Kronos Housewarming

This is Kronos.  Kronos is a Savannah Monitor lizard and is close to 3 years old.  She was bought by Charlotte from Petco, where she had a visible mite problem.  We spent many days of the year 2019 designing, sketching, constructing, re-designing, re-sketching, etc. an 11 x 4 x 4 foot raised enclosure for Kronos.  Initially, she seemed surprisingly comfortable with her transplanted location, looking around a bit and experimenting with basking spots.  Here she's laying across a piece of wood atop the burrowing box, which is roughly 4 ft. x 2 ft. and about 10 inches deep.

Here is the burrow box we put together.  Not shown in this picture is the plastic storage container (sans lid) we used as a sort of "liner" for the inside of the box.  We used dampened coconut fiber for her digging medium.  The roof consists of 3 slabs of tile, which are removable.

This is more or less the final product!  Heat lamps keep the temperature always at least 70F with a basking spot as high as 120F during the day that Kronos can lay in when she needs to bring her temperature up and be active.

In the right corner is a pond which we put a lot of thought into creating, eventually settling upon this shower basin that can drain down into a bucket below when we need to change the water.  Kronos does most of her pooping underwater, which seems pretty hygienic.  It's also good for Savannah Monitors to get as much soaking time as they can, since they absorb much of their body moisture through their skin.  We've come to slightly dread the task of cleaning this basin out after a poop, since the increased volume of this design compared the the plastic storage bin we used for her old bath/pool makes a bit more work.  Hopefully the design pays off and Kronos becomes more comfortable with things, utilizing the pond more freely on her own and not always needing to be lured in with a tasty cockroach.

One of my first impressions of Kronos was surprise at her amount of personality and different moods from day to day.  A change of surroundings, even just rearranging a log or two, can cause her to be like a hermit for a week.  So could being handled when she isn't ready for it.  Being such a food-motivated creature, we try to use feeding time as a time to get her more familiar and comfortable with us and her surroundings, making sure to end on a good note and not leave her feeling scared of the situation (so much as is possible).

She seemed to transition smoothly into her new enclosure when we moved her in ~7 weeks ago, taking immediately to the burrow area as her new safe place, and sleeping place, but also utilizing the basking spots during the day.  Lately she has been a bit on the shy side.  There was a 2 week period where she had, shall we say, "scant scat".  That ended a couple weeks ago, thankfully.  We wonder if she is preparing to lay her first clutch of eggs, as the veterinarian informed us she is at the proper age for this to start happening (in their native northern Africa, this happens in September - October).  If this were so, it would be crucial that she has the right kind of burrow in which to dig and bury her eggs (unfertile, as they would be, in this case).

Anyway, I am hoping she comes around and starts to spend more time "out and about", doing her lizard thing and basking during the days.  Another thing to consider, though, is that winter in their part of Africa is the dry season.  For the couple of months when it is not raining much, Savannah Monitors stay less active and deplete their accumulated store of fat, a process said to be crucial to their health.

Here's Kronos in an active and curious mood, having a little cricket snack and then flashing her winning smile: