to feed or not to feed

[steve]

Tegi has been on no food now for a couple months and the only time she has come out is to get water and then gone right back in her box. Now when she started hibernating she had a lot of old shed on her that was not coming off, last week she came out of the box and it looked like she had exploded all that shed finally came off it was just hanging off her so i took her out and gave her a bath to remove the shed from her toes and the rest that was lingering. since i did this she has greeted me almost every morning coming out for water but looking very awake flicking her tongue and acting like she wants out.
my question here is should i offer her some food and let her come out and roam about the house a bit or should i just let her be and go back to just giving her fresh water? she does go back to her box and still sleep a lot but when she does come out i get this very alert greeting from her. i just worry a lot as i have never had a reptile that hibernates my only other reptiles were green iguanas and they never hibernated.
Just call me a worried dad about my spoiled girl :-D
Steve

 

[Kingjaffejo]

I don't think it would hurt to offer some food, especially if she comes out daily now! She may be greeting you because shes looking for food, so why not give it a shot. A tegu will not let food rot in its stomach, I know you've heard this before but its ridiculous if you ask me. We know that these lizards are very intelligent, but in the same breath we say they're too dumb to get up and bask to digest their food. I'm quite sure in the wild there is a tegu somewhere, that ate something before he went down and is doing just fine. I think the owners who feed their tegu during hibernation, but don't turn the lights on, are the ones who might suffer the bad results. So all in all offer something, if she takes it great, if not, no worries. Just make sure you leave some hours of light on so she can bask to digest it if she decides to eat.