# B/W Argentine Tegu Feeding (Hatchling)



## TeguZen (Jun 23, 2016)

I'm new to Tegu's, have the first coming
while reading about feeding, i see that they have quite a variety of food options.
my question is in regards to fish; I ran across a references where the tegu was eating a small fish, like goldfish or something along those lines, i'm not considering breeding goldfish but thought hmm, i've seen my local pet store on occasion has a dead fish of some sort in the aquarium, i was wondering if it was ok to take a fish that died from unknown cause and feed to a tegu (of any age), heck, i might even visit the various 'fairs' on their last day and see what 'leftovers' they have
the guy at the local reptile place had mentioned not to feed a mouse caught in a mouse trap due to lack of knowledge of said mouses diet, was just wondering if that ideology should be applied to dead fish at the pet store.

oh, otherwise, is there an easy self sustaining method of food, i might change my mind and reconsider breeding goldfish, lol or little mice

also, as a new hatchling, how many crickets should be given at feeding, i've heard as many as he wants, but I'm curious how many that might be, is it 10 or 100 as a possibility, and do they go in live, and he hunts/catches them?


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## dpjm (Jun 23, 2016)

> while reading about feeding, i see that they have quite a variety of food options.



That's because they require quite a variety of foods. Try to use as many of those options as you can.

This is one case where you want to listen to the pet store owner's advice. If you don't know what the feeder animal was fed or any history of it, then it's not ok to feed to your tegu. The fish could have died because it had some horrible bacterial infection, who knows? High potential for foodborne illness.

The health of your tegu will depend greatly on what you feed it. Make sure you are getting your food from a good source, i.e., not dead fish from a pet store or dead mice caught in a trap. Tegus are not garbage disposals, they actually require a really high quality diet or they will not thrive.

Don't concentrate on feeding him as cheaply as possible, to give him what he needs will cost you some money, unless you are a breeder of multiple animal species and a gardener.

Crickets are normally fed out live, for a few reasons. Chasing crickets is good exercise and is a natural behavior that they may not experience in captivity as much as in the wild. This type of thing (called enrichment) is important and often neglected. Another reason is that dead crickets don't move and the tegu might not have interest. Maybe the best thing about live crickets is that their movements are huge attention grabbers, unlike some roaches and worms. 

My tegu hasn't eaten crickets for 11 years so I can't recall how many they can eat. But it's more than 10 and less than 100 in a given day. They probably won't eat crickets for long because crickets are small and tegus grow up fast. Look around for a supplier of dubia cockroaches, they get much larger and your tegu will graduate to that size quicker than you think.

You made a good decision to come to the forum, there's plenty of knowledgeable keepers on here and you will get good advice. Keep the questions coming.


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## TeguZen (Jun 24, 2016)

yah, after some discussions and more research, i've decided against any type of feeder breeding, and kind of exaclty what you inferred, i cant breed enough variety for good diet. although i might take up worms in a couple flavors, just as snacks not as staple food
and yes, i've came to that conclusion as well as to feeding dead fish from a pet store, and certainly not feeding it rats caught in the house rat trap.
the pet store i'm getting from is quite nice, and very ready to impart advise. its just the advise everywhere differs of course, making it hard
for example, the store, we will call JP, feeds to his tegu hatchlings crickets and an occasional pinkie (live), the one he has now is 'store pet', he said maybe 10/12 crickets or 3 or 4 small/med dubai roaches, the dubai roaches being preferred. JP feeds all their reptiles 'live' foods, no pre-killed
so, that being said, JP will not have my Tegu long enough to really develop a 'habit', if the preference is 'live' food, pinkies and later on small mice, will require me to visit the store once a week to get the live food, whereas frozen pinkies, i can have a dozen in the freezer at any given time, and maintain a consistent diet., so there's my reasoning behind pre-killed food as opposed to live. I guess i'm also wondering if he will even try to eat live mice after getting used to frozen/thawed.
so, the current plan is figuring 10-15 crickets a day, throwing in a pinkie every other day, probably alternating crickets, dubai roaches, and superworms
and of course allowing various opportunistic foods


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## TeguZen (Jun 24, 2016)

are fruitflies desired, i'm looking at what is available from Fluker's (http://www.flukerfarms.com/live-crickets.aspx), their pricing seems reasonable and includes shipping, the flies look to last a while, they have crickets, roaches and worms too, is that a good place, are the prices reasonable in the experience of others here on the board.


