Repeated bad sheds

[Guest]

Hello!

I'm new here (I wrote an introduction on the intro category) and I have some concerns about our newest addition.

Noah is around one year of age and he's a red Argentine Tegu. We purchased him from our favourite local reptile shop as somewhat of a rescue.

The people (or person) who had him prior to us getting a hold of him was obviously not treating him properly. He is doing better now - we've had him for
a few months and I've been using the tegu talk care sheets and other informational pages religiously.

The main staple of his diet is the ground turkey, beef liver, cod liver oil mixture that is listed on the main Tegu talk sight. He also gets some fruit and veggies now and again - plus a weekly rat.

He is on cyprus mulch and I have made him a humidity box - he also gets daily soaks in the bath tub.

The problem is prior to us getting him he has had a lot of bad sheds - he has shed twice since we have gotten him and each time seems to be getting better but I am concerned about the previous bad sheds.

He is missing a lot of his toes and a couple more look like they are going to fall off. Also on two of his toes there is a sort of round white spot that looks sort of like a blister? Also the end of his tail looks like it has quite a bit of dead skin on it and that he'll possibly lose the tip.

I am hoping that the daily soaks will start to loosen the remaining dead tissue.

I would greatly appreciate any advice! He is very active. He loves to roam around his cage and likes to be out and investigating our computer room.
He isn't too fond of being held right now - he gets all squirmy but he has never once tried to bite!

He is such an amazing guy - we are very fond of him, he makes us laugh a lot. I just want him to be comfortable.


Bea & Zoo

 

[Toby_H]

The Cod Liver oil will definitely help... Feeding fish (live or fillet) is another source of fish oils that help sheds...

I've heard the theory that excessive bathing can cause a Tegu's skin to loose oils. I can't vouch for it scientifically, but on a "common sense" level it makes sense...

You can also apply baby oil or mineral oil directly to the problemed area. Cold Liver oil could probably also be applied in the same way.

 

[CaseyUndead]

The first winter that I had my tegu he hibernated, and his first shed after he woke up was very bad for some reason. He couldn't seem to get the skin off of most of his toes, so every day I would go try to help him get skin off(I tried using vegetable oil and mineral oil, soaking his foot, and used tweezers to carefully try to peel off any skin I could get loose), he wouldn't let me mess with his feet for too long at once though. I got it off of most of his toes, but one started getting tight(when they're little they grow so fast) and I couldn't get all the skin off of that one no matter what I tried. On the same hand he developed a white boil type of thing, like what you described. I took him to the vet, but they basically just told me that he would probably loose the toe and to keep it and the white bump clean and disinfect it with betadine and stuff, but to come back if the bump got worse. He did lose part of his toe, but I soaked his foot in betadine and put antibiotic ointment on it and the bump eventually shrunk(it left a little mark where it was) and the toe didn't get infected or anything. He's never had any issues with his toes since then. But, yeah.. With the white bumps, it sounds like it might be the same thing my Loki had, so I'd say it would be a good idea to disinfect it every day with something like betadine to keep it from getting worse. There are a lot of things people say can help loosen skin.. So try some something like what Toby suggested. You could also use tweezers to very carefully try to grab on to the edges of the skin and try to loosen it and peel it off(I've had to do that with one of my leos before too.. At one point he suddenly had issues with shedding his toe skin).