# Tegu Toe Twitch



## Rex Taylor (Sep 21, 2016)

Hi, I'm new to this site so I dont know if this is in the right spot. I bought a Tegu recently and I just notice as I write this his large toe on his back legs twitch. The twitches aren't very noticeable, I noticed them while observing him for quite a while and only caught by chance. They only happen when his big toes are not planted on the ground, like when he basks his back legs hang off his rock, or if he is standing still. I dust all his food and his temps are what they should be for a tegu. I just really need to know if he's getting sick or if this is just something that he does.


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## Roadkill (Sep 22, 2016)

Early sign of hypocalcemia. Dusting is typically insufficient for tegus' calcium needs.


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## dpjm (Sep 23, 2016)

> I dust all his food



What are you feeding him that you are dusting?


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## Walter1 (Sep 23, 2016)

My choice of the word dusting, even heavily, doe come off as light, no pun intended. Dust in the form of blizzard, especially when growing, much of which is done in the first year of life.


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

dpjm said:


> What are you feeding him that you are dusting?


Everything i give him is dusted. I dust his crickets, the meat he eats (in the rare time he gets it). So idk what else can fix it


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

Roadkill said:


> Early sign of hypocalcemia. Dusting is typically insufficient for tegus' calcium needs.


So what can i do to give him more in order to keep him healthy?


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## dpjm (Sep 23, 2016)

Answer these questions to start:

1) Do you use a UVB lamp? Give some details about the type and how you have it placed.
2) What are you feeding that you are dusting with calcium? Give some details about your tegu's diet.

These answers will give a starting point to figure out the issue.


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

dpjm said:


> Answer these questions to start:
> 
> 1) Do you use a UVB lamp? Give some details about the type and how you have it placed.
> 2) What are you feeding that you are dusting with calcium? Give some details about your tegu's diet.
> ...


1) He does have a UVB, its been there for awhile so i got a replacement and putting it in today, the lamp is in a standard fixture on the cool side of the tank, since that's how i saw images of the setup online prior to getting him (If it helps to post an image or something of the tank i can do that)
2) His staple diet is crickets with meat thrown in, he also eats wax and superworms whenever i can get them. I've tried introducing eggs to his diet since it said that Tegus like eggs, but he rejected it.


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## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2016)

"My choice of the word dusting, even heavily, doe come off as light, no pun intended. Dust in the form of blizzard, especially when growing, much of which is done in the first year of life."

I'd even say this is not enough. For most of the types of food being offered in this case, it shouldn't even be thought of a dusting. Ever deep fry some chicken? Where you batter the heck out of the item? That's what needs to be accomplished. Seriously. Moisten the food item up first, roll it in calcium supplement.

"He does have a UVB..."
As dpjm has stipulated, there are different types, different strengths, and depending on how they've been utilized with your animal, can have an impact ranging from nothing to deadly. Considering you're saying "it's been there for awhile" this is basically saying there's a good chance it's doing nothing.

"the lamp is in a standard fixture"
Standard for what? A fluorescent lamp? A mercury vapour basking lamp? A 1000W metal halide lamp? The devil is in the details, once again, you aren't supplying us with anything we can really make a statement on whether you're doing good or bad.

You say you got the tegu "recently". What does this mean?
"his temps are what they should be for a tegu" - I don't mean to sound critical, but when people give this sort of info, it usually means either they don't know what they're doing, or they have some inkling what they're doing but want an answer that doesn't implicate their husbandry. Thing is, they're seeking an answer that to be answered honestly and correctly, need to give up this information. For calcium to be properly metabolised, the animal needs good health. For good health, one of the things that is important is access to good temperatures. This doesn't exactly mean a specific heat, it means access to a good range so that the animal can properly thermoregulate. This means different ranges for different tegus, related to size, sex, and general activity level. Vitamin D3 production is more efficient at elevated temperatures, but this is impacted by the fact that it's taking place in a living entity, which means there's a thermal limit that is healthy. It's production also relies upon the health of the tissues of the skin, the kidney, the liver, and the gut. Issues that can affect any one of these isolated organs can lead to impact of the vitamin D3/calcium biological pathway.

