How fast should they grow?

[Paleogirl]

My little girl is about 10 months old now, and I've been worried about her growth. She is a little over a foot long, something like 14-15 inches (I can measure her tomorrow but she's asleep and I'd rather not mess with her right now) and I'm curious as to if they should be bigger at this age. I've kept numerous B&W's before but never a Colombian until now and this was something I never really thought of when I bought her. She has unfiltered sunlight, a vitamin spray with calcium supplement on all her food, and proper humidty. Her diet consists of pinkies every few weeks whenever I can find them, eggs in some form at least once a week, and her standard food which is a mix of chicken or beef liver, fish of some sort, chicken gizzard, raw beef cuts, and little pieces of some fruit (usually mango, watermelon, and blueberries) which she adores. Am I doing something wrong or are they just little at this age?

 

[Aardbark]

Im not sure about colombian tegus, but it does sound like you are feeding/treating him right.

 

[Jabrak]

My Columbian is is 9 months old and is around the same size so I don't think there anything to worry about, plus they're alot smaller than Argentines

 

[Roadkill]

First of all, size is not a deformity. There is no "healthy size" for a "specific age". The average size for certain ages is just that, an average size, meaning that of all the individuals that have been scrutinized (I'm bolding this to stress the importance of what you're comparing against - not every individual ever, just individuals people have decided to pay attention to, and not even very well at that - ie. were they identified for being healthy, properly fed, properly housed, free of genetic deformities, etc.) that the average size will be "X" (ie. this doesn't mean most are this size, or even that most are around this size, just this is an average - the average of the number set 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 200, 200, 20, 10, is 44.2, which doesn't reflect a single number in the number set), not that at this age your tegu should be "X" size. Unless we're talking about an extreme (ie. ten years old and still only 4 inches in body length), there should be no reason to be concerned about whether an animal is too small (and yet no one gets concerned if an animal is too large for a certain age, think about that for a second....). We don't freak out when we see a short child, we just assume they're short and will probably grow out of it. So why do we do this with tegus?

Second, your diet. In just about every aspect, I would say it is excellent. Keep up the variety, don't be stingy with trying different things. However, I'm a little concerned with A) vitamin spray with B)calcium supplement. My concerns (not saying you're doing bad) are this: most products sold as vitamin spray are complete junk. Unfortunately, so are many powdered supplements. However, given a choice between spray and powder, I'd take a powdered practically every time. If this spray was bought from a pet store marketed for reptiles by a regular pet product company, I'd send it in the direction of the toilet paper you used to wipe your bottom this morning. Next, the calcium supplement. Is this liquid as well, or a powdered form? Liquid calcium is absorbed much more readily than powdered form. How much are you using? If you're going by the typical bad advice of "a dusting", this is inadequate for a diet that at least from what I can see in your list, is predominantly meat and organs that are extremely calcium poor. Not saying these are bad for your tegu, but that if you're not going with whole prey as your staple, then you need to increase the calcium in your staple meats to reflect that of whole prey calcium content.

 

[Paleogirl]

Thanks for all the advice everyone! The vitamin spray I use is actually home made, one of my breeders uses it and it seems to work pretty well, his tegus (and he has quite a lot) are all very healthy and happy. I'm not 100% sure on the ingredients since I buy it in bulk from him but I think theres some sort of organic fruit juice/water base. The calcium supplement is Fluker's brand, I don't use a whole lot because I've been told that tegus can easily overdose on some of the additives. What would you say is the best vitamin/calcium supplement to use? I'll just get that instead since I'm making a pet store trip this weekend. By the way, my Colombian won't take whole food aside from pinkies sometimes which is why I've been resorting to powders and sprays. My Argentines are all about whole food and fruits thankfully so they don't need a whole lot in the way of supplements.

 

[Roadkill]

Fluker's should be fine, I wouldn't worry about it. However, as stated previously, you have a heavy dependence on calcium poor staple foods. This isn't to say it's bad, just that you probably need to increase your calcium supplementation to avoid calcium deficiency issues. A rough guide that has come up is that for about 1lb of meat (organ, muscle, whatever), you should be supplementing with about 1tablespoon of calcium (powdered format).

 

[Paleogirl]

Alright, I'll be sure to up the amount I use when eats tomorrow. Her feeding schedule is every other day, by the way, she refuses food when I've fed her the day before or only takes a nibble and goes back to sleep so I've gotten her into the habit of having a big meal around noonish when she's basked for about an hour and a little before-bed snack around 9 or so at night if she wants it. Usually her snack is a raw egg with some shell mixed into the yolk so that she gets the calcium.

Oh and just out of curiosity are their any consumer vitamin sprays you'd suggest? I don't know if I'll ever use any other than my breeders' but I figure I should know anyway.

