# Our new 1.2 Caiman TEGUS - Dracaena Guianensis



## Renske (Mar 18, 2012)

2 day ago we bought 1.2 Dracaena Guianensis. We are so happy with them. I think people here would like it, becouse there head is like a tegu and there body like a Caiman.

In dutch we call it "Kaaiman teju" what meens "Caiman tegu", but i think you call it Caiman Lizards.

Here some pictures of them:

























































We found some food at the beach for them. An in a lake we captured some shrimp. Now we go look for snails in the garden for them.





In the netherlands are not a lot of people how have Caiman tegus, so if someone has them here, can you please share your experience with me?
Some tips and tricks??


----------



## JohnMatthew (Mar 18, 2012)

They look great, good luck with them!


----------



## dragonmetalhead (Mar 18, 2012)

If you look under the "Other Pets" section, Chelvis has posted his caiman lizard care sheet. He's the forum's resident caiman lizard guru so I would fire any questions you have his way. Awesome looking lizards, by the way.


----------



## Renske (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks guys! I asked him to take a look at this topic.


----------



## Dana C (Mar 18, 2012)

Beautiful Lizards!


----------



## Compnerd7 (Mar 18, 2012)

Very resplendent! Nice large size and they seem really tame. How do you pronounce "Kaaiman teju" ? You live in a beautiful country and are fortunate to be able to walk around and collect various food items for your lizards, that is really cool.


----------



## chelvis (Mar 18, 2012)

Man, very jealous of those right now. I only have a male, had a female but had to sell her. Love the set up! I cannot wait till mine gets full size! 

Caiman Lizard Guru, hum.... I like that name, lol.


----------



## Renske (Mar 18, 2012)

Compnerd7 said:


> Very resplendent! Nice large size and they seem really tame. How do you pronounce "Kaaiman teju" ? You live in a beautiful country and are fortunate to be able to walk around and collect various food items for your lizards, that is really cool.



Thank you!
I don't know how to explain but i found a computervoice and it sounds realy good.
go to:
http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html
Put the option "select voice" on:
Dutch (NL) - Femke

And type in "your text here":
kaaiman teju

Klick on:
Say it!

Thats a how it sounds. 

We life in a lilte village near the sea. 
Street view:
http://www.google.nl/maps?q=wijk+aa...=3N2u4mNIxdo6Zogj2-2XRw&cbp=12,194.97,,0,9.06
Some pictures i found on google:

























My one pictures:

































































Something like this is where we find te crabs:





And the snails here:










And the shrimps:






chelvis said:


> Man, very jealous of those right now. I only have a male, had a female but had to sell her. Love the set up! I cannot wait till mine gets full size!
> 
> Caiman Lizard Guru, hum.... I like that name, lol.



Thank you!
Do you have some tips? For the enclosure or food?


----------



## dragonmetalhead (Mar 18, 2012)

Caiman Lizard Guru, hum.... I like that name, lol. 
[/quote]

Well you are! You were the first one here to get a caiman lizard, and now it seems everyone and their mother-in-law's got one.


----------



## reptastic (Mar 18, 2012)

renske they are beautiful, that enclosure is amazing did you build that yourself? and i love your town it has such beautiful scenery


----------



## Josh (Mar 18, 2012)

Wow - beautiful lizards and a very natural looking enclosure. I am jealous too!


----------



## chelvis (Mar 18, 2012)

Love the pictures of your home town, especially of the Highland Cattle! 

Diet on this guys can be weird depending on if they are farmed raised, captive breed or wild caught. Seeing how healthy they look i would not guess wild caught. 

I have had luck with frozen snails that I get from an Asian Market, canned snails, shrimp, chicken, fresh water fish, crab and a dry food called Mazrui croc chow. Only thing he won't take is pinkie mice. 

Enclosure wise I think you have me beat, I'm still working on the new cage. I know temps should be high, basking area around 100F so about 38C and I keep the cage at around 80F/26C around the day and around 70F/21C at night. The water temp is kept 78F/25C all day and night. Keeping the water warm helps keep the humidity up in the 60 to 80% range. 

I work with mine every day I can, had him clicker trained but have not worked with him on that for awhile but these are very smart lizards.


----------



## Compnerd7 (Mar 18, 2012)

Renske said:


> Compnerd7 said:
> 
> 
> > Very resplendent! Nice large size and they seem really tame. How do you pronounce "Kaaiman teju" ? You live in a beautiful country and are fortunate to be able to walk around and collect various food items for your lizards, that is really cool.
> ...



[size=large]*Awesome, thank you for sharing those pics! And now I know a little Dutch haha, I am mostly Dutch so I am sure it'll come in handy some day. I love that picture of the hairy OX like mammal, he is cool!*[/size]


----------



## Renske (Mar 18, 2012)

reptastic said:


> renske they are beautiful, that enclosure is amazing did you build that yourself? and i love your town it has such beautiful scenery



This enclosure is very old and bult by my boyfriend. Thanks! It was a lot of work for him.