When you say your tegu has the temps it should be, how are you measuring this? Are you measuring the environment? Or are you measuring the body temperature of your tegu?


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

Roadkill said:


> "My choice of the word dusting, even heavily, doe come off as light, no pun intended. Dust in the form of blizzard, especially when growing, much of which is done in the first year of life."
> 
> I'd even say this is not enough. For most of the types of food being offered in this case, it shouldn't even be thought of a dusting. Ever deep fry some chicken? Where you batter the heck out of the item? That's what needs to be accomplished. Seriously. Moisten the food item up first, roll it in calcium supplement.
> 
> ...


The temp of the cage is what i researched it to be, about 95-100 in the basking spot, and about 75-80 degrees in the cool spot, his humidity is about 80 to 90%, the UVB like i said i replaced, its a 26 watt bulb (brand new), The food is almost completely covered in supplementation. When i say recently, I meant about 2 or 3 months ago and hes still pretty young.


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## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2016)

Too cold. While that temperature is what you want the tegu to achieve as a body temperature, offering that as the limit means (if you understand thermodynamics) it will take an extremely long time to achieve that temperature. With smaller tegus you don't want to offer too high of a high temp as they could possibly overheat, but they still need to be able to thermoregulate efficiently. Try to get the basking spot as 110. Cool side I'd raise about 5 degrees.

UVB, 26 watt bulb. Great, that still tells us practically squat. At that wattage, it basically limits it to a FLUORESCENT bulb. But other than this.....
Is it a compact fluorescent? Is it a straight bulb? A T5? T8? T12? What supposed output of UVB is it? High? Low? What distance is it from the tegu? You say a standard fixture, exactly what does that mean? Does it have a reflector? Is there anything between the bulb and the tegu?

What "supplementation" are you using? With invertebrates you basically need to gut-load them too.


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## dpjm (Sep 23, 2016)

> He does have a UVB, its been there for awhile so i got a replacement and putting it in today, the lamp is in a standard fixture on the cool side of the tank, since that's how i saw images of the setup online prior to getting him (If it helps to post an image or something of the tank i can do that)



Well, if you got him very recently then it is a problem that began before you acquired him. If you got him sort of recently then the problem is with your set up. Either not enough UVB or not enough calcium or both. So, yes, we need some more detailed answers in order to help you.

What type of lamp is it (brand, type, wattage)? How far is the distance between the lamp and the substrate?
Is the light passing through a screen top lid or are there any other obstacles between the bulb and the substrate?
Does your tegu ever spend any time under it, if so how much?

Normally I would put the UV lamp in the basking area in combination with whatever heat lights you are using. This more resembles a natural environment, where the warmest temperatures and highest UV levels are in the same location (in the full sun) and same for the cooler temps and low UV radiation (in the shade).



> His staple diet is crickets with meat thrown in, he also eats wax and superworms whenever i can get them. I've tried introducing eggs to his diet since it said that Tegus like eggs, but he rejected it.



All of those foods are bad for calcium if not supplemented. An omnivorous lizard's diet should be somehere around 1.25 % calcium on a dry matter basis. Unsupplemented crickets only offer around 0.10 - 0.15 % calcium on a dry matter basis. It takes a lot of calcium supplement to make up this difference, I think that even if you get them coated to saturation it's still not enough. Superworms are even worse because, although they may naturally have a bit more calcium and a bit less phosphorus, you can't get much supplement to stick to them, not even close to enough. You can increase the calcium content of the crickets by feeding them a very high calcium gut load starting a couple of days before they are fed. The extra calcium content from gut loaded insects comes only from the gut contents of the insect, they do not store much calcium in their bodies even when on a high calcium diet. Note that this type of high calcium diet is not really healthy for the cricket itself so only use as a gut load two days prior to feeding out.

