Hello! First Tegu!

[Ambriel]

Hello everyone,
My name is Ambriel and I just acquired my first tegu from tegusonly in florida two weeks ago. I did tons of research and built my own custom enclosure (8'x4'x3'), but as I am sure you all know, owning the real thing is far different from expectations. So far I have determined that I have a juvenile male, 20" long when I first got him. He is surprisingly tame. Extremely tolerant of handling and even seeks cuddling. I decided to join tegu talk to get some insight on taming and handling for a young tegu. I will be reading through the threads and hopefully interacting with all you lovely people who share my newfound delight in these awesome lizards! Thanks for having me!

 

[Walter1]

Welcome. Great tegu and great forum choice. My four are from Tegusonly.

 

[Ambriel]

Thank you. If you don't mind my asking. How were the eating habits of your tegusonly guys when you first received them? Did they take to eating fairly well? My little guy seems to want crickets, roaches and creepy crawlies almost exclusively. I want to get a more clear understanding if it is mainly his age, his previous diet, or time of year that might be the reason for this. Someone on another thread said that juveniles do tend to prefer living food like that at first. And I have read that juveniles don't usually take much interest in fruits or veggies until they get older.

 

[Walter1]

Mine were all sub-adults, so a mite larger than your tegu. Each took one week to settle and ate/eat mostly frozen/thawed mice heavily dusted in calcium. Secondly, they eat organ meat and high-quality dog food in lesser frequency. All dusted with calcium. Occasionally strawberries.

 

[Walter1]

I would go with frozen/thawed pinkies and hoppers dusted in calcium powder. Occasionally hearts and gizzards and wet dog food.

 

[Ambriel]

I tried all of that and more. He completely ignored the pinkies, chicken livers and everything else I put on a plate except grapes and eggs. He ate one small piece of chicken as well. He really seems only interested in the crickets and roaches, though he favors the crickets. He just stares at the plate, flicks his tongue a couple of times then wanders off and scarfs half a dozen crickets or so and that's all he seems to want. I'm not worried or anything, I have a bio active set up with earth worms, crickets, roaches, and super worms in there and he fattened up in about a week after I first got him. He was a little skinny when I first received him. I just wanted some insight from others that got a young tegu or tegusonly tegu to see if theirs was the same. I offer him food only twice a week now because he doesn't ever eat more than a bite, but like I said he is getting fat and growing from the critters in the cage. I watched a youtube video about tegusonly feeding and he mixes up a variety of stuff for them, so they were getting fed food from a dish and not just insects, so I think he just prefers them over what I am offering him right now.

 

[Walter1]

No harm in your approach. Expect less eating in winter.

 

[AlphaAlpha]

Alpha only ate bugs to start but he soon changed his mind once he got bigger and the bugs just wasn't doing the trick.... appetite will be low due to winter too