Thor is too small?

[SkyeYvonne]

Hello!

I got my Argentine tegu on March 5th of this year, so I've had her for 4 1/2 months. I'm unsure of how old she is, but she was incredibly young when I got her. She currently weighs 96 grams, and I feel like she's too small. I measured her 4 weeks ago and she was 14 1/2 inches, and I don't believe she's grown any in terms of her length since then. I went to a reptile show today and was speaking with her breeder, and all he said was for me to keep feeding her. I offer Thor food every single day, but she generally will only eat every couple of days. Her food ranges from meal worms, hard boiled eggs, buffalo, salmon, shrimp, ground beef, mustard greens, cherries, and other fruits and veggies that I sometimes will toss into her dish to see if she'll eat them. She sleeps almost all day until I take her out to handle her, and then she's really active. She's never lost any weight, but she's just growing so slowly that it has me concerned. I saw (what I think) were her clutch mates today, and they were almost double her size.

She has a UVB, I dust her food with calcium, and I have her under a 60 watt heat bulb but its the middle of summer and the ambient room temp is almost 80 degrees. I house her on Eco-Earth coco coir and she's in a 40 gallon exo terra. She has a bowl of water in the tank with her that she COULD soak in if she wanted to, but she chooses not to. She does however drink from it quite often, so I don't believe she's dehydrated or anything like that. I'm always cleaning clumps of poop out of her tank, but as far as how often she actually goes, it's hard to tell because she buries it in the substrate.

She's just so tiny and I'm worried. I have a wonderful herp vet that I can take her to, but she's told me in the past she doesn't know anything about tegus and doesn't have any experience with them. I've shown her pictures to her breeder and to a few other tegu owners and they've all said she has good build and looks to be in good shape, but she just isn't growing. Does anyone have ANY ideas as to what could be causing the stunted growth?

 

[SamBobCat]

What is the breeders name of you don't mind me asking? Also try getting Thor some pre-killed pinkies. They're my baby's favorite food. The whole pretty might help her grow but I don't know for sure

 

[Ralph DeMayo]

Yes, pound her with whole prey(pinks are perfect because she is small). I have a new gu right around your girls age, he is pounding 12 to 14 pinks(ft) at any feeding i give them. Usually every other day. He has since stepped up to mice but still loves a bowl of hairless pinkies when offered. Get a cpl bags of a hundred at your next show, stick them in the freezer and in no time your baby will be slamming them and growing like a weed. Just a suggestion on alternate days, chicken hearts, quail eggs and salmon all work well with babies. Good luck

 

[SkyeYvonne]

@SamBobCat @Ralph DeMayo

She used to eat pinkies but now she won't touch them. : / I used to give her one every couple of days (because she's stubborn and won't eat the same thing back to back or even two days apart) and she would happily take them. Now if I give her one she buries it in the dirt and leaves it. She does enjoy salmon though! I usually give it to her every three or four days and she'll eat it, but any sooner and it goes to waste. I've thought about quail eggs but I have NO idea where to get them from? Chicken hearts, too. We only have stores like Walmart and Krogers where I live, and I'm lucky they even have buffalo meat there. (Which is something she'll also eat every once in a while.) She has really good muscle mass according to her breeder (Shay Hamper, he's a local breeder here in Ohio. I don't think he's a big name breeder or anything like that. He also runs our reptile show every month.) and to a few others, but she's just not growing. : /

 

[Ralph DeMayo]

Hey Skye, the one thing i would do if you haven't done it already would be to get that basking temp up to a min of 115 for a 12 hour cycle. When my basking was shooting in the low 100's, he wasn't taking like he is now. My basking is usually right around 118 to 120 and he seems to really eat and digest at a much quicker pace. Get yourself a temp gun at the next show or a store like radio shack. Shouldn't be more then 25 dollars and well worth it for whatever herps you keep. As far as the quail eggs and chicken hearts, i too had a rough time too. Gizzards and livers are everywhere and of course chicken eggs. I found hearts and quail eggs at an Asian market by me. Also try defrosting a cpl of pinks early in the a.m before your heat and uvb kick on. Put them on a throw away coffee lid or whatever your using and let her wake up and bask as usual, do not disturb and hopefully after she heats up she meanders over and snatches a meal or two. Keep us posted.

 

[Aidenb]

I'd also say get basking temps up. My girl of about 4 months old has a basking temp of 115-120 and she eats whenever I offer her food and weighs 265 grams already.

 

[SkyeYvonne]

I'm terrible at checking this when my email fails to send me notifications. >.<

@Ralph DeMayo I'll have had Thor for five months on August 5th, and I don't think she was much older than a month--if that--when I got her. She weighs 98 grams as of tonight (I swear I'll celebrate when she finally breaks 100), and this just kind of dawned on me...could she possible be hibernating? Because she sleeps ALL DAY and never comes out unless I physically take her out of the hide. I do this to soak her and I usually will place her next to her food dish so she knows it's there. She'll only touch the food every couple of days, and always immediately runs right back into the hide and goes back to sleep. I didn't think she'd be hibernating this young/little, but is it possible? I did up her basking spot to about 110, sometimes a little higher depending on the room temp, but nothing has changed. She doesn't even bask. I've also noticed I don't EVER see her poop. I clean urates out of her tank all the time, but never anything else. I can't tell if she's just not going, or if she's hiding it in the eco earth. Her tank smells but I never find anything, and that's starting to worry me. Occasionally she'll get a mouth full of the eco earth because she'll pick something out of the food bowl, play with it and throw it in the dirt, and then eat it. But I was told eco earth wouldn't hurt her if she swallows it, and the only other thing I can think of that could have maybe potentially impacted her were the fuzzies I was giving her because that's what the breeder had been feeding her. The ones I'd bought were teeny tiny and didn't even weigh a gram, but could the bones or fur have bothered her? A couple of owners I talked to said I was silly to think that it WOULD hurt her, but I still worry. I'm such a newbie gu owner. : / And I'm easily paranoid. But I went to a reptile show a the weekend before last, and her breeder was there and had some of the gu's from Thor's clutch and they were all double her size. Is there such thing as a "runt of the litter" when it comes to tegus? Because if so I think I got the runt. Lol.