Meat is really low in calcium as well by itself, raw chicken breast has 0.04 % calcium on a dry matter basis. But it isn't just low in calcium, it is very low in almost everything - meat is essentially protein, fat, and water with very few minerals. It really isn't good tegu food, even if you supplement it with calcium. It would be a good idea to look into buying ground whole animal prey that includes the meat, bones, and organs. Here is an example of a place that sells it:
https://hare-today.com/category/whole_prey
Also get some mice/rats, any whole animal prey. I use rats and herring mostly. Millipedes are apparently really over the top high in calcium if you have access to those. Any type of crustacean will be high in calcium. Insects, not so much.


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## Walter1 (Sep 23, 2016)

I could have overlooked this, if so I reiterate above suggestion that the light's distance above the tegu is an important piece of information.


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

dpjm said:


> Well, if you got him very recently then it is a problem that began before you acquired him. If you got him sort of recently then the problem is with your set up. Either not enough UVB or not enough calcium or both. So, yes, we need some more detailed answers in order to help you.
> 
> What type of lamp is it (brand, type, wattage)? How far is the distance between the lamp and the substrate?
> Is the light passing through a screen top lid or are there any other obstacles between the bulb and the substrate?
> ...


Thank you for the food advise, The heat bulb is a 26 watt 100 UVB tropical from ExoTerra, the light is about 8-9 inches from the very bottom of the cage, it is located on the cool side of the tank. Again, if it would help to show an image of the tank i can take a quick picture of it and upload it here. The tanks enviroment (if that is case important) typically has a 80-90% humidity, the basking is normally 100 degrees, sometimes a bit higher if the room temp is up from what it is normally. Is there any other info you would need to help out with making my tegu healthy again?


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

Walter1 said:


> I could have overlooked this, if so I reiterate above suggestion that the light's distance above the tegu is an important piece of information.


about 8-9 inches from the very bottom of the cage, but theres this large fake tree he spents some time in, that brings him to about only 3 inches away from the light. Typically though hes on the ground so its about that 8 or 9 inch range


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## dpjm (Sep 23, 2016)

The distance of 8-9 inches should be fine. But that should be about as close as he should get to it, especially on a new bulb. When you say he can access 3 inches from the bulb; that should be one of the distances you are concerned with, that is, the closest distance he can get to it. Too much UVB radiation is bad too. There is an ideal distance away from the bulb and I would guess that to be around 7-9 inches from the new bulb. You may lower the bulb a bit as it wears out, I've never had a problem doing that. As long as you don't see black spots in the bulb it should be safe, but if you see black spots stop using it. I'd replace the bulb in 6 months, ET has a quick deterioration rate.

So again, your issue is that your tegu has a mild case of secondary hyperparathyroidism: there is not enough calcium in the diet so the parathyroid gland is producing extra parathyroid hormone, which causes calcium to be removed from the major calcium storage units called bones. This is in response to low blood calcium, which happens either 1) when calcium is deficient in the diet or 2) when vitamin D levels are not sufficient enough to allow absorption of enough calcium from the gut, even if calcium is fed in sufficient amounts. This is more commonly referred to as metabolic bone disease (MBD).

Like said already, you need to up your temps throughout, basking and cool side. As you increase the temperature you will notice a drop in relative humidity. In your case this is ok because 80-90 % is on the high end already.

I would move the UV lamp to the basking side.

I would gut load your crickets with a high calcium formula. Researchers have shown that a gut load formula consisting of 12 % calcium on a dry matter basis fed to the crickets for at least 48 hours can bring crickets to a 1.7 : 1 calcium phosphorus ratio, which is perfect. Here is the research including a recipe for the gut load. https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/930

I would get him into whole vertebrate prey as quickly as possible, as soon as he is able to consume something like a weaned mouse, that is a good point to start on the vertebrates in terms of prey size. These are much better staples than insects unless you are on the ball with gut loading.

