First 'Gu!

[Murkve]

Hello everyone!

Please meet Sigourney (or Sigmund!), my new and first Tegu from Laura here on the boards. She's a hybrid B&W/Red, and as you can already see is showing it quite nicely. This happens to be about 2 weeks overdue now, but I didn't want to overdo (pun not intended) it when she was still new.

Anyway, over the last week or so she has been coming around bit by bit. She doesn't dart when I open the cage, nor when I put my hand in there and mess around, and regularly walks up to investigate my hand. I'm still working on gaining her trust enough to walk into my hand, but I'm sure we'll get there.

I felt confident enough today in her trust to lure her into a pillowcase, and take her into the bathroom for some quality food, pictures, and ignore-time. She ate some food, then I ignored her. However, I find it difficult to ignore a lizard crawling up my shorts. Next time I may have to wear only skintight UnderArmour clothing.

After a quick chase to scoop her up and into my hands, I took these pictures. I am not a photographer, so don't expect much, but please enjoy! For being a baby, she's got cahones - And I love her for it!

Also, I've included pictures of my enclosure. My setup is:

75 Gallon: 4' x 18" x 21"
UVB: 100 Watt PowerSun, placed over a hole in the mesh, about 13" above her body.
Hides: 2 Bonafide hides, one cool, one hot, and numerous others that she has created.
Substrate: About 3"-4" average of Soil/Sand. I plan on adding more this weekend. She likes to dig.
Food: Varied diet of Lean Turkey mixed with Raspberries, Blueberries, or Blackberries (whatever I have on hand), sprayed with Calcium Supplement. Pinkies and Superworms are offered sparingly. Turkey mixed with Cod Liver Oil and Liver about twice a week. Veggies will be mixed in with the Turkey soon. She has been tong fed in the enclosure, though I am trying to get her out to feed her as well. I value the socialization time.
Temps: Basking spot of 100? - 110?, Ambient temps of 79? - 93?.
Humidity: Average of 40%-60%, spikes at about 85% with 2x daily misting.

Thanks for looking, and Thank you Laura!

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[DavidRosi]

Lovely looking Tegu and also an awesome looking enclosure

 

[laurarfl]

Nice enclosure! Sig is growing there for ya!

 

[Bubblz Calhoun]

Nice congrats on the new gu

 

[Murkve]

Thank you all very much! I know that taming is a marathon, not a sprint, but I do hope that she comes around soon. It's exhausting trying to find stressless ways to get her out.

I can't wait to start on my enclosure! As a Math Teacher it will be a good test of my engineering abilities. I'm good at theory and ideas, but have never been decent with my hands.

Learn something new!

 

[laurarfl]

You know, it can be frustrating.

I took the slow route with my big tegu, Kreacher. I let her settle in, didn't want to chase her around, etc. She came to me at 2-3 wks old in early Sept, and was in hibernation by Thanksgiving. At that point, she was still trying to bite and pooping on me when I picked her up. She slept all the way until April and it was like starting all over. I said, "Heck with it." And just started picking her up every day. I didn't chase her and overly stress her out, but I purposely picked her up (careful of the tail).

Kreacher is the mother of that one you have. She is so tame. She rests her head on the ledge of cage and watches me when I'm in the garage, or just waits for me to come outside. I can pet her while she's in the enclosure anytime, even after nesting. I take her outside for basking and she'll lay down next time. We're cheesy.

So sometimes, you just gotta pick them up. That is the downside to having a cool enclosure with hiding spots. But perhaps you can remove the logs before trying to pick her up. Don't really chase her her, but herd her into a corner, then reach under and scoop her up. The babies that I have here have to be "caught", but are great once you pick them up. They crawl around on your hand and check stuff out. I have one that still looks like he thinks you are TRex when you open the lid, but the rest are just typical babies. They are naturally skittish when tiny, since everything in the world tries to eat them.

 

[Murkve]

Laura, thank you very much. It's comforting reading your experiences. I may do what you started doing soon, just to make things a bit easier for both of us.

 

[kim86]

So pretty! Congrats. I wish I got mine as a baby so I could experience all that fun stuff. I have a new yearling that tried to bite me for the first time today, haha. Woo new 'gus!