Hello from Denmark

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

My name is Kristina, and I am from Denmark. I am quite active as a member of our national/nordic Herpetological Association - called NHF for "Nordisk Herpetologisk Forening".

I got my first tegu aprox. a month ago - a beautiful red tegu. Atm the sex is unknown since (s)he is too fat for anyone to tell for sure. (S)he is currently on a low fat diet in order to get her/him back in shape - so to speak.

I am soon to get a caiman lizard, too, (in Denmark called a crocodile tegu) and I am currently trying to gather all information I can find, which does not seem to be much. Luckily the previous owner is a walking library when it comes to reptiles, so he is a great help.
I would still like to hear from anyone who has some experience with this species, though, and if anyone in here has some great tips they'd like to share, please, do so "Hands on experience" is always welcome

My bf and I have quite a private zoo with very various species. He is mainly into snakes, where I fall head over heals for lizards - especially big lizards and don't ask me why. I do have some smaller species as well, though, since beauty comes in all sizes.
Beside my 10 species of lizards/dragons I have 4 species of snakes (my son has one as well while my bf has further 3 + scorpions), 3 species of snails, 2 species of spiders plus some other insects.

Well, that was my "story" 8)

 

[ThrillHouse]

Welcome!

nice to see another nordic keeper around here!

would be nice to see some pictures of your animals and cages.

anyways, welcome!

 

[Guest]

Thank you - sure is nice to see that I am not the only Nordic keeper in here

I will see what I can do about the pictures. Right now I am building new cages for most of my animals, since I want it all to fit into my new apartment - you know, making a puzzle fit perfectly to my home and my animals... the better the puzzle the more animals I can enjoy

Since I have another 10 lizards coming my way during the next couple of months, I sure need to make the puzzle fit :roll: :mrgreen:

 

[Guest]

Well, found a few pics of some of my/our animals - they are not the newest, but I hope they count for something anyways... :fc (linked from the Danish agamid forum where I am an admin myself)

Hopefully this forum works as I am used to with posting pics :roll:


This is Gizmo - my smallest Uromastyx aegyptia. He was a bit on the skinny side when I got him. He is almost twice the size now.

"The missile" - my first Corallus hortunalus - we now have 2.2 (1.0 gardenphase, 0.1 orange, 0.1 yellow and 1.0 mixed colors)

One of my baby Euprepiophis mandarinus Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? probably 0.1

My 0.1 Acanthosaura armata Tweedy

My Iguana rhinolopha Gekko Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? the sex is not fully known, since I either have a feminine male or a masculine female :mrgreen: (Got Gekko as a male, but I tend to think that he is actually a she)

And this red beauty was my Christmas present for my bf They say that red is the color of Christmas, right?

Tegu pictures will come as soon as I get some pictures on my computer - right now they are still on my memorycard + on my old computer since I have been too busy to move them to my new one :roll:

 

[ThrillHouse]

Nice!

Cant wait for more pics of that Uromastyx, I have really developed a soft spot for them, tho I never had one myself. yet.

Looks like you guys have quite a diverse family. Thanks for posting. CanÃ?â??Ã?´t wait to see more!

 

[isdrake]

That's some beautiful reptiles. Sounds like you have a little zoo, hehe. Welcome aboard and congratulations on your new Tegu. I'm from Sweden myself and I'm always glad to see more Tegu-owners up here in the Nordic countries. Feel free to post photos on your big project later on, that sounds awesome.

I have a few questions about Denmark and reptile keeping if you don't mind. Do you need any permission to keep an red or Argentine B/W Tegu? I know that some monitors are forbidden in Denmark. And why is that btw? Is it because of their size?

I'm also curious about your laws regarding the size of the enclosures. Do you have any (I bet you do) and in that case, what's the minimum size cage for an adult Tegu (red or Argentine)?

 

[Bwindi]

Beautiful collection!!!!!!!!!

Welcome!

 

[Guest]

@ ThrillHouse Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? Thanks a lot. And I promise to post more pictures later.
I, too, have a soft spot for Uromastyx. They are amazing - allthough, they are "hands off-reptiles", since their weapon of a tail truly IS a weapon :shock:
I have some "nice bloody marks" on my hands and arms whenever I have handled them. And the largest animal I have is only aprox. 37 cm long. If they can punch holes in my arms and hands now, I can't even imagine the damage they can cause when they reach their full size - for aegyptia full size is up to 75 cm :shock: I bet IÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ll find out how bloody I'll get when they reach that size lol


@ isdrake Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? Thanks to you, too. I do know more people here in DK with beautiful tegus Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? actually they are to Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?â??blameÃ?¢ââ??¬Ã? for me falling in love with tegus in the first place If I had room for it I'd have both the B/W and the red, but for now I had to chose...

