Tegu eating gravel

[UFtegu]

Today i noticed my red tegu had 4-6 pieces of blue aquarium gravel in her feces. The gravel would have had to been eaten from the bottom of her water bowl, which was there to keep it from being too deep for her. This is the first time I've seen this happen and there isn't much info online. It doesn't seem like she's impacted or had any trouble passing the rocks but I can't understand any reason for this to happen. She is fed every day to ever-other day and has been acting normal.

Any suggestions as to why a tegu would eat gravel that's under water?

 

[reptastic]

its perfectly normal, my best guess would be it aids in digestion like crocodilian species and birds, I had a few that had the habit of swallowing river rocks and I didn't know til they passed them

 

[UFtegu]

its perfectly normal, my best guess would be it aids in digestion like crocodilian species and birds, I had a few that had the habit of swallowing river rocks and I didn't know til they passed them

Thanks a lot, I feel better about it now.

 

[reptastic]

Your more thn welcome, I know there isn't much info about it out there, most people don't even realize their tegus do it til they see it in their poop

 

[Bubblz Calhoun]

It could be a number of reasons why she's eating it. To prevent it from happening and possibly becoming an issue remove the rocks and give her a bowl that's more shallow or add a larger rock that's too big to pick up let alone swallow.

I had a rock in Tricky's cage at one point he went to town chewing on, probably for the calcium content. But I removed it because I didn't want it to damage his teeth. It's in Korbens cage now but he doesn't bother it. I was suppose to take it in and find out exactly what kind it was but forgot about it until now.

He was like a dog chewing on a bone.

 

[reptastic]

^^^^ I had a rock storm use to do that with,rayne never bothered with it

 

[chriswizz]

my two do it every time there in the garden, i have loads of 10mm pea gravel, they seem to dig down for the soggy ones then eat it like its a snack, it passes through no problem at all.

 

[UFtegu]

Thanks, I removed the gravel and put a rock in the middle so she can get out.