# columbian growth rate?



## ClockworkCarrion (Aug 17, 2011)

i got my tegu just a couple months ago, i wont name names but the seller i got him from on kingsnake was so terrible i had to make a federal complaint about his illegal shipment method and terrible condition of the animal. aaanyway, his "batch" was listed as hatchlings for over a month so i am not sure how old he really was. he was hatchling size but extremely under fed, dehydrated, and would not eat. after over a month of tlc he is eating very well (maybe too well). i have a hunch he is older then he looked but wasnt eating so he wasnt as big as he should have been for his age. after ive been taking care of him i noticed he has tripled in size or even more. do they normally grow this quickly or may he be catching up to the size he should have been if he was better fed? my other reptiles have grown much slower such as my green iggy, beardie, even my leopard geckos didnt grow this fast. i didnt figure he would need to be upgraded to my 3 foot cage in just 2 months but thats were hes going already! btw, i say "he", the tegu hasnt been probed so i do not actually know the gender, do males and females sometimes have different growth rates?
i just wanted to know if they are super fast growers or if he is just recovering from poor care. i would like to get another columbian some day and wanted to be prepared with the proper caging upgrades when needed.


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## jtpowers (Aug 17, 2011)

Sound like you're feeding him plenty now! What's his menu like?

Horrible that you had to deal with a lousy breeder/importer/shipper, but I WOULD encourage you to "name names" over on the "good guy/bad guy" section. It's how we all learn from others' experiences here.

I can't answer much about Colombian growth rates, except to day that a threefold increase in size in a couple of months is undoubtedly stellar!

Whether his previous poor treatment will have long term impacts is tough to say, but he seems to be recovering well enough. Even with Argentines, I haven't seen any definitive answers as to whether they will get truly permanently "stunted" by early poor care (absent severe metabolic bone disease malformations) though it may take them a while to catch up at least.

Good luck with him, and I hope someone can give you more answers!


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## ClockworkCarrion (Aug 17, 2011)

thank you! i was pretty worried when he wouldnt eat, when he finally started he had no strength and could only eat watery/mushy foods, he couldnt chew. he wouldnt eat any insects either, alive or the "can-o" stuff my other pets love. i used reptisafe for his water like the rest of my pets to get him some extra calcium. since he couldnt bite down i gave him ground turkey and chicken mashed up and mixed with some organic chicken/turkey baby food that had no other additives. i used calcium and vitamin suppliments every feeding. he would only take a bite or 2 then go lay down like he used up a ton of energy just to take a couple bites. he started getting better and eating all of it, then he got more energetic and started taking more foods such as boiled and scrambled eggs, mini canned crickets, canned meal worms, that canned tegu food they have at some pet stores. i dont need to mash up the ground turkey anymore and he is taking peices of boiled chicken. hes much stronger now and getting big! hes chomping down on adult canned crickets and he even tosses them in the air and pushes them around with his nose like a cat playing with a toy before he eats them. i have tried ever since the first day to feed him live crickets but he has had no interest in them at all, i offer them to him nearly every week... but for some reason plays with his canned ones.. LOL he is a character. he likes canned meal worms but wont eat live ones. the seller claimed his stock were eating tons of live food, the way mine has acted tward live food id say hes never even seen it before. he has also eaten some fresh mango and apple i mashed up myself but he doesnt seem to be a fan of fruit, takes a bite then doesnt seem interested. i am told they do like fruits, if anyone has any suggestion of what their tegu likes including other meat/bug foods i havent meantioned let me know and ill offer them to him. i have also given him just ONE pinky so far when he was still way too skinny, i wanted to fatten him up. he didnt eat one untill the 3rd time i offered it, he never eats anything the first time i offer it, it usually takes him 2-4 times before he gives something new a try. ill try to take a picture of me holding him today to show how large he is for only suposedly being around 3 months old. and thanks i should complain about the seller in the forum, i took pictures of the box he was shipped in and the inside. it wasnt a live animal box and it was completelly sealed, no air holes. it was a very unusually cold week and there were no heat pads inside the box, he felt ice cold when i got him out! poor little guy. his poop was also a light grey for about a week, i have no idea why would be that color, it looked like the same color as news paper and its was very liquidy.


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Aug 17, 2011)

_Hi  and welcome to the site,.. I'm glad to hear your little guy is coming around after a not so stellar introduction to life and captivity.

Colombians do grow fast, they can also reach 3 ft with in their first year. They're just not on as large a scale as other tegus. On the same note all tegus have different growth and maturity rates no matter what sex they are. Your on the right track with feeding, keep offering a variety. Korben loves fruit but he was introduced to it and liked it right away. I've found that if it's not sweet or ripe enough they usually won't eat, mine pick through it to find what they like. So to prevent that I either add a little honey or put it in a Ziploc bag for a couple of days with a little sugar or honey.