Please, feel free to ask any questions I can only do my best trying to answer

We do have more strict regulations here in DK compared to Sweden, since you hardly have any?

One can have tegus in DK without a permit. Actually we don't need permits to keep any animals. When it comes to tegus we have the CITES regulations and the European rules - as do you in Sweden.

Permits were made back in 2003 along with a new law, which forbid some species. People already owning the now illegal animals could get a permit to keep the animals - the permit only apply to each specific animal, and the owners are not allowed to pass the animal on to others, to get more animals or breed on these animals.

Some monitors, the huge snakes (= the biggest pythons and green anaconda) and most venomous snakes are forbidden in DK - the main reason is that the politicians rated these animals as potentially dangerous or too difficult for private owners to take care of in a proper way. In fact I don't consider the rules too strict, since it truly is the potentially dangerous animals we are not allowed to keep. Well, most of them is.

Unfortunately the law doesnÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢t allow any exemptions to these rules, which I think is a shame Ã?¢ââ??‰â??¢cause many would actually be able to keep these animals in a very suitable way. I know several people who would be able to keep these animals responsibly if they were allowed to, but unfortunately that is not how our rules work.

We donÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢t have any laws or regulations on the exact measures for caging/enclosures. The law only contains general rules on how to keep these special animals. Sometimes I would wish we had some minimum sizes for each species, since too many offer their animals way too small cages Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? e.g. three bearded dragons in a 250 liter cage measuring 100x50x50 cm or a green iguana in ditto making it impossible for these animals to actually move around. It is awful how some people can treat live animals

@ Bwindi Ã?¢ââ??‰â?¬Å? thanks a lot to you as well

 

[Guest]

Here is a couple of pics of my tegu - atm named Bella, since I bought her/him as a female. Time will tell if the name lasts :lol:

She has never been handled at the previous owner, but towards me she is quite tame, sleeps on my feet and does not seem nervous, death roll or anything when I get my hands on her. Different story when guys get near her - she simply does not like guys... Maybe she is a he anyway preferring female company? :mrgreen:

Btw she is 3 yrs old and aprox. 80 cm long... which must be around 31Ã?â??Ã?½" ?? I have tried to weigh her, but nope, no cooperation and I just looked like a fool trying :crazy

 

[isdrake]

Bella is stunning. You must be very happy with her. Do you know where she comes from?

We do have more strict regulations here in DK compared to Sweden, since you hardly have any?

There are no regulations regarding what kind of lizards you can keep in Sweden (except the ordinary Cites). I'm very happy about it. However the larges lizards must have a minimum of 5 mÃ?â??Ã?² which works as a obstacle for many inappropriate owners.

The snakes is a different story though. You will always need permission to keep poisonous snakes and in some parts in the country you will need permission for any snake.

This is very funny and stupid. You can get an Crocodile monitor without any questions but sometimes you need permission to keep a tiny corn snake. XD

 

[Guest]

Lol. Permission to keep a cornsnake - well, some people do think that all snakes are truly dangerous and that they'll drop dead within seconds if they get near even a cornsnake :grno

But weird that you are allowed to keep any lizard you want without any questions. Some of the largest monitors sure ain't as harmless as cute little puppies... Laws and regulations just don't always make sense.

The Swedish rules sounds like the rules my landlord has - I am allowed to have all my lizards in my apartment, but snakes is a very different kind of reptiles according to their rules. Well, in fact all reptiles were forbidden when I got this apartment, but I convinced them to let me have my lizards here. I kind of forgot to ask about their view on spiders and the like :roll: But since they are not mentioned in the "house rules" they cannot forbid me to have them.

Before the new national law was made here in DK in 2003 we had different regulations in the different regions, too. Back then the local chief of the police dept. could decide to forbid reptiles if he/she wanted to.
The new law applies for all of DK and we no longer have any diffenrences from one part of the country to the other.


About Bella - thank you. I do think she is stunning, too. I simply just love her to death. She is making "reptile keeping" a whole new experience for me, since I am mainly used to various agamas... Since I can see you have a bearded dragon as well, I guess you know what I mean, when I say that most agamas is not as clever as e.g. a tegu :lol:

I am currently trying to find out where Bella comes from. The previous owner told me that he bought her in a petstore. I have phoned the store to find out where they got her from, but the guy responsible for their reptiles won't be at work till next week (summer holidays).
The guy I did talk to said that he thinks they might got them from Turkey, but he was not sure at all. So I will have to wait till the other guy is back to work in order to find out for sure. Since tegus are CITES II I can actually demand to get some papers on her from them, so they can't just tell me that they can't give out any information

I hope I will know more next week