eating substrate

[bradpaden]

my black and white tegu is eating his substrate again. im not sure why but its becoming a big problem. every time he poops he gets some lodged and i have to help remove it. currently i have him on coco husk. i thought that was about the best choice, apparently i was wrong. please help. im afraid im going to lose him one of these times

 

[JohnMatthew]

Dirt would be a good alternative.

 

[tommyboy]

Is he eating it while he is just roaming in his enclosure? If so, maybe you can try feeding him more. One of mine started doing that last year. I had been feeding him the same amount of food for a while assuming he was full. Come to find out he was just hungry. I started letting him eat as much as he wanted ( which ended up being double the amount I had been giving him)and he stopped trying to the substrate immediately.

 

[bangem1988]

have you considered feeding outside the enclosure?

 

[Kambrie]

One of my friends keeps her tegu on blankets. She keeps the humidity up by a humidifier for humans. Her tegu also used to eat his substrate and he seemed to like burrowing in the blankets more than in his substrate. I plan on doing this too when mine is older. Her tegu is a blue tegu, and he used to get impacted with the substrate. She no longer has that problem.

 

[m3s4]

One of my friends keeps her tegu on blankets. She keeps the humidity up by a humidifier for humans. Her tegu also used to eat his substrate and he seemed to like burrowing in the blankets more than in his substrate. I plan on doing this too when mine is older. Her tegu is a blue tegu, and he used to get impacted with the substrate. She no longer has that problem.

This is how I keep all 3 of my tegus - in blankets and pillows, in a melamine enclosure with a humidifier and a heating pad from Walgreens.

Blankets and pillows make perfect linen for them to "burrow" into.

Size and age have no bearing here, I have (2) 5 month juvies living in the same conditions as my 5 year old.

However, my 5 year old has graduated to sleeping with me every night. She sleeps under my pillow - absolutely loves it. It's a cool feeling to get a late night "kiss"/lick if you will, when she licks my arm.

If you were living in captivity and had the choice, would you prefer soft, plush pillows and blankets or plain old dirt? I think the answer is pretty obvious but everyone does things differently.

Good luck with the substrate problems, this is but one of many options.