# My tegu eats like an ant please help



## goonzo420 (Sep 28, 2009)

My tegu is about 3months old now and isn't eating like he should be all the temps in the cage are right and shedding is good. He is not hibernating and he's just not eating like he should be he is a very picky eater he only likes pinkie and pinkies only. He doesn't like ground turkey eggs crickets meal worms nothing but pinkies what should I do it's really pissing me off


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## goonzo420 (Sep 29, 2009)

Can sum1 please reply?


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## Meg90 (Sep 29, 2009)

Please post some more information. What size is the enclosure? What types of UVB lights are you using? What are his temperatures?

What species is he? Colombian, or Argentine?

Is the food offered at room temp, or at least warm? Are the pinkies that he likes so much live?

Can you please post some pictures of him, and your setup?

It would help. Its easier that way, so we're not stabbing around completely in the dark here.


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## herper9 (Sep 29, 2009)

I'd have to agree with Meg. Everyone on here is completely willing to help, they just need your husbandry info. We're all here to help each other out.


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## Terry (Sep 29, 2009)

IMO, you piss me off. I don't think people like you should keep animals. Animal's wern't put on this planet to do every thing we want the mto do. Post info on here, so we can help. What are your temps, what are you useing to read your temps. What humidity? Whats your subtrate. Post some pictures of your cage and it will allow us to maybe catch somthing else and point out some thing we might have missed.


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## goonzo420 (Oct 7, 2009)

Wow Terry such a Nasty attitude why don't u go fk a tegu. But anyways my cage temp is 95 on the hot and 75 on the cool humidity is at 78 and I use cypress mulch he I's an baby argentine tegu with a chipped tail and he lives in a 20 gallon I alredy posted a pic on 1 my previous post. And at night cage temp is at 80


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## Meg90 (Oct 7, 2009)

What have you been trying to feed him?

Lets keep this clean here boys.


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## goonzo420 (Oct 7, 2009)

I've actually tried everything that baby tegus should be fed such as ground turkey which is thawed out frm the freezer eggs crickts mealworms I've been trying to feed blhim mostly meat so he can bulk up but he's not growing at all


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## Herplings (Oct 7, 2009)

Oh man forums drama.

Ill post some info here in a bit. I'm going to wait until I get done with work and drink me a case of beer first. :bud


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## Meg90 (Oct 7, 2009)

Try soft boiled egg, so that the yolk is still soft/a bit runny.

Make sure your food items are WARM. When I take it out of the fridge to feed, I put my turkey in a ziploc bag, and then I stick it in some warm water to make sure its a good temperature. They don't like real cold food.

Have you tried chicken heart? Beef liver?

I had better luck with boiled vs scrambled eggs.

Can you post a pic of your tegu? I found your other thread, but there were no gu pictures in it.


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## goonzo420 (Oct 7, 2009)

i cant get a pic because its from my iphone and i cant change the size of the pic tegu talk says its to big of a pic....


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## Meg90 (Oct 7, 2009)

That doesn't make anysense. How many megapixels is an Iphone camera?

Anyway, just upload them to photobucket, and then copy and paste the link from there.


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## Dvdh1 (Oct 7, 2009)

goonzo420 said:


> i cant get a pic because its from my iphone and i cant change the size of the pic tegu talk says its to big of a pic....



email the pics to youself and you can upload from there


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## Herplings (Oct 7, 2009)

Okay, so here is my input. Right, or wrong, this is my experiences and whats happened with me and what I know.
I don't read care sheets, or do Google searches, I talk from experience and what I have found to be, based off what I have seen in my Reptile rooms. I skip the middle man and go strait to the people that have owned and bred and kept the animals I have in question.

These animals don't eat cooked type eggs in the wild, they don't shop at Wal-Mart for processed ground liver, beef, turkey or any of that packaged junk. They don't shop in at a GNC, or in the pharmacy for things like COD OILS and a bunch of vitamin mixes.
This is all people trying to keep a large amount of animals and feed a large amount of food and make it cheap enough to still turn a profit, so they are not broke at the end of the breeding season. Its all business and profit and money. To me its a joke and makes me laugh a bit.

So, your Tegu is a picky eater, it happens. Its what happens when we take animals out of the wild and feel the need to keep them in our house, from either WC, or CBB.
There are a ton of Reptiles in peoples houses all over the world that are picky eaters. They are still individuals, and still need unique care, regardless if they are all from the same species, or different. 
So, you need some options on what to do, and how to get your Tegu to be the massive 6 pound beast its going to end up. Lol....

Well, your Tegu will only eat mice and rats? So, who cares.... That is my question. Who really gives a ****. That is what these animals eat in the wild. So, feed the mice and rats that it will eat and feed enough to fill him up and make him healthy and happy. Yes, its going to cost more money, but its the gamble you took when you decided to pick up this animal. Seems pretty simple to me.

But, here is what you can do if you are a little concerned about the nutrition your Tegu is getting, or a little something you can do if you want to try to introduce it to new tastes and foods.
Go to a place where you can pick up a feeding syringe, use it to put mixed foods, or other blended foods into the mice, or rats stomach. That will not only increase the nutrition of what you are feeding to your Tegu, but introduce it to new tastes. Just put it in via the mouth.
This is if you are feeding P/K, or F/t. I presume you are.