 

[Roadkill]

Not that I've seen, no. You can certainly get some good powders from vets designed to be dissolved and such, but the off the shelf sprays at pet shops are gimmicks, little more.

As for how much you feed yours, too many people put too much emphasis on feeding these guys lots of food. It isn't necessary, and I believe it is likely highly unhealthy. Every other day is more than acceptable. You can probably go longer and still be good. In comparative physiology, there's a little comparison we like to use to demonstrate to people one of the biggest impacts of endothermy (what many laypeople call warmblooded) and ectothermy (coldblooded) and how diet is related. If you had a bird the same mass as your tegu, the amount of food necessary to sustain the bird for one day (by caloric content) would be enough to sustain your tegu for 40 days. Ad in the fact that in the wild tegus have to be highly active to get their food, while in captivity they tend to be lazy and docile, and there's good indication that most people make their tegus morbidly obese.

 

[Paleogirl]

I know varanids have a higher metabolic rate than most lizards but you can still get by feeding them once every few days or one big meal a week, but I have no idea as far as tegus go. I'm pretty sure they're more ectothermic than monitors, so I might even space the meals out a bit. I know once she gets to adult size her meals will be less frequent. I'm pretty sure varanids are the closest lizards to endothermy (what with their specialized breathing system and air sacs) but Tegus seem to be much closer to iguanas than monitors on the hot-cold blood scale. Thanks for all the help!

All this talk of metabolism makes me miss the heated Dinosaur metabolism debates I used to have in college

 

[Roadkill]

I wouldn't be so sure about all that.....

 

[Paleogirl]

Maybe its just their laziness thats decieving me then.

 

[Paleogirl]

Sorry to double post but I'm starting to get a bit worried now, I'm seeing pictures of others yearling and mine isn't even remotely close to that size. Most people's tegus seem to be about the length of their arm at this age and mines head and body fit in my hand still, her tail reaching my elbow. I'm hoping everything is okay but I just need to make sure. Here's a picture. Her tank isn't normally on the floor but I moved it for the picture since the glare was so bad. That's water from her spray bottle on the glass by the way, not dust. The other side of her tank has her plants and hide. She looks like a baby still honestly. She's currently in a 40 gallon tank and in a month or two she's going to graduate into something bigger.

Edit: I'm looking at more pictures and seeing a couple that are around her size, so I think I'm just overreacting. I just really want her to be healthy, stressing myself out :/

 

[Roadkill]

She looks fine. And yes, I'd say it is their laziness that is deceiving you (but also a little knowledge I know of that has yet to be shared with the scientific community....). Tegus are notoriously lazy in captivity.

Some tegus grow rapidly, some grow very slowly. I think this is an ecological strategy to ensure population continuity. In any clutch, some individuals grow remarkably fast, some grow remarkably slow. In times of hardship and poor resource availability, the slow growers will have the advantage and therefore thrive, being able to contribute their genes to the success of the species. In times of resource abundance, the fast growers will have the benefit and will be able to contribute to a greater extent. I've raised many clutches of offspring, and you typically see some still very small after the first year, others very large, even though they've been raised in the same identical manners.

I find it interesting that so many people get concerned that their tegu isn't growing fast enough, even though there is no real evidence or logic to indicate that this is a bad thing, and yet no one gets concerned about rapid growth and indeed typically think this is a great thing, despite the fact that rapid growth while not a bad thing in itself, if it is done without sufficient calcium and other nutrients, will result in lower density bones and possible deformity.

 

[Paleogirl]

Ooh, interesting! I'm excited to hear it whenever it does become public or if you're willing to share.

I think the concern stems from the horror stories you here from herpers of hatchlings that didn't grow due to bone deformities or lack of UV light or calcium or a load of other things. I have a tendency to drive myself up walls worrying that my pets aren't happy, unfortunately, and seeing all these 3 foot yearlings doesn't help.

 

[Deac77]

I agree most captive tegus are morbidly obese and lazy. Both mine were tepid growers were as some of Kirby's siblings are just now catching up to her.

My Gus bask at higher temps that most "care sheets" say and as a result I NEVER see them acting lazy or being still. When out and about the house they never stop moving, when in the cages, they are always digging, foraging, hunting, climbing everything!

 

[Deac77]

I also don't think there's anything wrong with your little gu looks healthy enough to me!

Though I personally don't feed the ground meats (I hate having to supplement so much lol)

 

[Paleogirl]

I also don't think there's anything wrong with your little gu looks healthy enough to me!

Though I personally don't feed the ground meats (I hate having to supplement so much lol)

I don't either, haha, but its her choice not mine. She just won't take whole foods other than pinkies and I don't feed my tegus or monitors live they don't reach to movement with bites.