Don't get discouraged if he doesn't like something right away, they change their minds like we do. Just give it a break for a while and offer again some time later. At the same time your tegu is young and still learning what's good and not so good to eat. He may not like it now but that could change later.

The color and consistency of their poop changes depending on what they eat, especially when it's too much of one thing. Too much chicken or turkey can make it really soft or runny. Bananas or eggs makes it smell Really bad, fish and or seafood's can make it smell bad and a little oily. Which is one of the reasons why variety is important.

Just to give you and idea of how fast they grow this is Korben back in March when I got him.











And this is him last month at about 4mths or so old.










I almost forgot,.. please separate your paragraphs instead of having one wall to read. It's much easier to read and I actually take the time to read everything when its sectioned. I had to make my self actually read what you wrote and not skim through it or else I wouldn't have responded._


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## tora (Aug 17, 2011)

Oh his spotty face is adorable!!


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## ClockworkCarrion (Aug 17, 2011)

thank you for your reply. i am normally in a hurry and i speed read so it normally all looks like one big sentance to me. if i have time to look my posts over with more care i will try to separate, i am also used to typing in places where if i press "enter" it sends the message so i dont press it much anymore to avoid pre-sending an unfinish sentance, its a habbit that i dont think is bad enough to spend too much time trying to break, i have more important ones to work on  personally i have a hard time reading italics because i am legally blind without my glasses and still cant see much with em!

your tegu is very cute, and a fast grower! i try to give all of my pets a variety so luckily i usually have pleanty of food already home for a new member to try. ive been rotating bruce's food and he gets something different every day, i didnt want him to only want one single type of food. i have had another reptile do that before and it was a pain to get him to eat a variety i had to hide stuff in his food and if he figured it out he wouldnt eat at all. AH, my box turtle prefers the fruit to be a bit over ripe aswell, ill try to offer bruce the same when i feed my boxie. 

do you feed your tegu fish? if so what kind? should it be cooked or raw? i have little smelt and minnows i feed to my turtle and pacman frog, i also ALWAYS have fillets of other fish because i eat tons of seafood myself. i usually have salmon, varieties of tuna (ahi, yellow tail, albicore), tilapia, catfish, and random other white fish. people would think i was feeding a shark! lol


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## jtpowers (Aug 17, 2011)

Great pics of Korben...Clockwork, do you have any pics?

Be sure to get good length and weight measurements on him now, you'll want them as you monitor his growth!


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## ClockworkCarrion (Aug 17, 2011)

i am going to take pictures of myself holding him tonight to show how large he is in my hand. i did just get a flexible tape measurer last weekend so i can start measuring my growing babies i just need to dig around in a couple bags to find it! i can try to weigh him but im not sure if he will sit still for that, he isnt as fond of being put on/into containers as my geckos are. i took this pic last week but he shed a day after and is much bigger already! almost like he exploded out of his skin lol. his face does still look young as opposed to how much bigger he has gotten, i am hoping there isnt any permanent growth problems due to his poor treatment.


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Aug 17, 2011)

_That's understandable_,..as for fish and other foods they can pretty much eat what we eat. Whether it's something I eat or not I always stop by the markdown section in the store, especially in the Fresh and Easy s we have here.

Mine have tried quite a bit besides their usual rodents,chicks and rabbits, from scallops to lamb. Veggies aren't too high on their list but I sneak it in sometimes anyway.


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## ClockworkCarrion (Aug 17, 2011)

nice! so then all of the fish i eat raw should be fine for him, i was wondering about that. (i love my sashimi!) 
i also gave him some ground beef a couple times when i was trying to fatten him up, he sure loved that but wasnt sure if it was too fatty to put into his weekly meal rotation. 

i boiled some chicken livers and he wanted no part of that, i was supprised. my bearded dragon freaked out when he smelled them cooking and he even gobbled a piece up like it was his last meal. 

i also keep scallops, shrimp, crab, and other seafood so i guess now when i make my meals ill set asside a little dinner plate for him and see what he likes. 
i keep a ton of veggies around because i also have a green iguana and a rabbit so i can try to offer him some of those to see if he wants to try them.

thats one thing i like about the change i made with my eating habbits to healthy food, most of it is the same food my pets get so i dont have to get 2 sets of groceries! now all i have to do is stop eating most of the mangos for myself and share those more lol, if there is one thing i am greedy with its the mangos!