In te future we want to keep them here:










Its room is 4x4x6 meter (13x13x20 feet) On the bottom we want to make a big pool for them to swim with a lot of crabs and shrimps. We want lot more light in there and 3 or more uvb lights.
Te problem is we don't know if the Caiman tegus eet anolis marmoratus marmoratus and anolis allisoni. They walk in and out trough this room.
If it works good for a while we want to buy some more females.





Here we want to put bars in the bows so they cant get to the other part of the greenhouse.


chelvis said:


> Love the pictures of your home town, especially of the Highland Cattle!
> 
> Diet on this guys can be weird depending on if they are farmed raised, captive breed or wild caught. Seeing how healthy they look i would not guess wild caught.
> 
> ...



Thank you! Then te tempertures are good. Wat kind of shrips do you feed. I only find saltwater shrimps on the chineese market here... 
The Caiman tegus looking realy smart, like the Argentine black and white tegus i have.. The male is very tame for never handeld bevore. But we give them there rest. We don't want them to die of stress.


Compnerd7 said:


> Renske said:
> 
> 
> > Compnerd7 said:
> ...



haha, cool. Where do you or your parent(s) come from? What place in the netherlands?


----------



## chelvis (Mar 18, 2012)

I feed mine the salt water shrimp but not too often, most of his diet is snails. Man I wish I had a green room like that!


----------



## Gedy (Mar 19, 2012)

Cool pictures ! They look verry pretty, and you sure have great enclosures for them.
I now the place from the pictures, always fun to see some Dutch where you don't expect it.


----------



## Renske (Mar 19, 2012)

Thanks guys!


----------



## chelvis (Mar 19, 2012)

Do you know how old your caiman lizards are?


----------



## Renske (Mar 19, 2012)

chelvis said:


> Do you know how old your caiman lizards are?



Yeay that was a little strainge. Bevore we had seen the Caiman tegus he told us they were from 2011. But wen we came there they were a lot bigger. I said to him: "they are not 1 year old." And he sayd suprised that they were not. He said they were over 3 years old. But we tought they are healty and we never get a deal like this again. And we knew if we let them with him they would die, becouse he had some money problems and could not take care of them anymore.
In the netherlands they normaly cost 2000 euros thats 2647,25 US dollars... And we payed for al of them together 1400 euros thats 1853,04 US dollars..

UPDATE: They all eat al lot of snails and crabs! Here bellys get bigger and bigger. The male loves the uvb, he is under it all day.


----------



## Renske (Mar 21, 2012)

Some new pictures:


----------



## Renske (Apr 7, 2012)

Some new picures of the male:










He supprised us with his new color.







And pictures of one of the two females:


----------



## HPIZZLE (Apr 7, 2012)

Your enlosures are absolutely stunning..

i love the green on the male!


----------



## Menti (Apr 17, 2012)

They are unbelievable.

I thought about a long time (since my last visit at the zoo in Leipzig,Germany) if I will buy some of these nice animals or not.

I want to make everything right. So, if you have any information about these animals, please provide me with. that would be greate!
I mean, of course I informed me already, but to know more and more and more cannot be negative, especially for the animals 

thanks a lot
and best regards

your animals are unbelievable nice!

menti


----------



## ApexPredator (Apr 17, 2012)

Your pictures are spectacular and the caiman lizards look amazing. Any chance you could post some pictures of the whole enclosure?
Thank you,
Jimmy


----------



## Renske (Apr 21, 2012)

Sorry for the late responce. We where very busy. 
We instaled a mistmaker yesterday. Here some pictures:















Today or the day after tomorrow we get 2 female from a nice guy we know. We are so exited! I hope they look as good as these guys. And that they can get along with each other.


----------



## LizardzRock (Apr 21, 2012)

Words cannot even describe how amazing your caimans are, and also how beautiful the enclosure is. Your boyfriend does amazing work. I wish you all the best of luck with them and look very forward to seeing all updates that you post. please keep them coming.


----------



## Skeetzy (Apr 21, 2012)

Honestly I dream of having a beautiful semi-aquatic enclosure like that! Those lizards are even more beautiful. I envy you!


----------



## Renske (Apr 22, 2012)

Thanks guys!

I see I forgot to post new pictures of te enclosure. My boyfriend and I bought some stuf to redecorate the enclosure. On the pictures we had no myst yet...

















And new pics (made by my boyfriend):


----------



## Renske (Apr 23, 2012)




----------



## Renske (Jul 11, 2012)

Finely in there new enclosure! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD226tNzADs


----------

