Climbing Behaviour and Nail Care

[Shigfugjum]

Two questions that are only slightly related:

So Rhea is a B&W Argentine a little over 8 months now and about 2 feet long. She's quite energetic and inquisitive and when out of her cage spends about as much time digging through my bedsheets and climbing over tissues boxes as she does basking under her heat lamp. Whether inside her cage or out, she seems to love climbing up things. However I was under the impression that Tegus were a largely ground-dwelling lizard and, while I figure she is still relatively small and spry, I wasn't expecting her to constantly clamber up the fake foliage or tightrope along the hydrometer chords. The first question is if this is normal for young Tegus. Is she going to outgrow this, or should I start considering building something to satisfy her itch to climb?

And as part of her climbing habits, she occasionally moves to perch herself on my shoulders while I carry her around instead of hanging in my arms. I try to keep her off of my shoulders (because I don't want her to get used draping around my neck when she gets too heavy for that), but when she tries she does an awful lot of incidental scratching. Is it okay to clip/file her nails down to make it easier to handle her? What methods would you guys recommend for doing so?

 

[Jacobhreptiles]

climbing isnt bad for them. its nice exercise

 

[Alliocha]

I think some may say something different but I'd never ever go and try to clip their nails. You can't see their veins and blood vessels and you'd probably hurt them. My tegu girl likes to climb as well and this softens her nails a bit. Give your girl some occasions to climb and especially to dig. Either way, I wouldn't expect them nails to be not sharp. Its how it should be.

 

[N8bub]

Trimming their nails can be difficult. Their quicks (veins in the nails) seem to go right to the end. My wife is a dog groomer and has done thousands of nails and she couldn't avoid the quicks and he bled a very small amount. Digging, climbing, a couple of large rocks in the enclosure, have all done a fine job of making my tegus nails quite tolerable. A small emory board might take some of the initial sharpness of the claws, just don't get to ambitious.

 

[rwilson9879]

My custom enclosure has two gallons of DryLock painted on the inside. My girls nails are only about half inch long. The drylock keeps them very short. I love it! No iy doesnt hurt her. Shes been around it for three years now. She's a big baby!

 

[Rebecca Stout]

My son has 20/15 vision and a life time of experience with reps. He is the only one I trust with trimming mine. We've only done it twice. It was nerve wracking. I don't typically do it, because the part you can clip is so tiny, my old eyes cant see it. And the veins are to the end, so its nerve racking. My son doenst like to do it, but her claws got like needles.