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Guberty behavior checklist

AnimalNerd

Member
Messages
44
Hi tegu talk. I'm the primary caregiver and (hopefully) will be fully adopting a blue tegu who is almost 2 years old after the recent passing of his owner. His owner and I concluded that our boy is going through 'guberty' not long ago and in his absence the behavior escalated with me. Hes actually pretty good cage side. He only has lunged at my fingers a few times when I move my hand too fast or its too close to his mouth. It's the couch where he seems to go wild. He crawls up onto me and starts pawing/sniffing at my thighs or torso with his tongue going crazy before lazily deciding he wants to glomp down. He will lunge after my naked arms or hands if they are in his line of sight and will start biting pillows and blankets too. I either handle/block his bites with leather gloves until he calms down/ or put him in 'time out' in his enclosure until he calms down. I've noticed he will bite down on my old shirts or socks, chuff and wriggle his jowls, and wriggle his whole body on the offending garment. Some research indicates this might actually be mounting/mating behavior. His enclosure is about 8x4 feet, bioreactive soil for substrate, humidity is about 75-80%, basking spot is 105, and ambient cage temp 80-90 degrees. His usual diet is reptilinks which I switch up with salmon, ground turkey, beef, chicken, and occasionally dubia roaches as a treat/enrichment. This week I've noticed his poops are very small,round, and hard looking and he seems to be straining to make them. He may be constipated so I'm wondering if that could be making him extra tempermental. So to more experienced owners; does this sound like guberty/hormonal behavior, exploratory biting, health related acting out, or a little bit of everything?
 

Debita

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1,000+ Post Club
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1,218
Location
Prescott, AZ
Hey again! First thing I think of is that your temps for an adult should be bask at 115dg and a cool side around 70dg. I think that's the book on that.
 

AnimalNerd

Member
Messages
44
Hey! Thank you I'll see what I can do to raise that basking temp. The last I checked his hide on the cool side it was around 75. We've had a heatwave and that house traps heat like crazy.
 

Debita

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1,218
Location
Prescott, AZ
The details of Tegu temps are complicated. I've got Roadkill helping me to figure out why my male is brumating during the longest days, and hottest months of the year...here in AZ!!
 

AnimalNerd

Member
Messages
44
The details of Tegu temps are complicated. I've got Roadkill helping me to figure out why my male is brumating during the longest days, and hottest months of the year...here in AZ!!
Oh geez, that's wild! Maybe all the smoke from the fires could have something to do with it? I'm now looking at options for bringing that basking temp up I actually think mine has outgrown his basking lamp and needs a bigger one for one thing. In the meantime there's some extra lamps I can add to increase the area and hopefully bump that temp up
 

Debita

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Location
Prescott, AZ
Yeah - I don't really know, but he's never brumated in the 3 years I've had him! Now he's out like a light, and I'm thinking he'll be active sometime in the fall....when he should be going out! The fires here have been pretty intense - where we had to stay indoors on a few occasions already, north of Phoenix.
 

AnimalNerd

Member
Messages
44
Yeah - I don't really know, but he's never brumated in the 3 years I've had him! Now he's out like a light, and I'm thinking he'll be active sometime in the fall....when he should be going out! The fires here have been pretty intense - where we had to stay indoors on a few occasions already, north of Phoenix.
Oh geez that's terrifying! Last year was awful in CO, it rained ash several days and we couldn't even see the mountains. I know when we had a fire close to the house that was blotting out the sun/super close last summer our blue boy was acting more lethargic than usual. His dad was running a filter 24/7 but we were so worried about his little lungs.
 

Debita

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1,000+ Post Club
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1,218
Location
Prescott, AZ
I would be too! I've experienced the "raining ash" when I lived in Idyllwild, Calif....had to evacuate from arsonist fires that almost took my house during one of them. You def feel your mortality, right? It can be very scary.
 

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