# Free ranging possible?(kept in garage)



## Donnie25 (Nov 1, 2019)

My garage is basically my new reptile room since we moved. It gets cold in the winter here so I have an oil heater going to keep it manageable and I'm going to put plastic over the windows. Possibly some heavier insulation in the future. It is pretty small(that's why we don't use it for our cars) at something like 11 ft across and maybe 25ft front to back(gotta measure!). Right now in there, I just have some inverts I've collected and my Parsons chameleon, who needs a lot of space himself.

My question is, would it be realistic to do some kind of free range for a future tegu instead of building an enclosure. It is a plain concrete garage with old paint on the ceiling(to the point it's chalky). In a year or two though I want to redo the whole thing and make it into a nice room. It would be difficult to move a large cage in that case. I would still have to set up some sort of boundaries to keep him away from the chameleon and other stuff along with providing the necessary substrate/water/lighting/etc. Which brings me to some of my main concerns... First, keeping the ambient heat where it should be. Summers are high 80s/90s and very humid, but winters average at 30 on our coldest months. I'd have a heater running to at least keep it 60-70 in the garage. Also, the humidity... which is probably the most difficult obstacle. My understanding is they need high ambient humidity. Would there be a way to do that without decorating my garage in mold lol? It'a already too high in there and I was considering a dehumidifier to bring it down.

I'm not in a major rush, but me building something with very little experience would take a longgg time. I'm not impatient enough to go in unprepared, but if this could work, it could help shave some time off the wait.

Open to any suggestion, ideas, etc!! Thanks for reading


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## Walter1 (Nov 1, 2019)

A Colombian is tropical. An Argie is temperate. For the Argie, it needs prefereable seven or eight months of access to UV and heat to 115f. Then coolness. Can you provide that?


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## Donnie25 (Nov 2, 2019)

Walter1 said:


> A Colombian is tropical. An Argie is temperate. For the Argie, it needs prefereable seven or eight months of access to UV and heat to 115f. Then coolness. Can you provide that?



I'm sure I could set up some lights to accommodate that. What about the humidity? It seems they need very high humidity. My chameleon is actually kept similar with cooler temps... he gets about 8 warm months with cool humid nights(I just fog him at night). Then for a few months temps drop to 50 for him and brumates.


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## AlphaAlpha (Nov 11, 2019)

If you think about it correctly, you should be able accomplish what you want.... 

I'd personally partition the 2 (tegu & cham) in separate places but that's just me.

I'd also partition the garage 3/4 to 1/4 so you have an enclosure to walk into and shut the door behind you before you enter your tegus enclosure, less chance of escape.Also an area to store food, bedding / substrate, etc

Also for the roof until you plan on doing a proper job just cover with pond liner or tarpaulin to catch the flakes and dust


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## Problem Child (Jan 21, 2020)

I have 3 tegus. 1argie b&w(optimus 1 1/2yrs) 1blue b&w hybrid(Megatron 1yrs) and my red(carnage 7mnts) all 3 pf them free roam tha house. Only bothered wit cage till they learned 2 trust me. I waa gonna do the same thing but it just 2 much work but total doable my cousin has tha garage set up 4 his monitor


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