need help with baby tegu!

[brazilman93]

I just got my baby Argentine tegu 2 days ago, from bobby hill. The tegu itself looks healthy and is very tame. I have tried feeding him ground Turkey, pinky mice, super worms, and crickets. I have seen him drink water. But he spends most of his day burrowed in the substrate, i would say he spends about 90% of day burrowed. What should i do, any advice is gladly accepted.

housing info

1) forty gallon breeder with screen locking lid
2) 100 watt power sun mercury vapor bulb for the basking spot/uva/uvb
3) 3-4 inches of cypress mulch as substrate
4) I mist his cage every morning and towels over part of the screen lid to trap in the humidity. The humidity gauge says it is 59%
5) fresh water every morning


Please help or give advice

 

[evergreen44]

hey seems nobody is really help us here....

 

[sclevenger08]

Your tegu was probably hibernating when Bobby took him out to ship him to you, so he's probably just trying to hibernate again. He's just doing whats natural and since the lights are still on he's going to still come out those few times. I got mine a month ago from Johnny Larocca and he's doing the same thing. Of course I turned the lights outs, because I wanted him to hibernate so he's pretty much down for good now, only coming up like once every couple of weeks, if that. But in the beginning he was up and down a lot trying to get acclimate to his new environment.

 

[Mr Critter]

Bobby does take him out of hibernation to ship,dont try to feed him for a few days to see what he's going to do.if he goes back into hibernation you dont want food in his belly the food will rot & make him sick or worse???? if he starts to come out every day. then you can feed.

 

[rrcoolj]

I agree let him do his thing and hibernate.

 

[sclevenger08]

Bobby does take him out of hibernation to ship,dont try to feed him for a few days to see what he's going to do.if he goes back into hibernation you dont want food in his belly the food will rot & make him sick or worse???? if he starts to come out every day. then you can feed.

Thanks, I forgot to mention not to feed him.

 

[themedic]

Yeah I just got two tegus from bobby they are hibernating too, wish they would wake up to eat but i figure when they wake up they will eat alot lol.

 

[txrepgirl]

I'm very sure that he wants to hibernate. I got two Tegu hatchlings from Bobby ( one in October one in November ) and they both came out just a very few times ( 3 or 4 days ) and then went into hibernation. I always believed, too, that the Tegu shouldn't have any food in it's stomach but I talked to Bobby about it and he sad that he never had a problem with the food rotting in his Tegus stomach before.