# Rat pinkies?



## preston897 (Jun 8, 2010)

tegu is abot 8-9 in. now, do you think he could handle a rat pinkie?


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## Pikey (Jun 8, 2010)

Rule of thumb with it is dont feed it anything bigger than it's head
....so if the pinky is smaller than your tegus head he can eat it


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## preston897 (Jun 8, 2010)

ok. ill see if they are bigger then his head. thankyou very much


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## reptastic (Jun 8, 2010)

at 8-9" chances are they are too big, i didnt start feeding nero rat pinkies until she was about 12-14" they were pretty big, the ones i had! why not just give her the mice pinkies until she is bigger, you can do what i did and just sprinke them with calcium and feed as many as she will eat that what i did with nero and pyro, achilles was big enough for the rat pinks when i got him, but i did still feed him mice pinks when i couldnt get the rats!


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## preston897 (Jun 8, 2010)

i did not have any mice pinks so i was just curious. i fed him one though. he was about as big as his head. maybe slightly smalle. it took him a couple minutes to get it down. but it went just fine. he was good and full after though. i think i will continue with the rat pinks. they seems to work just fine.


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## themedic (Jun 9, 2010)

my gus are about 24-30 inches in length rougly, i thought feeding them a large mouse was too big for them, they literally ripped it up and gobbled it down instantly.

i was amazed they can actually swallow big prey just feed it small pinkies and work your way up


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## preston897 (Jun 9, 2010)

yea i will pick out the smaller ones. and continue to feed him the rat pinks. he ate it just fine.


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## reptastic (Jun 9, 2010)

themedic said:


> my gus are about 24-30 inches in length rougly, i thought feeding them a large mouse was too big for them, they literally ripped it up and gobbled it down instantly.
> 
> i was amazed they can actually swallow big prey just feed it small pinkies and work your way up



i was the same way, with nero i was so cautious lol i fed rat pinks until she was like 32" then i fed mice she ate 3 like they were just candies the first time out so i moved up to sm. rats the next feeding and she ate them with no problem, but with achilles i switched him to adult mice as soon as he was 24" and he took them with no problem, and since pyro is a bit bigger than 24" his next rodent will be an adult mouse! howeve none of them ever ripped their food up, nero did almost decapitate one of the mice shaking it so hard and it flew out of her mouth and smacked me right on my leg lol, the juices were all on my leg hehehe, i got thr video somewere around here!


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## Nafun (Jun 10, 2010)

Couldn't you just chop the pinkie in half if you're not sure? I don't have a tegu yet, but that seems like the obvious solomon-esqe answer.


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## preston897 (Jun 10, 2010)

that is a good idea. it actually didnt even cross my mind. i also like that saying you used "salmon-edge" never heard that before haha


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## Pikey (Jun 10, 2010)

cutting them in half would be up to your tegu... i have 4 tegus and one of them will not eat rats or mice cut up.... i breed rats & asf rats as food for them and our snakes, but i had a large rat i wanted to feed my 3yr old big boy Jonesy so i cut it in half to feed it to him (And i thought they smelled bad on the out side) & he'd pick it up and shake the guts out of it then want nothing to do with it other than smearing it EVERYWHERE


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## themedic (Jun 14, 2010)

lol funny stuff yeah, everytime they get mice its like watching a T-rex demolish a lamb, freakin awsome stuff! lol


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