Feeding question

[Skyshadow]

I am getting my first tegu in a few weeks and have been reading up on feeding. There seems to be a lot of varied info on what's best. I found this in another thread:

Do you want to know what we feed and how often, for me my tegus staple is a mix i prepare that consist of 3lbs ground turkey, 1 lb chicken gizzards/hearts/liver, 10 chicken necks, 1lb.beef kidneys, and 1lb lean ground beef, everything is thourghly chopped up and the necks are chopped up and smashed to smitherenes with a hammer, everything is mixed up and seperated into 2day feeding bags and frozen they eat this 5 days out the week and every other day i will add some finely chopped squash and mango or strawberries, they get 2 treat days which includes chicken breast, eggs(2 per month) fish(salmon or telapia) shrimp and beef liver, 1-2 x's a week they get a whole prey (mice or rat depending on tegu size) and
supplements such as reptical and reptivites are given 3-4 x's a week and cod liver oil 3x's, i've kept this same feeding regime since i had my first tegus and they did well on this diet and so are rayne and storm

And was thinking of trying it. Is this considered a balance diet that would work for a young tegu?

 

[Walter1]

That's fine, but ultimatelymake sure whole prey items, like frozen/thawed mice figure prominently. Alsways dust food with calcium while its growing. Then include other kinds of things, such as high quality wet dog food, organ meat to some degree. On another thread we are talking about how picky tegus can be about food, and the question about Mazouri pellets came up. the concensus seems to be - some from time to time.

 

[Skyshadow]

See that's where I'm getting so confused. Some people say do a basis of whole prey then some say do minimal whole prey. It's all very confusing.

 

[Walter1]

Others will weigh in with good advice. Mine eat lots of whole prey, followed by high quality wet dog food, various organ meats, and then miscellaneous whatevers. Mine are adults but not old. I dust calcium powder off and on through the week.

 

[thatoneguy]

I started my tegu on mostly chicken hearts and gizzards (dusted with calcium, and every couple days added D3). Also added a ton of crickets as well.

Then as he got bigger and I got tired of crickets I started adding ground turkey and ground chicken. My tegu most have preferred that over the chicken hearts because when he had the option always chose the ground turkey.

So my tegus diet now is predominantly ground turkey with added calcium. I also will scrambled eggs with blended vegetables in them and wrap that in ground turkey, he's a big fan of that and it adds more nutrition.

I also add in some salmon, which he is not a big fan of, tilapia which he likes a little more then salmon. I've fed him some dry dog food (really high quality grain free stuff), I would not recommend doing that often, only did it because he really wanted it and was taking it from the dog bowls.

I've never fed him any mice or other whole prey and he is pretty big for his age.

I'm gonna start trying Mazuri Crocdillian diet and maybe some of the tortise diet along with ground turkey.

 

[snibborsirk]

Mine is around 7 months old now and he's eating thawed hairless mice (favorite), scrambled egg yolks, ground turkey/beef liver/cod liver oil combo, and occasionally some tuna or tilapia. He's also had banana a couple of times and recently ate his first strawberry - just 1 though. If I ever want mine to eat/try something new, I'll just drizzle a bit of egg yolk on it and he can't resist! I add calcium and vitamins to most meals.