering all these behaviors throughout this process and constantly rewatching my daily clips in bed at night. I think some of the context is being lost on the cutting room floor or something.
@@TreeMonitorTraining
Fine by me (on the length). I just don’t want to inadvertently insult you. Actually, I had something to send you and didn’t get around to it. (I will now). I also think you should find some way for this to be what you DO. I know, everyone has dreams, etc. But this obviously means a lot to you, you’re smart, and you’re on the right side of history. This is a time when the whole concept of the human relation to the natural world is undergoing a huge shift. I see it everywhere. If nothing else, it means a lot to YOU, so allow yourself this gift. Who knows where it will lead you? What might you miss if you don’t?
@@TreeMonitorTraining
When I said “afraid of your arm”, I meant afraid to be ON your arm when you’re moving. Here’s this little guy that likes to be under ground who finds himself the equivalent of on a roof top-and it’s moving. And he doesn’t have the amazing feet and claws the trees have. (I know they don’t actually dig into your arm.)
@@TreeMonitorTraining
Hand vs. arm: you can’t grab anything with an arm or an elbow. Hands are what we use to control things, grab things.
@@Barbara-i7k1x nah... I have a career and I get paid well enough. I think I have a pretty good idea of what it would take to monetize this. I'm not a personality and it would bother me to try and pretend to be one.
Then I'd have to make "top 10 blah blah blah" videos and "there's a snake in my boots" videos. Not to mention all the other instabooks and faceX I'd have to start using to farm new viewers and funnel them into my Paymemoneytronz, get them to join my army, and buy my merch. I'm too private of a person for all that jazz.
This channel and reddit are the only online medias I use, and I'm only using them to talk about my monitors with other monitor enjoyers because nobody in my real life cares about reptiles. To be successful I'd also have to get more animals and I already feel like 3 is too many sometimes for what I'm trying to do with them.
It's funny though, I feel like the people watching my videos are more invested in the success of this channel than I am. It's already a success to me, because I still want to upload. But I also like the crowd that actually ends up here. My videos are like a litmus test for weeding out tiktok brains. I really enjoy chatting with people in the comments, that's why I'm here. This channel is more of a giant reddit thread where I get to post about my three monitors.
If I could go back now, I would have stuck to my love of reptiles as a child and tried to do something related to them. Imagine actually doing something you enjoy for a living, right? But I didn't. I already missed it. But I can enjoy them now through a few close bonds with a select few monitors and be happy in my free time.
My girlfriend and I just got the ackie specific enclosure from Toad ranch for our ackie. It’s great. Just make sure to order a few fans for humidity control. Enclosure can become very humid after moisturizing the substrate due to the enclosure being PVC.
Yeah dude for sure! My large tree monitor enclosure has 2 large fans on the side to pull air from outside the enclosure every 3 hrs for an hr because it will hit 100% in there if I don't. This is also why you see me leave my doors open all the time when I let Ajax out lol. Of course his is supposed to be real humid, but not that humid.
I love these enclosures.
What light bulb covers do you have at 5:30? I need some of those. They look much nicer and don’t have that large lip where the lizards can climb on.
Smaller front one is this I believe:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3GZVVXH
The two larger ones in the back are this:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C7M6TYT
Well look what I just found!
Day-40 with my ackie and still hides when I'm presents, but now brings out half the body for a split second out of cork to grab the roach from my tong. Still no tongue flick though. I'm gonna assume that is still a small progress.
I also noticed that mine would often take couple for few roaches (about 3/4 ~1 inch dubia size) and it becomes very hard for me to get him interested for more. I wanted to ask you that if this means he's full enough and don't want to risk for more roaches?
Could be a bunch of things... Heat, his fear of dealing with you. I can tell you my Ackie is a food demon and would eat until he died if I let him. how old is your Ackie? Those do seem pretty big for a baby so he might just be full.
On taming him down. You just need to spend a ton of time in his view preferably doing shit unrelated to him. 4-6 ft, right in front of the enclosure. Read a book, do a puzzle, ignore him. show him you don't only appear when you come to his enclosure and mess with him. Find reasons to practice walking past his enclosure without spooking him all the while ignoring him. all this happened naturally with mine, being in my living room, and especially the trees with a front row seat to me sitting at my computer. anytime i went to the kitchen, they saw me stand up and walk past them. Early days they dart, then they half dart, then they just keep an eye on you, finally you become a ghost in the background noise to them.
this is what you want, desensitize them to your presence.
