# Help!! 3 Month Old Tegu Not Eating - New Tegu Owner



## Grant (May 17, 2017)

Before I start rambling and explaining everything let me run through all the necessary information:

*Kind of tegu*: Argentine Red
*Age*: 3 Months
*Size*: roughly 13~ inches, not sure of weight
*Sex*: Possible male but too early to tell
*How long have I had him?*: 7 weeks
*Brumate or hibernate?*: Too young
*Enclosure size*: 4x8x4
*Kind of substrate*: Cypress mulch mixed with eco earth
*Kind of UVB*: Zoomed 24 in. Reptisun 10.0 going across the middle and Zoomed Powersun 160w mercury vapor bulb for basking
*Basking bulb wattage*: 160w plus 75w to increase temperature
*Age of bulbs*: 7 weeks
*Distance of UVB*: Tube: 3 feet, MVB: 2 1/2 feet
*Basking and cool side temps*: Basking gets to 100 quickly then rises to 112 by the end of the day. Cool side stays around 73-78.
*What I use to measure temps*: Zoomed thermometer with probe and Accurite digital thermometer/hydrometer without probe.
*Humidity and what I use to measure it*: I never let humidity get below 55% and the highest it gets is 90%. We have to mist daily because we live in dry Colorado but we're aware of it. I use the same Accurite I mentioned above.
*What I've tried feeding*: Salmon, chicken hearts, chicken liver, chicken gizzards, ground chicken, ground turkey, hard boiled egg, raw egg, crickets, dubias, supers, canned snails, horn worms, wax worms, pinkies, and fuzzies.
*How often and when do I feed?*: Since I work nights I turn on Marshmallow's (my tegu) lights at 12 p.m. and feed him around 2-4 o'clock depending upon when I wake up. I only offer food once because he only stays out until 5 if I'm lucky.
*Supplements and brand names?*: Zoomed calcium without d3 and an attempt at National Geographic calcium with d3. As for multivitamins I use beardeddragon.co brand without d3. I also offered cod liver oil.
*How often do I offer supplements?*: Since he has never eaten every day since we got him I offered them every day just in case. The cod liver oil was only once a week though.
*Regular bowel movements?*: Yes the day after he would eat. They were always somewhat runny but it could have been from urine making it that way.
*Vet check and fecal test?*: He has never been to the vet but the vet understood how skittish they can be as babies so I brought in a stool sample and it was tested. It had no traces of parasites.
*Does my tegu share its enclosure with another tegu?*: Nope.

Okay I think that covers it as far as questions go. Now for the issue. Marshmallow was eating a decent amount for the first two weeks we had him (by decent amount I mean about 3-5 cut chunks of salmon or two pinkies per meal) and then slowly ate less and less until about five days ago when he completely started denying food all together. He would even go crazy over pinkies and won't eat those. Nothing really has changed in our routine other than I changed the light schedule from being on at 10:30 to 12:00 about two weeks ago but even before that his appetite was declining steadily. And after the light schedule change he ate a little bit here and there.

I would feed Marshmallow when he came out for adventuring around the bathroom just to make sure he wouldn't accidentally eat substrate. If he decided he didn't want to come out that day I would just put his food in a dish and set it in his enclosure. Out of all the food we've offered Marshmallow the only things he actually took multiple bites out of was salmon, chicken hearts, a few crickets, and a dubia here and there. I'm sure there's some more details I'm forgetting but I'll add them in the comments if I remember. I'll provide some pictures of the enclosure and of Marshmallow in all his glory.

Oh, I also wanted to list some reason why we think he might not being eating. The enclosure is too big? There's too much open space? Too much UV radiation? Not enough ventilation? Wrong temps?


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## Rhysandfish (May 26, 2017)

The enclosure might be too big for him to feel comfortable. Does he run away or hide all day? And have you tried hand feeding?


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## Grant (May 26, 2017)

Rhysandfish said:


> The enclosure might be too big for him to feel comfortable. Does he run away or hide all day? And have you tried hand feeding?


He doesn't hide all day, he comes out and basks literally every day just not eating unfortunately. I have tried hand feeding and tong feeding but he just starts breathing heavy and shows no interest.


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## Walter1 (May 27, 2017)

Does he look to be losing weight?

Regardless, up the basing hot spot to 115F.


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## Mombo (May 27, 2017)

Highly doubt its the size of the enclosure.

Are you trying other types of food for him? Or still salmon and pinkies? Mine goes absolutely crazy mode for dubia roaches. Have you tried any fruit with some meat? My guy loves blackberries and blue berries. Try and vary it up a bit and see what happens. But maybe some medium size dubias walking around in a tub will get him going wild when you drop him in.


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## Grant (May 27, 2017)

Walter1 said:


> Does he look to be losing weight?
> 
> Regardless, up the basing hot spot to 115F.


We have upped the basking temp since posting this but still not eating. He only looked like he was losing weight about two days after he stopped eating two weeks ago but since then he hasn't lost any as far as I can tell.


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## Grant (May 27, 2017)

Mombo said:


> Highly doubt its the size of the enclosure.
> 
> Are you trying other types of food for him? Or still salmon and pinkies? Mine goes absolutely crazy mode for dubia roaches. Have you tried any fruit with some meat? My guy loves blackberries and blue berries. Try and vary it up a bit and see what happens. But maybe some medium size dubias walking around in a tub will get him going wild when you drop him in.


We've tried a lot of different foods on a rotation daily but he just isn't taking any of it. We've tried meats and fruits and dubias. He seemed to like dubias when we first got him but now just looks at them like they're poison


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## Walter1 (May 27, 2017)

I just don't know. Possible he's constipated? That's just the only thing I can think of.


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## Grant (May 27, 2017)

I think he just prolapsed!! He's bleeding a fair amount and looks like he's in pain. Since it's the weekend vets are closed and I don't know what to do. This literally just happened five minutes ago


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## Walter1 (May 27, 2017)

Until someone with more experience with this weighs in, I've read that warm salty water bath can help with this in the short term while you wait for the vet. Good luck my friend.


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## Grant (May 27, 2017)

Walter1 said:


> Until someone with more experience with this weighs in, I've read that warm salty water bath can help with this in the short term while you wait for the vet. Good luck my friend.


Okay, not sure if you want an update or not but we found a 24 hour weekend vet hospital and they really tried gouging us on the price but in the end got his prolapse back in and added sutures until we can get him to our personal vet for an x-ray to check for impaction. That is most likely the cause for the lack of appetite and of course the prolapse. It's probably the worst possible thing that could cause a tegu to not eat but at least we have pinpointed the problem and we can work on getting it fixed. Thank you all for the help


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## Walter1 (May 28, 2017)

Grant said:


> Okay, not sure if you want an update or not but we found a 24 hour weekend vet hospital and they really tried gouging us on the price but in the end got his prolapse back in and added sutures until we can get him to our personal vet for an x-ray to check for impaction. That is most likely the cause for the lack of appetite and of course the prolapse. It's probably the worst possible thing that could cause a tegu to not eat but at least we have pinpointed the problem and we can work on getting it fixed. Thank you all for the help


Sounds like the culprit. Thank you for the update. Good luck with the vet visit. Regardless, mineral oil in the food will help with constipation problems.


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## Mombo (May 29, 2017)

Ouch! Poor little guy. I hope he is alright!


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## Toby Wan Kinoby (Jun 12, 2017)

Any update on how the little guy is doing?


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## Justin (Jun 14, 2017)

I hope your not feeding in the enclosure, feeding on substrate even with a plate seems to be the leading culprit in impactions.


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