New Baby Golden Tegu: Need taming advice

[cailoebp]

King(my baby golden) is my first tegu so im kind of new to owning tegus. i heard how great tegus are. and i know that they take alot of time but this guy is giving me a hard time. he hardly comes up from the substrate and when he does its only for an hour or two. im wondering because i live in wisconsin and its cold here if hes like going into brumation because i hardly see him. Another thing is that he is fine when i put my hand in his cage to change the water or food but as soon as i try to pick him up he goes crazy and is all over the cage. he doesnt whip his tail at me but he has biten me before. im looking for any advice or help on how to get him comfortable with me because i really want him to be a lizard i can have walk around the house and where i can actually hold him and for him to be a great show lizard.

 

[MakeyourIPATH]

Well hello and welcome. Well some advice I can give you, is to approach your tegu with your fist. Let him/her lick your fist a couple times so he can know its you and not food.Try to see how close you can get. If you get close enough, open up your hand, and try to slide it under the belly. If he/she doesn't let you, don't try again for about 30mins to an hour. Once he/she lets you try to see how much you can lift them up. If they jump off let them be, meaning they don't trust you yet. Just keep repeating till he/she lets you lift them up. Once you've done this keep him/her close to your chest they love to climb onto the shoulder. They feel secure that way. I also left out when your picking them up make sure to support all legs, so they feel safe.