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## Walter1 (Jun 24, 2016)

TeguZen said:


> are fruitflies desired, i'm looking at what is available from Fluker's (http://www.flukerfarms.com/live-crickets.aspx), their pricing seems reasonable and includes shipping, the flies look to last a while, they have crickets, roaches and worms too, is that a good place, are the prices reasonable in the experience of others here on the board.


Teguzen- Your tegu must be fed as often as it wishes. This is its majot growtb phase. Think varietydusted withcalcium Frozen/thawed pinks, high quality wet dog food, raw liver, gizzards, hearts, etc.


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## TeguZen (Jun 25, 2016)

thanks walter, yes, i understand the feeding often and as much as he want, especially to help growth, that why i was thinking of breeding some type of feeder, just to make sure i always have food on hand
heck i dont even have him yet and just nervous to a degree, how to feed live vs pre-killed, hand fed non hand fed
currently i'm wanting to hand feed live, crickets/roaches, every few days going to the pet store for a live rodent, the daily house food thrown in as extra or primary whichever he chooses, and want to try and feed frozen/thawed pinkis/fuzzies so that i can keep plenty of those in the freezer, something along those lines is what i figure


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## Walter1 (Jun 25, 2016)

For rodents, consider frozen/thawed in bulk. I use rodentpro but plenty other good vendors.


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## TeguZen (Jun 25, 2016)

thanks, that place does have pretty good pricing, even after shipping, for rodents
so, for baby tegu, its likely to be 1 small pinky every other day, so 100 pinkies should last about 6-7 months, is that about right, are they ok frozen for that long? or should i be thinking more than 1 every other day, or bigger pinkies?


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## Walter1 (Jun 25, 2016)

TeguZen said:


> thanks, that place does have pretty good pricing, even after shipping, for rodents
> so, for baby tegu, its likely to be 1 small pinky every other day, so 100 pinkies should last about 6-7 months, is that about right, are they ok frozen for that long? or should i be thinking more than 1 every other day, or bigger pinkies?


I've not raised them since hatchlings but I'd advise calcium dusting them and using them as a significant portion of its diet, along with ground turkey, high quality dogfood, entrails, and some fruit. Mine love strawberries.


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## TeguZen (Jun 26, 2016)

so do 1 pinky a day? more?
my wife likes turkey, so ground turkey wont be an issue, the tegu can have my portion for sure. wet dog food i'm guessing, not dry, i have a husky that eats the costco brand dry. fruits, i'm sure that wont be a problem, boiled eggs are typically available in this house too.


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## Walter1 (Jun 26, 2016)

Yes, wet dog food. 

For a hatchling, provide enough pinks to fill her one day, say 3-5? Next day a blob of Ground turkey also dusted with calcium, another day high quality wet dog food, another day hard-boiled eggs. like that.


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## TeguZen (Jun 26, 2016)

oh, 3-5 on a single day, but not every day, i guess thats where i'm getting confused
in otherwords, if i get 100 pinkies from RodentPro I could feed them all within a few months..??..at a rate of 3-5 every few days, or maybe 10/week average??
is there any food that should be given/offered every day?


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## Walter1 (Jun 26, 2016)

Exactly. 

Everyday food is up to you. Others to chime in, but I think a constant cycle of several kinds of food works with an emphasis on whole prey (= rodents) of appropriate size.