I would also take him to the vet if you can, they can do blood tests to see how severe the SHPT is. Sometimes they administer calcium injections, which is something you can't do or approximate at home.


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

dpjm said:


> The distance of 8-9 inches should be fine. But that should be about as close as he should get to it, especially on a new bulb. When you say he can access 3 inches from the bulb; that should be one of the distances you are concerned with, that is, the closest distance he can get to it. Too much UVB radiation is bad too. There is an ideal distance away from the bulb and I would guess that to be around 7-9 inches from the new bulb. You may lower the bulb a bit as it wears out, I've never had a problem doing that. As long as you don't see black spots in the bulb it should be safe, but if you see black spots stop using it. I'd replace the bulb in 6 months, ET has a quick deterioration rate.
> 
> So again, your issue is that your tegu has a mild case of secondary hyperparathyroidism: there is not enough calcium in the diet so the parathyroid gland is producing extra parathyroid hormone, which causes calcium to be removed from the major calcium storage units called bones. This is in response to low blood calcium, which happens either 1) when calcium is deficient in the diet or 2) when vitamin D levels are not sufficient enough to allow absorption of enough calcium from the gut, even if calcium is fed in sufficient amounts. This is more commonly referred to as metabolic bone disease (MBD).
> 
> ...


Ok thank you for the adivse, ill get on this right away to get him back to health. I had a question regarding the crustacean comment, should these food items, such as shrimp, be deshelled or should he be able to eat these with the shell?


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## Walter1 (Sep 23, 2016)

Rex Taylor said:


> Ok thank you for the adivse, ill get on this right away to get him back to health. I had a question regarding the crustacean comment, should these food items, such as shrimp, be deshelled or should he be able to eat these with the shell?


Really try to make whole prey items of the appropriate-sized rodent kind the staple of its diet. A complete meal requiring additional calcium in powder form.


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## dpjm (Sep 23, 2016)

Shrimp: well, that is one I don't know about. I know that deshelled shrimp are low in calcium but I don't know if the exoskeleton of this particular crustacean contains a lot of calcium. I know it has plenty of chitin but that can in some animals have a lot of calcium integrated into it (millipedes, isopods) or sometimes not (most insects). I don't have any data on shrimp exoskeletons in terms of mineral content. I would avoid it anyway because unless you are catching it yourself, it is probably farmed and therefore filthy. Whole crayfish is a better example of a good crustacean to use.


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 23, 2016)

dpjm said:


> Shrimp: well, that is one I don't know about. I know that deshelled shrimp are low in calcium but I don't know if the exoskeleton of this particular crustacean contains a lot of calcium. I know it has plenty of chitin but that can in some animals have a lot of calcium integrated into it (millipedes, isopods) or sometimes not (most insects). I don't have any data on shrimp exoskeletons in terms of mineral content. I would avoid it anyway because unless you are catching it yourself, it is probably farmed and therefore filthy. Whole crayfish is a better example of a good crustacean to use.


Thank you again for the help, I've already reset the lights up to where the basking temp will go up, as well as put the UVB in the basking area, rather then on the cool side. I'll be going to the store tomorrow (since its night where im at), to get the stuff you recommended to feed him. I'll post again later if he is getting better


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## ophidia (Sep 24, 2016)

As far as calcium, I've discovered that the "All Living Things" brand of hermit crab calcium powder at PetSmart is just calcium carbonate, and it's super, super fine-- even finer than the Rep-Cal superfine calcium. It just cakes on the slightly damp peach fuzzies that are my girls staple (like breading chicken as noted above) with very little moisture needed.. I would also expect that it may be more easily absorbed, since it is so fine. It might be worth checking out.


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## dpjm (Sep 25, 2016)

Just be careful about calcium supplements. If it not stated otherwise on the packaging, the likely source of calcium is oyster shell. Oyster shells have been shown to have a small lead contamination issue. It is not known, of course, the effect that this may have on your tegu, but I usually like to be cautious with heavy metals and avoid them as much as possible. Zoo Med calcium supplements are also very fine and are not derived from oyster shell. Widely available as well.


