Introducing Puppy & I

[Rebecca Baker]

Hey guys. I'm Rebecca and my tegus name is Puppy. My brother in law got him from a rescue simply for the "cool factor" about 6 months ago. I reamed him because I've had to rescue bearded dragons from him in the past. Less than a month later he was practically dumping him on me. All I know is his name was Puppy & he's about 3 yrs old. He's over all healthy & now happy. Untill recently. I'm going to make another post somewhere ( I have to find the right thread) asking a few questions and giving some details as to what's been going on. Thanks for taking your time to read!

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[Walter1]

Hey guys. I'm Rebecca and my tegus name is Puppy. My brother in law got him from a rescue simply for the "cool factor" about 6 months ago. I reamed him because I've had to rescue bearded dragons from him in the past. Less than a month later he was practically dumping him on me. All I know is his name was Puppy & he's about 3 yrs old. He's over all healthy & now happy. Untill recently. I'm going to make another post somewhere ( I have to find the right thread) asking a few questions and giving some details as to what's been going on. Thanks for taking your time to read!

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welcome. this site will be very helpful. Eager to learn more about your care etc. for Puppy.

 

[VenusAndSaturn]

That sucks your brother in law would get something just because of the looks, I'm pretty caring about beardies so that sucks even more that he'd do such a thing (I've been known to ask about a million questions when I hear someone has a beardie just because I care a tad bit too much).

I'm also pretty eager to learn the care for your new little buddy. I'm not an expert by any means but I know a few things, lighting, substrate and enclosure size is where i'm pretty good at. Still learning about diets of tegus and always trying to improve my own's.

 

[Rebecca Baker]

welcome. this site will be very helpful. Eager to learn more about your care etc. for Puppy.

Thank you. I'm just going to stick to this thread. Writing out more info in a second.

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[Rebecca Baker]

That sucks your brother in law would get something just because of the looks, I'm pretty caring about beardies so that sucks even more that he'd do such a thing (I've been known to ask about a million questions when I hear someone has a beardie just because I care a tad bit too much).

I'm also pretty eager to learn the care for your new little buddy. I'm not an expert by any means but I know a few things, lighting, substrate and enclosure size is where i'm pretty good at. Still learning about diets of tegus and always trying to improve my own's.

I agree. He does it to boost his ego I guess. I've had beardies for years. Thanks to him originally. I also have quite a few other reptiles and did months of research on tegus about a year or so ago and figured I wanted one but wanted to wait till we bought a house, then this happened a few months later.

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[Rebecca Baker]

Here goes. He is in a enclosure that is 6ft long 4 ft wide 4 ft tall. He has so far just cypress for substrate but better than the sheet he had for who knows how long before me. I plan on adding other substrates and possibly going bioactive. He has 2 heat bulbs over his basking spot and UVB bulb over it as well. This weekend I am going to pick up a few mercury vapor bulbs to replace the lights with. I have a kitty litter box for water and a fountain in it to keep it circulating and to help add humidity. Right now heats great stays at 105 but my humidity I'm not pleased with. I'm thinking of getting some sort of mister or humidifier. I do let him free roam, or did till the other day he got stuck in my sons basketball shorts and nearly choked to death ( I have a long post about that on my instagram) . When I got him a few months ago he ate great. Everything. Quail eggs, ground meats, organ meats, berries, papaya, dragon fruit, collard greens, squash all whole prey. I could never can get him to eat any bugs which is kinda a bummer. I have a huge discoid colony and figured I could feed him the extra males. Recently he hasn't eaten anything for me except chicks or mice. About 2 weeks ago he started pooping daily which wasn't really his norm. Then it became less fecal matter and more water. One day it happened twice. Last week has been better and he stopped for a few days then today had a huge more normal one. Well this morning I turned his lights on as I always do and he came right out. Normally he doesn't come out right away. Then I did a few things and went to look at him and he was laying on his back! Scared the sh!t out of me. I screamed for my husband and rubbed his belly and he flipped right back over like nothing?

I just had a bearded dragon lay a clutch of infertile eggs and was debating on feeding him those?

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[Rebecca Baker]

This is his enclosure. Can't see him because he's currently walking around trying to find a pant leg to choke himself in. No worries. I'm watching him and there are no more pants left around.

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[VenusAndSaturn]

Thats a nice setup, for both of them the beardie and the tegu. Of course your tegu will probably need at least an a 8 foot or so enclosure eventually but a 6x4x4 should do for now.

