Please help

[TethysWright]

I have a 3 year old Argentine tegu who I bought at a reptile convention about a month ago. She'd been doing great, but she's become very skittish and isn't eating. My stepbrother told me that he fed her a mouse the cat caught and I'm very worried she's gotten some kind of disease. I put a mouse in there for her and she killed it but didn't eat it. I don't want my tegu to die. Should I take her to the vet?

 

[TethysWright]

She is exactly 3 feet long, has a 100 watt UVB Powersun bulb, along with a nightlight for additional heat, is in an L shaped enclosure I built, has a basking spot of 90 degrees fahrenheit (too low I know) and eats mostly mice, Zoomed tegu and monitor food, ground turkey, and eggs along with various fruits and the occasional seafood. I'm also afraid I've been overhandling her, as she has started hissing at me and used to not do that. The humidity is at 40% and I can;t get it higher, but I give her regular soaks and she has a tub so she can do that whenever she wants.

 

[dpjm]

I would want to have a sample of her feces tested for internal parasites, a vet can do that. Wild animals frequently harbor parasites. Did she eat regularly prior to eating that mouse?

Also, it sounds like you need to work on some basic husbandry. Your basking temp of 90 F is really insufficient and 40% humidity is way too low. Giving her the opportunity to soak is not an alternative to providing high humidity, you need both. Soaking is good for the skin, mostly, and for keeping clean. Humidity affects skin also, but because it is a property of the air that they breathe, it is important for respiratory health. You can increase humidity by decreasing the enclosure's ventilation. If you have a screen top, you can use plastic sheeting to cover up portions of the roof, so when you mist the moisture doesn't immediately leave the enclosure. For the basking zone, I would add another heat lamp to get it to at least 110 F. I would also remove the nighttime heat lamp. Unless your room gets below 65 F at night, providing heat at night is not recommended. They need to cool down at night.

 

[TethysWright]

Thank you, I'm taking her to the vet this weekend. I'll replace the night bulb with a ceramic heat emitter that should put off more heat. I know the humidity is bad, but I was going to just get a humidifier for my room. Decreasing ventilation isn't really an option, due to the way I built my enclosure. I have a humid hide box with moist spaghnum in it, but I don't think it's enough.

 

[TethysWright]

I'd been feeding her every other day. But she finally ate last night too.

 

[dpjm]

You could try a humidifier in the room but it might not have a strong effect due to the high temperatures in the enclosure. What is the temperature at in the location of the hygrometer?

Halogen lamps put out the most heat for the wattage, that would be my choice instead of a ceramic heat emitter. CHEs are very good for creating heat when you don't want light, but I don't think having light is a problem in your case so I'd just go with a halogen lamp. A halogen lamp paired with a UV lamp like a MegaRay (or Powersun, but trust me - get yourself a MegaRay next time) gives a fairly full visible light spectrum for your tegu as well. They come in different wattages, you would have to experiment to see what suits your enclosure. I use 90 W and 175 W in most of my setups.