feeding outside the enclosure

[smange]

I keep reading you should feed your tegu outside the enclosure but how can i do this when it is not tame and still skittish, I dont want to go picking it up yet when its still scared of me does anyone have any tips on how to achieve this.

 

[kellen.watkins]

I have two tegus I can't really handle, my extreme will not let me touch her, I can put my hand and inch away from her face and she fine as soon as I touch her she jolts a few inches away, my hybrid can't open the tank without him bolting. I've had the extreme for a little over 2 months and the hybrid for a little over one month and I have had to almost always exclusively cage feed, there are some people who don't see anything wrong with cage feeding some who don't. Tegus become more docile with age so your kinda in the same boat as me. We gotta be patient and vigilent and wait for good things to come. Search the "taming" forums and absorb everything you can a lot of experience and knowledge tucked into these forums. Keep us updated on your progress so that when more skittish and aggressive are owned people can arm themselves with the knowledge for a happy relationship with their tegu as I see things like this is a huge reason for the tegu invasion in florida and tegus winding up in rescues. One more thing (sorry this is so drawn out I'm passionate about tegus lol) if he is columbian he might never tame down, well any tegu may never tame down but columbians are infamous for being aggressive

 

[smange]

I will keep you posted, it is argentinian (has the two scales from nose to eyes). It is much better when its just me about but when the whole family is on the go its worse. I have managed to stroke it with the glove on now but it still hisses at that but it doesnt run away now when I open the viv (it does if anyone else opens it). Oh and dont put crickets in the ones I put in have bred and now the viv is full of baby crickets.

 

[kellen.watkins]

Still eating crickets? It might be good to get rid of those, one there lots more nutritious food than crickets, two I find it a hassle to constantly run to the store and buy them and three, its cheaper to feed ground meats, gizzards, and liver, rats and mice can get a bit pricey unless you buy in bulk

 

[smange]

Some progress, I have opened his viv and he came out to explore, I put his food in a dish away from the viv and he ate his dinner. He went off hiding when anyone else came into the room. I always whistle to him whenever I go into his viv so after an hour hiding I whistled and hey presto he came out.

 

[Bubblz Calhoun]

It's okay to feed in the cage just make sure that's not the only time you go in it, and cover quite a bit of the substrate with something, I use napkins under Korbens bowl. As long as you continue to spend more time spot cleaning, changing the water, moving things around or what ever to get it use to you being in it's space. Than you do to feed it,.. then you shouldn't have a problem with cage aggression.

There are other whole insect pray you can try besides crickets. If you haven't already check out the Tegu Article Section,.. there's lots of need to know info over there. Keep in mind live foods can also make them more aggressive when it comes to their feeding response. As well as more prone to bite little things that move like toes and fingers.

unfortunately if you have cricket nymphs in the substrate you need to replace it. As more eggs hatch, there's not enough food, they stress and will eat your tegu.

 

[frost]

bobby has a video on his site that shows how to do this with a feisty tegu.

 

[smange]

who is bobby? do you have a link to his site?

 

[xocrieox]

]http://varnyard-herps-inc.com/

bobby has a video on his site that shows how to do this with a feisty tegu.

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Sorry about the link....phone went dumb

 

[reptastic]

Bobby hill is one of the top tegu breeders on America, and this is bobbys site lol, I'm not sure on the video you are referring to, I agree with bubblz, I have fed all of my tegus almost exclusively in the enclosure, when dealing with more than 1 tegu trying to feed them outside the enclosure wouldn't be wise, I have yet to deal with a food/cage aggressive tegu as a result