Hello!

[DougK]

I've got a little Columbian black and white tegu, and have had him for under a year. He's still a bit of a knucklehead so I have to be careful when holding him or he'll try to run everywhere at once. I've read a lot of warnings about how feisty they can get, so I try to hold him often. He seems to be comfortable with me about 70% of the time, so there's still some times where he will do nothing but squirm and scramble. He has been getting really picky about food lately, so I'll probably start a thread about that elsewhere, if I don't find similar info on here already.

I didn't realize how tiny he was when I got him (and skinny too!)


Still so tiny! He's still small now, but it's weird seeing him so much smaller.


Plumped up a bit, but part of it's probably because he's huffing


Got him to eat hardboiled eggs, but now he seems to prefer them raw


Trying to expand his food options, but of course all he really seems to care about is mice and eggs


He likes to find the highest point (and especially likes to climb around on the towels). The bathroom is the only room I feel safe letting him really explore until he gets a little bigger.


Putting on more weight!

 

[Mr. Jiffy]

If he is picky about food don't just keep giving him raw eggs, my little guy did that as well. You have to ween him off, sooner or later the raw eggs can make him sick or they just wont provide enough nutrients. Make him wait a couple days. Sooner or later he will eat something else, but that being said, don't starve him. You also have to try different foods, he may just not like what you are offering him, you can try organic canned dog or cat food for a short period of time just to start him on something other than eggs. Offer whole prey like mice, crickets, mealworms, and Dubia roaches. All of those were popular with my gu's. You can also try fruits and veggies, blueberries and mangos are pretty popular in the community, just experiment. All tegus are different and have different preferences.

 

[Jackie & Hellboy]

I thought Colombians were strict carnivores?

 

[Mr. Jiffy]

I have heard the same thing as well, but my columbian eats apple, blueberry, mango, and sometimes peas. He seems to like them so I feed them to him.

 

[DougK]

The raw egg isn't the primary thing, it's mainly pinkies, so I haven't been TOO concerned about it yet because as long as he's accepting them he's still getting most of what he needs. He just used to eat them voraciously but now seems very shy about it, but I found that if he doesn't eat them right away, I can put them in the fridge and then put them back into his cage in the morning and he'll usually eat some of them.

I've tried various insects and fruits and veggies, he will flick his tongue at it and then completely ignore it. I'll just need to try other things.

 

[Josh]

Welcome to the forum! Sometimes you have to hold out a bit longer than they will to get them to try different things.

 

[BigJay8232]

Welcome to Tegutalk, you have a real good looking Columbian there.