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## ophidia (Sep 25, 2016)

It doesn't have the gray color that I've noticed in ground oyster shell based calcium supplements before, and seems to be a very fine, light, fluffy white powder. But, since it doesn't state the source on the label, there's no way to really know. I'll take your advice and order some Zoo Med calcium.


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## Rex Taylor (Sep 25, 2016)

His condition has already gotten better. I fed him the whole prey that was recommended, and that seemed to help a crap-load. The twitch is almost nonexistent. It's to the point where when I watched him to make sure what his condition was he only twitched once all day, and the rest his back toes were completely still when he was resting. Thank you guys for the help, ill continue with the recommendations to make sure this doesnt happen again.


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## dpjm (Sep 25, 2016)

> It doesn't have the gray color that I've noticed in ground oyster shell based calcium supplements before, and seems to be a very fine, light, fluffy white powder. But, since it doesn't state the source on the label, there's no way to really know. I'll take your advice and order some Zoo Med calcium.



Yes, calcium carbonate should be white, if you look at any pictures of pure calcium carbonate online, they are all bright white, not grey. The product made by ALT that you described sounds exactly like the Zoo Med product, bright white and fluffy. I would guess then that they are similar products. Zoo Med is made by precipitation, ALT probably is too. I don't know why they wouldn't state it on the label, it's a good selling feature. The oyster shell calcium is grey like you say.

I would contact the company and they might tell you the source of the calcium. Do that before you order anything else. I bet it is fine. Even if it is sourced from oyster shells, if it is a precipitate, it should be pretty pure.


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## Walter1 (Sep 25, 2016)

Rex Taylor said:


> His condition has already gotten better. I fed him the whole prey that was recommended, and that seemed to help a crap-load. The twitch is almost nonexistent. It's to the point where when I watched him to make sure what his condition was he only twitched once all day, and the rest his back toes were completely still when he was resting. Thank you guys for the help, ill continue with the recommendations to make sure this doesnt happen again.


Good job. We all aim to get better in our husbandry.


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## dpjm (Sep 25, 2016)

> His condition has already gotten better. I fed him the whole prey that was recommended, and that seemed to help a crap-load. The twitch is almost nonexistent. It's to the point where when I watched him to make sure what his condition was he only twitched once all day, and the rest his back toes were completely still when he was resting. Thank you guys for the help, ill continue with the recommendations to make sure this doesnt happen again.



Great to hear. The toe twitch is a muscle tremor that occurs when calcium in the blood is low. Muscles cannot operate properly when calcium is low, it is a crucial element in muscle contraction. A good dose of calcium is what they need. In more severe cases a vet might order calcium injections. At the toe twitch stage, which is relatively minor, there should not have been significant amount of calcium released from bones yet or I think you would have noticed much more obvious symptoms.


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## Walter1 (Sep 25, 2016)

dpjm said:


> Great to hear. The toe twitch is a muscle tremor that occurs when calcium in the blood is low. Muscles cannot operate properly when calcium is low, it is a crucial element in muscle contraction. A good dose of calcium is what they need. In more severe cases a vet might order calcium injections. At the toe twitch stage, which is relatively minor, there should not have been significant amount of calcium released from bones yet or I think you would have noticed much more obvious symptoms.


Dpjm and Ophidia- thanks for insights/knowledge.


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## Alex_villela_83 (Sep 25, 2016)

Hey guys, I just got my B&W Argentine Tegu about 1 month ago. He is said to be about 3 months old. The problem I am having is that he is not seeming to get tame at all. I hold every every other day if not every day and for at least 25 minutes minimum. What should I do to make him tame? When I try to get him out of the cage he will whip his tail or will just run away. He hasn't ever really tried to bite me.
When did any of your guys tegus get tame? It's obviously my first time so I don't know if he/she should be tamed by three months or not ?


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