Tegu nudge, then bite

[CaptainSpooky]

Hey guys, I have about a 7 month old blue female tegu. I've only had her for a week, and i've given her space for the most part (only feeding and cleaning). I don't try to touch her, but on two occasions i've left my hand, balled up into a fist, sitting on her substrate. She's curious and comes up to my hand each time, tongue flicks for a little, nudges it and then tries to bite. When I pull my hand away she gets stressed out and crawls away to hide. Right now im feeding in the enclosure, which i know a lot of people recommend against- I just wanted her to settle in this first week before i try to convince her that food is outside the cage. Shes not aggressive at all, just a scaredy cat. Any suggestions on how to deal with this behavior? I wash my hands pretty thoroughly before i stick them in there..im not sure why she wants to eat me

 

[LizarMinnelli]

I'm curious about this too. My tegu does the same and she's 9 months old. Do you let her out only after she eats? I k ow when I started to do that, she settles down.

 

[AnimalNerd]

Tegus also use their mouths to explore/examine foreign objects (like your hand). My boy did this a few times as a baby out of curiosity and to communicate he was hungry. I didn't remove my hand and he got the picture pretty quick it is not for biting. We always fed him outside of the enclosure and it took some time to get him to crawl onto us at 1st so we could transport him to the kitchen for feeding time but it was worth it! He is beautifully socialized and very polite about meal times (except with salmon). More exposure to you/your hand as well as moving feeding to outside of the cage might help. Redirecting her bites through target training may help as well..