Question about my young one.

[Rodney]

Hey everyone, just wanted some opinions from people who own older Columbians or even have owned a couple. My young one, Xibulba, started sleeping alot and started eating very little a couple weeks after we got her. She was really good for a bit then started burying herself as soon as we would leave her alone and would only eat a bite or two a day.
Now at first I was worried about digging her up so we let her sleep all the time but eventually we just started waking her up. I thought it was because we had the enclosure too cool at night (at the time I was only using a heat emitter.) so I got a MVB and now the heat emitter is on full all night keeping it around 80. That was about 3 weeks ago when we got her a friend (another Columbian) so its been good temps all around since.
The Past few days she has started eating alot, which is great but now she wont even get up unless we dig her up haha. When she pops up she is a bit cranky for a few minutes so I wait untill she goes to bask before I pull her out and then she is just fine. I read somewhere that the columbians don't hibernate so I just assumed this was weird behavior.

So anyway, has anyone exprienced the same behavior with a Columbian before? I am not worried about her she is growing steadily and her appetite seems to be only getting better I'm just wondering what she may be doing.

 

[Logie_Bear]

They won't hibernate but they do slow down a lot and will eat less in winter. I recently had to change my schedule because of school, so since Ezzy likes to sleep in I usually wake her up as well. I lift up her tshirts (what she sleeps in) and tell her 'morning sleepyface' and she puffs and grumbles and goes to bask. Then after that our morning proceeds as normal.

 

[DavidRosi]

My lad tends to bask, sleep, bask, sleep during the day if I'm not there. If I am he'll wake me up in the morning by banging on the viv door to come out for a mooch around, then bask, play, eat, bask, sleep. Then when it gets to evening time he'll eat then sleep. I don't physically pull him from his viv when foods ready, just let him taste that foods out and tempt him out with it.

 

[Rodney]

Yeah ok, my two eat in their viv, I tong feed them anything other than ground turkey but she will not wake up unless i wake her up, just thought it was strange. We have to physically remove them from the viv to play since theirs sits almost 4 feet up, dont want them jumping out.

 

[DavidRosi]

I found my lad got tamer by only feeding outside the viv and I'd pet him whilst he ate, and worked from there. All tegus are different, just gotta find what works for you

 

[Rodney]

Yeah they are all very different forsure, mine were already quite tame to begin with as far as Columbians go. They have tamed down great so far, I just want them to be awake when I am home to avoid waking them up for food every day, haha, they would never wake up if I didn't. Maybe they are in a teenager phase already, I don't know.