Eating own shed?

[Zelera]

Is this normal I have noticed she does then every now and then..

 

[slideaboot]

I've heard of frogs and some other lizards doing this. Never seen my tegus do it, though. I can't imagine it's anything out of the ordinary or to worry about.

 

[Guest]

My tegu hasn't done this but my beardie ate his skin all the time if I couldn't pull it out as it dropped. It's normal for beardies, probably not too uncommon for a tegu. From what I read before beardies do it to try and replace nutrients lost during the shed. Are you using a multivitamin?

 

[james.w]

My sons leopard geckos do it all the time, I thought I read somewhere they do it so predators don't see the shed and know something is living in the area. But it could also be for nutrients. I don't know for sure if my tegus do it but I have only cleaned up shed skin twice and I would assume he has shed more than that.

 

[Guest]

no, its definately for nutrients... most geckos do it, ive owned a few geckos a while back..although ive never seen them do it... i did catch someone elses gecko taking his shed off his hand like a glove with his mouth then devouring it... i believe it was a tokay gecko if i recall correctly.. none of my monitor lizards i owned ever did it.

 

[Orion]

Mine Tegu seems to do it when he is hungry. When I see him do it I get him a plate of food and he seems to lose interest in eating it. I have left the shed in there for a period of days to see if it was so way to tell me he was hungry. And every time I would see him showing interest in the shed I would get him something to eat and after he would finish he would show no interest in until he got hungry again.