Hello, I just bought my first Red tegu and he/she will be here first thing in the morning. I am new to Tegus but not new to owning and raising reptiles. Since I was a small kid I have had Snapping turtles, Water dragons, Alligators and all sorts of snakes, frogs, toads, gecko's you name it! My pride and joy used to be my African bullfrog and a 3 legged American alligator named Pork-chop (Pork-chop was hit by a car in Florida) I had to get rid of them when i joined the military. Right now I have an English bulldog named Winston and a pain in the a$$ cat my daughter had to have named Mr. Biggles-worth. I have wanted a tegu for years but I used to be in the military and was never home long enough to give it the care and attention it would need. So far I have a 200 gallon tank with about 4 inches Cyprus mulch, couple fake plants, pretty good sized hide out and a decent sized filtered water source. I have been playing with the lighting, temperature and humidity levels for the last few days, Finally got the basking area between 95 and 105 degrees, cool side is around 65 to 75 degrees, humidity around 60% depending on time of day and misting. I have read a lot about these animals, I have a friend that is a Vet and another friend that breads bearded dragons and Uromastyx, neither one could really help me with the only questions I have, I don't know any one that has a tegu so thought this was the best place to ask people who have actually owned them. Letting the animal get used to the cage before frequent handling, good idea or bad and does this matter if its a baby? Also, at what age should I have the permanent cage ready for him/her? I plan on building that myself! thanks and I love all the pictures every one puts up, good lookin animals!
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New tegu owner
- Thread starter Heff390
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Welcome to the forum!
Sounds like you are doing everything right,. No matter how old a new animal is you should always give it a week or two to get accustomed to its new enclosure. Then you can begin the taming process. As for what age you need to start building the new enclosure... that depends on the individual tegu. Some tegu might hibernate 6months and not grow a whole lot the first year. Some might not hibernate at all and grow a lot the first year. It just depends. Most tegus though will reach about full size in about a year's time. After that i would begin building the permanent enclosure. Although since you have a large enclosure to start that will buy you more time. What are dimensions of the 200?
To give you an idea, my tegu was roughly 11" when I got her in august 09. By the same time the next year she was just shy of 3ft and that's with her hibernating like 5 months.
GL with everything and be sure to post pics.
Sounds like you are doing everything right,. No matter how old a new animal is you should always give it a week or two to get accustomed to its new enclosure. Then you can begin the taming process. As for what age you need to start building the new enclosure... that depends on the individual tegu. Some tegu might hibernate 6months and not grow a whole lot the first year. Some might not hibernate at all and grow a lot the first year. It just depends. Most tegus though will reach about full size in about a year's time. After that i would begin building the permanent enclosure. Although since you have a large enclosure to start that will buy you more time. What are dimensions of the 200?
To give you an idea, my tegu was roughly 11" when I got her in august 09. By the same time the next year she was just shy of 3ft and that's with her hibernating like 5 months.
GL with everything and be sure to post pics.