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## dpjm (Jun 26, 2016)

TeguZen,

I'm going to make a suggestion to you that is a bit different than what you've been told about so far. I'll tell you why. Pinkie mice and normal ground meat both have the same downfall - lack of minerals. For pinkie mice, it's because they are newborn, haven't eaten any real food, and just haven't developed much. For normal ground meat, e.g., turkey, it's because it is just muscle, not bones or organs where much of the minerals in the animal are found.

For older tegus, this is not really an issue, you can find a good variety of well-developed (adult) whole prey items for protein and minerals. But for hatchlings, as you are getting, there is not much selection of well-developed whole prey items and so you are given the choice of using underdeveloped ones (pinkie mice) or ground meat, which you can present in any size you need. Again, there is the issue with ground meat of being just muscle tissue. But there is a much better alternative to normal ground meat in the form of ground whole prey. They just grind up pretty much the whole animal minus probably the skin and digestive tract. So you are getting muscle, bones, and organs all ground together. They market it mostly for dogs and cats, but it will suit a tegu very nicely as well.

Here is a link to Hare Today, the ground whole rabbit product. They probably have other types of meats too, just make sure they are whole prey. But rabbit is a good choice. I would most highly recommend using a couple varieties of this type of ground meat rather than pinkie mice or ground turkey as staples in the diet. You can use pinkie mice as treats (for training, if you choose to) but they are too lacking in important minerals and in protein to be considered a regular staple in the diet.
https://hare-today.com/product/raw_pet_food/ground_rabbitbonesorgans_1_lb_fine_ground


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## Walter1 (Jun 26, 2016)

dpjm said:


> TeguZen,
> 
> I'm going to make a suggestion to you that is a bit different than what you've been told about so far. I'll tell you why. Pinkie mice and normal ground meat both have the same downfall - lack of minerals. For pinkie mice, it's because they are newborn, haven't eaten any real food, and just haven't developed much. For normal ground meat, e.g., turkey, it's because it is just muscle, not bones or organs where much of the minerals in the animal are found.
> 
> ...


Yes.


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## TeguZen (Jun 26, 2016)

hmm, your right, i hadnt heard that yet, i will look into it for sure


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## Dee-Dee Idrais (Jun 27, 2016)

So this is lunch-time at my house. When I don't feed mice and rat pups or chick, they get chicken, gizzards and hearts, cherries, grapes, papaya, strawberries, blueberries, quail eggs.......Veggies I hide in the ground turkey lol
You'll need the same variety just smaller portions.


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## TeguZen (Jun 27, 2016)

cool, i think i recall seeing packages of heart/gizzards at safeway quite often


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## TeguZen (Jun 27, 2016)

oh, on occasion i see pictures or such of a tegu eating raw egg, do you put the egg in whole, or crack it for them, i guess that question applies to raw or boiled?


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## Walter1 (Jun 27, 2016)

I don't include the shell.

Raw egg is very hard for them to refuse.


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## dpjm (Jun 27, 2016)

Small amounts of raw egg are ok. There are a couple issues with raw egg. 1) Normal eggs that you buy in a supermarket are not ok to eat raw, they need to be cooked. If you are going to use raw eggs, go buy some from a trusted farmer running a small operation. 2) A protein called avidin is pleniful in raw egg whites. Avidin binds strongly to biotin (Vitamin B7) and can cause a biotin deficiency. The binding capacity of avidin is reduced when it is subject to heat, so cooking the egg whites reduces this problem. The odd raw egg shouldn't be a problem, but if I were to use eggs on a regular basis, I would cook the whites and leave the yolk raw. Definitely remove the shell.


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## Dee-Dee Idrais (Jun 27, 2016)

I don't feed raw chicken eggs, I boil those and serve w/out shells. My tegus love the quail eggs and those they ear whole and raw. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Walter1 (Jun 27, 2016)

Grocery store eggs good to coax a feeding response.


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## TeguZen (Jun 27, 2016)

all good to know
i do have a friend or two that have chickens/eggs, i'll probably ask for a box every few weeks


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