Future Owner Questions

[Skeep]

I started with a 40gal tank for the first month while I waited for the larger final enclosure to be manufactured and delivered. The problems I had were with maintaining temperature, and also my gu really needed more space to feel comfortable. In the small enclosure she felt trapped. Once she moved into the larger enclosure her temperament greatly improved!

 

[Skeep]

Also some enclosure ideas, when she was little I had a ferret wheel for her to run in and she LOVED using that, and she could burn off energy and get exercise with that instead of trying to escape! I put in a tunnel from her hide to the other side of her cage which she thought was pretty cool when she was feeling shy, and I also hung a towel from the ceiling, kind of like a hammock, which she would climb up and explore as part of her daily routine.

 

[Rebecca Stout]

Like ... are you totally serious? The big wheel? They don't make them for ferrets. I imagine large rodents they would. I've seen them pretty darn big. I hope I don't look like an idiot if you are kidding lololol. But, your young tegu ran in the wheel? Cause if so, seriously that would be a brilliant first time idea I'd think.

 

[Rebecca Stout]

This guy was INCREDIBLE to work with. He has stock you can't find anywhere and when you do its usually cheaper. http://www.lightyourreptiles.com/

 

[Rebecca Stout]

Oh yeah, and check this out!!! This is my blog with how it went for me including photos. http://wolfystegu.weebly.com/blog/how-much-money

 

[Skeep]

Like ... are you totally serious? The big wheel? They don't make them for ferrets. I imagine large rodents they would. I've seen them pretty darn big. I hope I don't look like an idiot if you are kidding lololol. But, your young tegu ran in the wheel? Cause if so, seriously that would be a brilliant first time idea I'd think.

Yup, she loved it! She ran in it several times a day, until I took it away because she was getting too big. It was quite humurous when she was trying to figure it out. She would jump ontop of it and it would spin around and shoot her out the side X3. But she figured it out after a couple days.

Someone else has a youtube video which gave me the idea:

I had the same wheel that's in the video, it was labeled for ferrets but maybe it's not. Anyway she really liked it.

 

[Rebecca Stout]

Okay, I've seen it ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! LOLOL. This is a riot. And ingenious. I'm wondering if it would be better/safer to use the newer types of plastic wheels that have no center bar, wire, etc. You should recommend this to everyone that comes on here with tiny babies.

 

[aceoflizards]

I would seriously advise not putting your tegus (or any kind of lizard for that matter) in a commercially built hamster wheel. Their spines are not made to bend that way and constant use of the wheel will permanently mess up it's back. I found a blog post with a diagram explaining how this would happen.

The hamster is on top, a lizard on bottom. The person who made the images used a leopard gecko as the example for a lizard.
While a hamster's back is conditioned to bend that way, a lizard's spine isn't. The animal's vertebrae would rub against each other unnaturally and overtime the cartilage between the bone would wear away.

If you still want to give your lizard a wheel then you'd have to build it yourself because no commercially made hamster wheels are safely big enough for any lizard to use, even small lizards. For a leopard gecko to safely use a wheel it would have to be almost 1 meter in diameter.

 

[Rebecca Stout]

Wow. Never thought about all of that and I should've. Thanks so much.

 

[Skeep]

A treadmill seems like a better option then. Probably one on a slant, since at least in my gu's case, she liked to try climbing it more than just running on it.

 

[aceoflizards]

I've seen people do that with monitors and even a tegu! I think that would work well. I'm not saying a wheel is a bad idea, just that kind of wheel.
People with small lizards or baby big lizards could possibly use a 'saucer' wheel like this

but for any bigger lizard it would have to be custom built.

 

[Skeep]

That thing's pretty cool! Fluff is already way to big for any of the commercially available stuff but it would be an interesting project to build a treadmill type thing. I also wanted to build her a modular maze with obstacles and treats but don't have much spare time ^_^

I'm also worried that as she ages and slows down these things will not interest her as much as they do now. Maybe I'll just need to get a second tegu if that happens.