All of my monitor's were desensitized to my dogs presence before mine because the dogs are in that room with them all day while I'm at work. I could see them at work from a webcam and was astonished that they didn't react when my dogs would walk within a foot of where they were scratching at the glass while I wasn't there. Then I'd come home, and they'd dart for the hide when they saw me. That's when it clicked for me.
Now that the Ackie's roaming, he even tries to come right up to the dogs within a foot or two to get a better look at them. It really is just time in presence where nothing bad happens.
Of course I'm not privy to any mistakes or misunderstandings that may have already occurred that you might be atoning for with him.
@@TreeMonitorTraining My Ackie currently is 6 months old (born in Oct 2023) and I did reduce the size of the roach and still seems that way. Today I could not get him to eat any roaches so I sent some down his way and I heard 1st sound of eating but rest, none. Ambient temp wise its around 95F the hottest and 150F~ top basking area. I believe it's mostly caused by the fear.
I usually try to do my best to sit around him, watching youtube and reading articles on my tablet, or have coffee and a muffin but recently have been busy and didn't get much chance to do so. Only thing I didn't do it right possibly is that I was sitting up pretty close, less than 2ft, probably closer to 1ft. Before I thought being around like that was spooking them out but now I know it's a beneficial thing so thank you for that answer, something that no one on reptile discord or forum could give me a proper answer.
For whatever the reason my dog does not want to come down to basement so I'm considering moving my PC and desktop down to the basement where i keep all my animals and spend majority of my time there. Only thing im worried about is disturbing ackies sleep if I'm working or playing games at night, will that be a possible issue?
@@EXOScaper-sf1mu 6 months old... So judging by date of your videos, you only had him like a month and a half and he was like 4-5 months old when you got him? That makes more sense cus I see you being really careful with movement so I'd expect to see a lot less fear. But you only had him a month or so, ok. Temps seem perfect so I don't see how he's not more hungry unless he is just that scared. Maybe from before you got him or something.
1-2 feet is probably too close just based on his behavior at the moment. You want him to be able to see you but not think you are there for him. That's why I suggest like 4 feet or so, not too far tho so they can recognize its you still. Since it was something you already considered...yes I would move my computer down there. And no the sound doesn't matter. My computer is 5 ft in front of my first tree mon enclosure and that is 100% the number 1 reason I am where I am now with all my guys. They need to seee you a lot. I also game and real late sometimes too. It's going to bother them of course in the beginning but they get used to the sounds they are around and it eventually fades into the background for them like everything else. I dont know if you've seen the videos of my dogs barking and charging past where my monitors are sitting and they dont even react. Everything is scary until they realize its not a threat to them. I was worried about the sound too, but I promise you they stop caring and its helping them get used to you. All my guys still hear me playing there late into the night and every morning they wake up the same and still want to hang out with me.
Just play your games, keep tong feeding but leave him be mostly besides that for a while... you should see him moving around more in your presence once he realizes ur a permanent fixture down there now. Whatever you do with that log... don't feed him until he comes out to get food. If he refuses to come out... just get up and leave, come back a few minutes later and try again... dont cave. They can go weeks without eating and be fine it shouldnt take a day or two to motivate him the small amount required to come out to get food.
@@TreeMonitorTraining I'm getting ready to do a good cleaning in my basement and move all my rigs downstairs. Thank you for answering pretty much all of my questions i had in mind, I think I have a good idea what to do next. I think I've been worrying too much trying to feed him as much as I can everyday.
@@EXOScaper-sf1mu Yeah, I'm sure he's going to calm down more once he gets used to you being around more. Once he gets a bit more comfortable about you feeding him, you can also split the meal out through the day. Feed him a cricket then go play some game, come back 30m or an hr later and give him another one.
This is one of the things I did with my Ackie and you will see he will begin calling you to come back by coming up to the glass and pawing or just staring at you from across the room. I'd wait in your case to do this though because the process of tong feeding itself is still an issue with this dood.