Your husbandry seems good if it is what you say it is, and I don't need to see your animal if you are saying is to be true. 

Good luck man, here is another option, and opinion.

Anymore questions, just ask.


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## Meg90 (Oct 7, 2009)

Are you saying that you don't believe in supplementation?

How can you tell someone NOT to supplement their animal? I think that's realllllllly bad advice. Do you believe in UVB bulbs? In Ca powder? Do you dust the food of your young tortoise, or the crickets of your red eye frog?

Yes, the animals are not in their natural environments. 

That means, as an owner, that it is OUR responsibility to make sure they have everything they need to live a healthy life. It means cod liver oil, and vitamins, and Ca powder, and artificial lighting, and yes, sometimes it means cooked food.

A tegu in the wild does not only eat rodents. That is a false statement.


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## Herplings (Oct 7, 2009)

Meg90 said:


> Are you saying that you don't believe in supplementation?
> 
> How can you tell someone NOT to supplement their animal? I think that's realllllllly bad advice. Do you believe in UVB bulbs? In Ca powder? Do you dust the food of your young tortoise, or the crickets of your red eye frog?
> 
> ...



I don't really know how to respond to this post. Do I offer my animals the care they need? Ofcorse, I have not had a reptile die on me in 13 years. I breed, reproduce and have some of the best examples of what these animals are in captivity. You can post yours, Ill post mine and we will see. :-D 
Tegus don't eat rodents in the wild.? Lmao.... Go back to your college., Keep working for that Zoo-y. =) Does your off compose college even offer the education I have? 

Infact no, I have have never used vit, for my frogs, and I have been keeping, breeding and reproducing my frogs for a long time. Same goes with Boas and Python.

I never told him not to use UVB/A and heat. I just told him that if he is worried about feeding Wal-Mart foods it is not necessary.

Use something to emulate the sun and its vit. Do your research and see what your Tegu eats in the wild. Keep your husbandry correct.
All the other stuff is matter of opinion and not needed. 

I understand Meg has some foundation opinions, but there has to come a time when people take exp over theory crafting. :-D


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## Meg90 (Oct 7, 2009)

You need to read alittle closer. I said tegus do not eat JUST rodents in the wild.

Ask Bobby. They need variety. He's posted about wild tegus found with grains in their stomachs, as well as protein.

You can say you have more experience than me all you want. I will give that to you----with some species. But you have only had your gu since April.

And AGAIN with the college thing. I will repeat myself ONE last time. EVEN if I wasn't going for a Zoo degree, I would still feed my Tegu turkey, and I would still use Ca powder. Sheesh. Why is it such a sore point with you? And if your education is so great, then why don't you have a career in Zoology?


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## Zilch (Oct 8, 2009)

To be honest it's not whether or not the tegu can live off of a pure rodent diet. They certainly can, rodents are a whole food, they contain a lot of the vitamins and minerals a tegu needs to survive. HOWEVER, what is not being accounted for is that wild tegus get an extremely diverse variety of food in their diet due to opportunism. If they see something dead laying around... they'll take a bite out of it. If they see some fruits or vegetables on the ground under a tree... they'll take a bite out of it. If they spot a bug wandering around nearby they'll snatch that up too. Hell if you look at the odd wild tegu pics you can even see a tegu grubbing on a fish!

Even though none of these individual *parts* of their diet is a staple per se, it does add a diverse intake of nutrients that wouldn't be found in a single prey item and these animals have evolved to function this way.

Captivity, no matter how well you think you have your habitat set up will *never* be the same as their natural environment. A humidified room will never mimic the moisture of dew laden grass and damp mud in the morning. Heat and UV lamps will never completely mimic the sun, and one of the main reasons we use cod liver oil is to supplement D3 in a more natural way than adding a chemical synthesized in a lab to aid in calcium absorption. The other part of this is that their exposure to the natural sun and ability to thermo regulate in the wild directly correlates to their ability to digest, while we do our best it will never be perfect and the small amount of oil helps the process along.

To say a tegu could not subsist on rodents alone is false, but to say a tegu shouldn't be supplemented or given a diversified diet is just bad advice. Reptiles are hardy animals and can tolerate a *lot* health concessions, just because one has never wasted away under your care doesn't mean they're absolutely in the best health they could possibly be in.


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## VARNYARD (Oct 8, 2009)

Has everyone on this thread read the rules of this forum? 

And Meg, I could not agree more.


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## teguboy77 (Oct 8, 2009)

Well i to agree with meg90,i mean in captivity a hole pray item is a fine staple item for tegu's along with variety like boiled eggs, also tegus are known to raid birds nest from what i read and heard. Ground turkey is fine along with some insects and fruit,plus quail,chicken peeps.Now this is what i feed my tegus.Also the calcium and multivitamins are fine to used a couple times a week along with good uvb lighting and heating unless kept outside then you get everything natural from the sun.Now this is the way i've kept my tegus the last 9 years.


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