As for the beardie egg portion I'm not too sure if that would be a good idea or not, or if your tegu would even eat them. Though it may just be mine thats extra picky with the types of eggs she eats, only have gotten her to eat raw pigeon eggs. Tried scrambling chicken eggs once, I'm a failure at cooking and it was a brand new pan that I forgot to wash so the eggs tasted horrible and she definitely did not want anything to do with what I put on her plate. I've tried chicken eggs raw, wont eat them, she'll taste a bit and then completely ignore them.
I have somewhat the same situation with bugs, mine seems to have an expensive taste preference. Only will eat dubia roaches and hornworms, rarely crickets. I expected her to eat a turkish roach from one of my colonies and it was not up to her standards at all.

Can't help too much with the odd appetite, fecal and flipping over portion sadly. Much better with beardies than tegus for now and understanding their behavior. Hopefully one day I'll be just as knowledgeable with tegus as I am with beardies.

 

[Rebecca Baker]

Thank you. I definitly try my best with all my animals. As we all just want what's best for all our loved ones.

I agree he needs a bigger enclosure and we're working on that. I have chickens with a really awesome coop thanks to my sister & brother in law. They moved to Ohio last week and guess who got all the animals! [emoji849] My friend is taking the chickens & my husband going to make it suitable for puppy to be in outside. We live in Central Florida so I think he'll do better out there.

I read somewhere some ball python breeder had a still born $20,000 hatchling so they fed it to a tegu! I have read before people feed them different sorts of eggs but I dunno. Puppy loves quail eggs doesn't care to much for chicken eggs but will eat the occasional fresh brown egg. I always soft boil them. I haven't tried pigeon eggs yet.

Thank you for responding! I like you know more about beardies lol Hopefully I too will become more knowledgeable and more helpful to others in the future.

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[VenusAndSaturn]

Not too sure if you could even purchase pigeon eggs in-stores... then again you can purchase a lot of weird things if you look in the right places. Only reason I can get my hands on them is because of one of my parents breeds them and agreed to pair up a few of hers to have a little egg laying flock just for my tegu, surprisingly this winter wasn't too cold for them and they pretty much laid most of the time.
I haven't tried quail eggs on my tegu yet, not entirely sure where the right place would be to find them, same goes for tilapia, prickly pear, pretty much anything of the really good stuff.

That sucks for the breeder, the tegu probably had a decent meal sort of. Not too sure how snake would taste like.

 

[Rebecca Baker]

Not too sure if you could even purchase pigeon eggs in-stores... then again you can purchase a lot of weird things if you look in the right places. Only reason I can get my hands on them is because of one of my parents breeds them and agreed to pair up a few of hers to have a little egg laying flock just for my tegu, surprisingly this winter wasn't too cold for them and they pretty much laid most of the time.
I haven't tried quail eggs on my tegu yet, not entirely sure where the right place would be to find them, same goes for tilapia, prickly pear, pretty much anything of the really good stuff.

That sucks for the breeder, the tegu probably had a decent meal sort of. Not too sure how snake would taste like.

Oriental markets sale everything . The one down The road from me has all different kinds of fresh eggs. Only thing I haven't been able to find yet is snails.

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[Leezard]

Is the ambient temperature 105 or is the basking spot 105? My gu does really well with an ambient of 87 and a cool side with moss surrounding his water area (awesome for humidity his cool side has 80% humidity always)

 

[Zyn]

The surface temp of the hot spot needs to be around 115. The ambient in my enclosure ranges during day and night but my cool end sits in the mid 70s

 

[Walter1]

The surface temp of the hot spot needs to be around 115. The ambient in my enclosure ranges during day and night but my cool end sits in the mid 70s

Yup.

 

[Rebecca Baker]

Yup.

The basking spot was. I've got 2 mercury vapor bulbs now & basking is between 110-115 now. Ambient ranges from 85-90 depending on time of day usually. He's doing great likes to roam around quite a bit. Only thing is he only eats fruit & proteins not so big on greens or veggies at all but I figured out that if I sprinkle bee pollen on anything he will eat it which I guess is kinda a win win considering he would refuse anything I put calcium on, now he could careless as long as it's got the pollen.

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[Walter1]

Make sure he has a dark hide that is in the 70sF.

 

[Rebecca Baker]

Make sure he has a dark hide that is in the 70sF.

He does!


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