# Now Taco is biting rocks....



## M4A2E4 (May 31, 2011)

Odd behavioral change today.
Taco was walking around the room as normal. He tried blueberries the first time today and cantaloup yesterday. He seemed to like the latter over the former. As normal he would wander back and forth, crawl on my lap, get bored of me petting him, and then go back into his cage. When he got back into his cage today though, he started clawing at and biting his basking rock. He was biting it very, very hard; I could hear his teeth scratch against the surface and I was afraid he would break his teeth if he kept that up. I gently scooped him up and moved him over a bit. He simply resumed what he was doing. Then I did it again, and tried burying the edges of his rock to deter him from doing that again. Out of the middle of nowhere he lunged at me and tried to bite me. He missed, but then started to undulate his tail again like in one of my earlier threads. This time the notion of this being a threat display made more sense in context with what had just happened.

As I'm writing this he seems to go into interludes of trying to eat his rock, and then sleeping on it. Is Taco going through "tegu puberty"? And if so, how long does this usually last?

I was going to buy supplies to build him a permanent enclosure today (since his 40 gallon long is too small at this point), but I'm almost afraid to do so since, if he's going through random mood swings at right now, if it's a good idea to change his enclosure.

Also for the past week whenever he walks around on the floor he swings his tail from side to side in wide arcs, like he's trying to wipe the floor with his tail. I can't tell if he's doing this to help him shed the skin on his tail, or if he's scenting the room, or something else.


Oh, and he's about 10 months old at this point.


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## Orion (May 31, 2011)

My female Tegus start biting this white plastic thing in my bathroom and its a clear sigh that they are hungry. Most of the time they want mice, I will offer other things but they seem to REALLY want mice. My female named Tiny starts eating rocks and sticks when she gets hungry and she is outside.


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## herpgirl2510 (May 31, 2011)

I would keeping an eye on the undulating in case he is mpacted. Is he going to the bathroom ok.


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## Rhetoric (May 31, 2011)

It could be a puberty thing or for whatever reason he could just be moody. I've gone through a few phases with my tegus being moody. Those periods didn't seem to last very long though. 

I would think the tail thing to be a scenting thing.


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## M4A2E4 (May 31, 2011)

herpgirl2510 said:


> I would keeping an eye on the undulating in case he is mpacted. Is he going to the bathroom ok.



Not long after writing my original post Taco hopped back out of his cage and took a huge dump on my carpet... so no impaction here!


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## Toby_H (May 31, 2011)

A 10 month old Tegu in a 40 Gal aquarium... 

It really really bugs me when people keep their Tegu in obviously too small of an enclosure and then claim "Tegu puberty" is the problem...

Your Tegu is at the beginning stage of an unbelievable growth spurt, he knows it... why don't you? prepare for it!


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## M4A2E4 (May 31, 2011)

Toby_H said:


> A 10 month old Tegu in a 40 Gal aquarium...
> 
> It really really bugs me when people keep their Tegu in obviously too small of an enclosure and then claim "Tegu puberty" is the problem...
> 
> Your Tegu is at the beginning stage of an unbelievable growth spurt, he knows it... why don't you? prepare for it!



I know  
I have plans and a list of supplies needed to build him an 8x4x2 (or taller) cage as soon as possible (within the next few days). My arrangements to pick up the supplies today got... torpedoed. In the mean time I leave the lid of his cage open for as long as I can (for about 7 hours each day) so he can hop out of and back into his cage at will. I was hoping this arrangement would be just a stop-gap, but it has been going on longer than I originally planned.


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## herpgirl2510 (Jun 1, 2011)

I missed the part abbut the 40 gallon. You need to build that enclosure right away this weekend. It is not that hard to do he is proababy extremely stressed in the small quarters.


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## M4A2E4 (Jun 1, 2011)

If it is any compensation, the tank is a 40 gallon breeder, not a 40 gallon long as I previously said. Greater overall floor space, but still not large enough anyway. Maybe slightly less not-large-enough?
I'm trying to build as simple a cage as possible since I'm going to need to build the same thing again at the end of the summer at my college apartment. In the mean time I'm hoping that giving him the freedom to roam about and poop on my rug will hold him off for just a few more days.


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## M4A2E4 (Jun 6, 2011)

I am very pleased to report that Taco's new 4ftx8ft cage is now complete. It took me a lot longer than I planned to... getting the stuff that is. The cage itself only took two hours to build (thanks to my uncle; who is a skilled carpenter. Could not have done it without him). 

The pictures are from my cell phone, which can hardly be considered good quality.


Notice the size disparity between his old and new enclosure.







And here he is eating. I don't normally feed him in enclosure, but it helped convince him to stroll in on his own.


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## herpgirl2510 (Jun 6, 2011)

Looks great I am sure he loves his new digs.


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## Kebechet (Jun 6, 2011)

You didn't mention if you lined the wood with anything..so I figure I'd ask. If you haven't, you need to, otherwise the wood will rot from the humidity.


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## M4A2E4 (Jun 8, 2011)

Kebechet said:


> You didn't mention if you lined the wood with anything..so I figure I'd ask. If you haven't, you need to, otherwise the wood will rot from the humidity.



The wood is not lined with anything yet, this was done both on accident and on purpose (if that made any sense). I didn't remember to line the wood until after the cage had been built, but at that point I concluded two things: 1. Taco would only be here for the next two months before we move to my college apartment (where I will built him a second cage beforehand). The wood shouldn't rot due to humidity before then, and the bottom is lined with, how do you describe it? blue medical cloth that seems to be water-resistant. After he moves out my parents and I will add a proper coating. And 2. It was more critical that Taco be moved into a suitably large enclosure ASAP before waiting another day or two for the wood coating to fume out, considering how, due to reason number one, actually getting the wood coated at this point in time was not of critical importance.


As for his behavior, it got slightly better but is now considerably worse. Yesterday I could pet him and he could at least pretend to ignore me (he didn't seem to relish it like he has before), but today when I touch him he either lunges at me or gets into a defensive stance. Today was also the first day since I got him where he seemed disturbed by my being around while outside of his cage. I don't think this is because of new enclosure stress (if anything he is probably happier now), and I don't think its a change in his diet since I did that last week. Is this just tegu teenage years? How long does this usually last? 

Actually just now I leaned over towards his cage to look at him and he FLIPPED OUT. That has NEVER happened before. Well, it has when he was little and just woke up in the morning (my "morning grouchiness" thread. This seems different. I really, REALLY hope this doesn't last long. I just fed my new Rubber Boa last night too, so now I don't have any reptile friends to interact with


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