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## ClockworkCarrion (Aug 17, 2011)

okie dokie here are pics i took just a few minutes ago! i didnt want to stress him so i didnt get an exact measurement when i first got him. he was pretty small. with his tail he was about the length of my hand, what id expect from a week or 2 old hatchling, he was skinny looking like an anole. 

the skin on his back legs was loose and he was boney but this is what he turned into in 2 months. he may even be 4x bigger then when he arrived. so does this seem "average" even tho they have different growth rates or does it look like what i suspected and he was older then advertized just was way too small because he wasnt eating? im sure it woudl be easier if i would have taken pics when i got him, i really wish i did.

p.s. i tried to get better angles but he got upset when he saw his reflection and started to huff and puff at it so i put him back. i need to get a tripod.....


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## babyyitslove (Aug 23, 2011)

Mine was the same way. I got him on august 3rd and this is what he looked like the very first day..





And I just took this one 10 minutes ago....





Not a great angle on second pic, but his width is literally 2x what it was three weeks ago.

He's so much better off with us. Thank goodness.


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## Dirtydmc (Aug 23, 2011)

ClockworkCarrion said:


> i got my tegu just a couple months ago, i wont name names but the seller i got him from on kingsnake was so terrible i had to make a federal complaint about his illegal shipment method and terrible condition of the animal. aaanyway, his "batch" was listed as hatchlings for over a month so i am not sure how old he really was. he was hatchling size but extremely under fed, dehydrated, and would not eat. after over a month of tlc he is eating very well (maybe too well). i have a hunch he is older then he looked but wasnt eating so he wasnt as big as he should have been for his age. after ive been taking care of him i noticed he has tripled in size or even more. do they normally grow this quickly or may he be catching up to the size he should have been if he was better fed? my other reptiles have grown much slower such as my green iggy, beardie, even my leopard geckos didnt grow this fast. i didnt figure he would need to be upgraded to my 3 foot cage in just 2 months but thats were hes going already! btw, i say "he", the tegu hasnt been probed so i do not actually know the gender, do males and females sometimes have different growth rates?
> i just wanted to know if they are super fast growers or if he is just recovering from poor care. i would like to get another columbian some day and wanted to be prepared with the proper caging upgrades when needed.



Ive had Dozer for a little over a month, hes shed 3 times and had more than doubled size. yeah, they grow fast when cared for properly.


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## babyyitslove (Aug 23, 2011)

Ugh my photos didn't show...

Here's photo 1:






Photo 2:


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## ClockworkCarrion (Aug 24, 2011)

wow looks like im not alone with getting a previously neglected tegu. i dont get how people cant take care of them correctly, bruce is one of the easiest pets i have ever had! 
there sure are some cute pics in this thread, these guys are adorable. maybe its a good thing i cant find them locally id probably take one home every week, lol.

im wondering if these bad sellers are not feeding them on purpose to keep them looking like hatchlings. poor little guys, people should not get into breeding and selling if they dont care about the well being of animals. i hate when people treat animals like nothing but an item to sell like a pair of shoes.


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## Dirtydmc (Aug 24, 2011)

A petstore by my house has them. Well, one left from a clutch. They are looking for a Argentine breeder. They take care of their pets but dozers sibling is small still.


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## laurarfl (Aug 25, 2011)

Some breeders just don't want to put the money into a bunch of hatchlings they are going to sell cheaply so they feed them cheap food. it is a shame. Your little guy/girl looks great now! I'm sure any problems were caught in time to avoid any serious problems. It looks like maybe the worse case scenario may be a slightly shorter torso, but you wouldn't tell until full size was reached. I guess there could be some organs affected, but I seriously think you overcame a lot of bad with the good care. If the stool is runny or smelly and you aren't seeing good growth, take the stool to the vet for a parasite check.

My Colombians did not eat much fruit as juveniles but do have favorites as adults. The young ones need more protein during the stages of high growth. The meat I feed is all raw: chicken fillets, chicken livers and gizzards, beef pieces, ground turkey, rodents of appropriate size, chopped chicken necks for adults. Egg is boiled, scrambled, or raw. Fruit: mango, papaya, banana, cherry, strawberry, melon, blueberries. I put calcium supplements on any meal that does not have bones and use vitamin supplements once weekly.


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## babyyitslove (Aug 25, 2011)

I think my Guy was only being fed 1 rodent a week and fruit for the rest of the time. 
He gets lots of goodies everyday now. He really fattened up quick once he started getting protein daily. He's such a cute little spaz.


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## numarix (Oct 30, 2011)

Wow such awsome pic's im so glade i joined this site you guys know your stuff.


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