Tiny - Impacted Tegu

[Orion]

Hi all, I wanted to relay a story of my Tegu named Tiny. Earlier this spring my Gu came out of hibernation and everything seemed very typical with her. She was starting to eat very slowly but I didnt think much of it. Tiny has a cage in my office, 3 feet from my desk so I am very aware of everything she does. I was using Eco-Earth ( Coconut fiber substrate) and I noticed that she was eating a little every now and then. When she did this I would take her and put her in her food box and she would eat some. I would find a little Eco-earth in her stool but not to worry it kept passing. Then She started to ingest more and more, before I thought it was an issue and I could get it changed she became impacted. We tried alot of different options soaking, vet gave us meds eic. etc. ,but after a week the situation looked dire and she even had trouble breathing and getting around, she was not using her lower legs. The doc checked for MBD but found none. We decided to get stomach surgery to remove the impaction. She was home in 3 days but did not look very good she was on basically a liquid diet for weeks. After a week she was still dragging herself around and the cage and looked like she had MBD. The doc perscribed liquid calcium and dusting the food with calcium power she was getting stronger but She was still dragging herself around the cage after a month of liquid calcium. I started her eating one pinky every couple days, I was worried about giving her to big of food items to soon after stomach surgery. I went on travel for a month and my friend started feeding her more and more mice. Her walking dramatically improved. In the last month she seems to be walking like a normal Tegu and her health is great and I am feeding her adult mice every 3 days. Her environment was never changed , except newsprint substrate, the entire time everything has remained the same repti-glo 10.0, same hide, same heat lamp, same humidity.

 

[JohnMatthew]

I'm glad your GU got better.

 

[Guest]

That's scary to have almost lost her. I'm glad she's doing much better!

 

[txrepgirl]

I am so happy to hear that she is doing so much better now. Thank you for the update . Do you have any pictures of her that you can post on here ? That would be great. Thank you.

 

[Orion]

She/He seems to be doing great! She will probably weigh a pound within the next couple days. Tiny was 5/8 of an ounce when we got him at the MARS show last year. I think he was only a few weeks old when we got him.

 

[First Time Tegu]

By no means am I even close to an expert but Tiny looks to be a male to me...seems to be filling in his jowls already. How old is he?

 

[Stef41]

Awww, what a touching story! So glad she's better!!! :-D

 

[txrepgirl]

Awww Tiny is such a perfect looking Tegu. So cute . Thank you for posting the pictures. I wish I could reach through my computer and give her a hug and a smooch lol. Keep up the great job . I love the eyes.

 

[Orion]

Thanks everyone for your kind words. TXrepgirl, I will give him lots of XOXOs for you today. Tiny just had his one year birthday. His jowls were starting to come out last week but we really didnt notice until a couple of days ago. I havent seen the other signs, but we are starting to think hes a boy. Thats really weird to call him a boy after thinking hes a girl for a year.

 

[First Time Tegu]

Happened to me as well, called mine a boy for over a year and then I find out she is a girl....

 

[txrepgirl]

Thank you . Happy Birthday Tiny. That would be so cute if he grows up to be a very big Tegu and you call him Tiny lol.