Diet

[Logan]

I feed my baby tegu superworms,roaches,crickets,reptiworms, chicken liver,salmon, and the occasional pinky. I dust all his food with calcium d3 and without d3 (switching every 2 days) and reptivite once a week. Is this a sufficient diet?

 

[Deac77]

Be very careful with D3.

Check the links in my signature and read the notes section

 

[Josh]

Sounds like a decent variety so far! Good work. As said, be careful with D3. How old is your baby?

 

[Logan]

He was quite small when I got him, but I've had him about a Month.

 

[Roadkill]

Good variety, possibly too low in mineral content. "superworms,roaches,crickets,reptiworms, chicken liver,salmon" are all calcium deficient (unless you're feeding the tegu the whole salmon), and therefore need to have their calcium content supplemented. "I dust all his food with calcium d3 and without d3 (switching every 2 days) and reptivite once a week" - while everyone tends to offer the advice of "dusting", it is usually inadequate. For a pound of protein, you usually want 1-2 tablespoons of powdered calcium supplement to bring it up to level with whole vertebrate prey - if you're using ground meat, this usually makes an unsavoury paste because of how much calcium that is. I'm not saying you're doing terribly, you are apparently at least trying to supplement with every meal, which is a good thing. However, I'd recommend you to look into "gut-loading" the invertebrate prey. Also, as some people have mentioned here, you want to be careful with the vitamin D3 supplementation. There's strong evidence to indicate that over-supplementation with oral vitamin D3 concomitant with high calcium supplementation can lead to calcification of soft-tissues, although I believe this may be more of an issue with adult animals as opposed to growing animals. Actual sunlight or UVB exposure is a safer way to go with vitamin D3.

 

[Josh]

So you're thinking he's <6 months old? How long is he? Can we see some photos of him and his setup?
@Roadkill, great advice!

 

[Logan]

I wouldn't say he is 6 months maybe 2 or 3.

I know his setup is kinda small (40 gallon breeder). He is benign moved to a 8x4x4

 

[Logan]

Pic of whole enclosure