# food habits and tegus bite force



## napoleone (Jul 26, 2012)

I was just think over the power and the force of a tegus bite. I mean i know that a tegus bite can be powerful and that can create a great harm (?) to ours hands. But last day I've noticed something peculiar that made ask myself a question: could food habits influence the force of a tegus bite ? I mean perhaps not the absolut force of the bite, but the force they normally use in a bite? I've seen many videos of tegu tear off peaces of mice with violence and power. Last day not having ready anything to give to my tegu i just gave him a turkey/chicken wurster as a snack (never did it, just this time). I gave him the wurstel keeping one end of it with a nipper (?). I've thought the tegu would very easily cut the wurster in half with a quick bite, but i noticed instead that so it was not. I don't say that it was difficult or tuff for the tegu, but not so easy and fast as i thought. I considered the fact that my tegu (90 cm) has always eaten meat in small portion he could easily swallow in one time, never really needing to use the teeth or the force of the jaws. 

Maybe is a stupid question but: could the no necessity of grab a live prey and keep it firm and rip off pieces of meat influence the concrete (or real) force of a tegus bite ? this coul be a further reason for not giving tegus live preys. Just curios


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## Grendel (Jul 26, 2012)

Your absolutely right, if you give them live prey, for example a rat. They will destroy it, crush the head in one bite, rip it , etc. Thats when their hunter instinct kicks in, they can't let that live animal get away, they know when they have to make a kill, and when it's not going to run away.


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## james.w (Jul 26, 2012)

I highly doubt the type of food given will have any effect on a tegus bite force. If you fed only ground turkey and greens for the first two years of a tegus life and than gave him a F/T rat of appropriate size, I'm sure he could still crush the skull.


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## Murkve (Jul 26, 2012)

It's said to those that first begin lifting weights that you are stronger than you think. Literally, your brain restricts your true lifting potential to about 70% of reality. A big part of training is overcoming this mental block, as you've never had to exert that force before.

I would imagine that the same is true for Tegus. Don't give them a reason to exert, and they'll never need to.


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## Thelegendofcharlie (Jul 26, 2012)

Murkve said:


> It's said to those that first begin lifting weights that you are stronger than you think. Literally, your brain restricts your true lifting potential to about 70% of reality. A big part of training is overcoming this mental block, as you've never had to exert that force before.
> 
> I would imagine that the same is true for Tegus. Don't give them a reason to exert, and they'll never need to.




Im going to meditate on this.


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## Murkve (Jul 26, 2012)

Thelegendofcharlie said:


> Murkve said:
> 
> 
> > It's said to those that first begin lifting weights that you are stronger than you think. Literally, your brain restricts your true lifting potential to about 70% of reality. A big part of training is overcoming this mental block, as you've never had to exert that force before.
> ...



I believe it has to do with the brain only being able to activate a portion of the muscle fibers in each muscle, due to an upper limit on the amount of signals it is able to send to the area. Training will apparently better tune the actions of the brain, with the amount of neurons in the muscle, thus activating more muscle fibers.

Or something.


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## napoleone (Jul 27, 2012)

One day I had the tegu walking on my belly (i was without the tshirt). He was probabely hungry and simply turn his head and gave a little bite, a little tasting to my tummy. In that moment I expected a little pain and maybe some blood. But he did'n really force it, just tasting, nothing happends. But I think your right, he has the potential power, just don't need it or dont use it daily.


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