For the love of Tegus!

I feel like a mad scientist, or rather, at this point, a sociopath; putting random animal-like items into a blender is not normal behavior.

Tegus are omnivorous animals, though many juveniles prefer meat and whole-prey over fruits and vegetables. Despite her size, my tegu has become a voracious eater and has undeniably pushed me past my comfort zone when dealing with her “preferences” – preferences, as in all animals/food items being finely chopped to her desired size: (minced, not ground).

I found this post a few days ago when searching for different foods that are safe for my tegu, and decided to give my local Asian market a try.

Here is the post I found: Thread: Todays trip to the Asian Market... Tegus got some yummies!

Although I am part Vietnamese, trips to the Asian market freak.me.out. I feel like a helpless puppy, with no ability to convey, well, anything. "Ma'am, where can I find . . ." oh . . . you're running away from me. Wait, did she even work here? "Uh, I'm looking for silkworm pupae. Yeah. The stuff, you know, that looks like a worm, but it's a pupae . . ."

Disheveled, confused, and ready to give up, I finally find my way to the correct freezer. Jackpot! Here are a few items you can find at the market:

silkworm pupae - they come precooked
frog legs
silverfish (the fish, not the bug)
gizzards: chicken, turkey
animal hearts: chicken, turkey
a variety of snails
duck eggs (balut)
grasshoppers
krill
plucked quail

I snatch up a container of silkworm pupae, duck hearts, shrimp, and a duck egg, and dash out of the store in search for my life-saving bottle of hand sanitizer located in the car. I survived.

Home and Magic Bullet ready, I begin concocting a mixture of duck, shrimp, duck heart, and pupae. Okay. It doesn't look so bad once it's the consistency of ground turkey.

But will my tegu eat it?

NOPE. Of course not.

For some reason, my tegu does not like ground food: ground turkey, ground chicken, ground anything. I am not sure if this is due to the consistency (I do observe her wiping her face along the floor more than usual when trying these foods), or some other reason. Instead, she prefers her foods be finely chopped into small chunks.

Separated and not ground up, the balut (cooked) and turkey hearts were favorites. She refused to eat the silkworm pupae.

Overall, the trip was a success, although I don't think I'll be purchasing much from the Asian market at the moment. I believe it will be a great place to get a good amount of food for a reasonable price when my tegu is slightly larger, but currently she is quite small and there was a bit of wasted food, even when accounting for freezing most of it for later use.

Oh, and here is a picture of the brat looking smug. Note: the red by her eye, on her nose, and around her mouth is just food.

Chronicles of a Tegu

On September 4, 2013, I took the plunge into giant, scary lizard ownership, and it has already been filled with seemingly perilous situations (for the lizard, not myself). My hypochondriac of a self has already projected multiple illnesses upon my tegu, and I'm fairly certain this validates that I am not ready for parenthood. Hours upon hours of research have confirmed that I am indeed making a big deal out of nothing. One of my major concerns was food. 

"My tegu isn't eating enough. It’s going to starve in a single day and die!"

First, I have to say is thank goodness for thetegu.com. This particular forum has been a lifesaver and invaluable source of information. According to other tegu owners, it is quite common for tegus to refuse food for the first week of being shipped.

My tegu, thankfully, has consistently ate (at least a small amount) since I received it. My main concern was HOW MUCH it was eating. After multiple Google searches, I found threads of owners similar to myself, fretting about their tegus lack of appetite. Well, fear no more! It's okay! It's not the end of the world, and, if your tegu appears healthy in every other way (active, no signs of illness: nasal discharge lethargy, etc.) he should not starve himself to death. Though my tegu wasn't eating much, I now know I cannot complain, as some tegu owners don't get their babies to eat for weeks.

Threads about baby tegus not eating:
new baby tegu
new tegu not eating, hiding

I did learn an effective way to determine whether your tegu is full: See Post #3 by bubblz. According to bubblz, you can gauge the fullness of your tegu by the amount of folds present on it's side. Here are some fairly clear pictures of what she is explaining.

In this photo, you obviously see the skin fold on her Coronal (or frontal) plane.

If you still don't see it, look at the space between her hind and front legs. There is essentially what looks like loose skin forming on her body, creating a fold (click photo for a closer view).

In-shed tegu hatchling

After a small meal, this photo shows a very slight fold, indicating she is not at her fullest.

Tegu after first shed at new home

In this last photo, she has gorged on a large meal and refuses to eat any more. There is no fold present and her body appears plump.

Wheezy Bat Photos

I also learned the key to success was a varied diet. Initially, I attempted to offer her only a ground turkey mix and grapes. While she appeared to tolerate those foods, she did not eat them with the fervor I anticipated. This lasted for the first three days until I gave in and decided to offer a plethora of foods. The four foods that resulted with the best success were raw salmon ("fresh" from the grocery store), crickets, hornworms, and pinky mice. I have also offered other foods, such as scrambled eggs, kiwi, and duck heart with slightly less success. She refuses to touch mealworms. 

USPS. The Bad Guys?

After a restless night filled with relentless nightmares of all that could go wrong, I awoke at 7 AM with the anticipation that disaster would surely ensue. The previously evening, I received an e-mail from Johnny at TeguTerra informing me that my tegu should arrive promptly by 10:30 AM (CST). I still had three endless hours to wait. Well,

10:30 passed . . .
then 11:30 . . .
then 12:00 . . .

At this point, I began frantically (okay, okay.. I was doing this prior to this point anyway) tracking the package through the USPS tracking service.

"Out for Delivery     XXXXXX, TX 7XXXX     September 4, 2013 10:20 am"

I incessantly checked the front door for a package slip informing me the tegu was safely delivered to the front office. Nothing. I attempted to call the front office multiple times. No answer. In fear of missing the delivery, I continued to anxiously wait for a status change online while periodically calling the front office.

Finally, at 2 PM, my boyfriend arrived home and was swiftly (possibly aggressively at this point) ushered out the door to check the front office . . .

. . . and this is the doll he brought back!

New tegu hatchling

Thankfully my tegu arrived safe and mostly warm, albeit a couple hours late. Unfortunately, I did not get videos or pictures of the unboxing as I haphazardly decimated the box to reach my tegu. I *did* get a short video of her eating green seedless grapes, though, once I determined that she was alive and okay (I apologize for the poor quality - it was taken with my phone). Her legs currently look too large for her body, and she looks as if she may shed soon. This is true love.

This has been my first experience with shipping a live animal through USPS and will most likely be my last. I received no notification that she was delivered (no letter, no update through their tracking website until 5:30 PM, no knock on the door, etc.). She also arrived past their "guaranteed" delivery time. For those who expect to receive an animal through USPS, please make sure to check your door regularly, or your front office if you live in an apartment complex. Luckily, I live in Texas where it is relatively warm in September, but the situation could have been dire had I resided elsewhere. It is partially my fault for not familiarizing myself with their shipping policies, though I do believe quicker updates to their tracking service should be implemented and better notifications in general.

Duct Tape Wonderland

After multiple trips back and forth from Home Depot and Petsmart, mostly due to my indolence and unwillingness to create a simple list, I have finally set up the tegu's enclosure and completed tegu-proofing my living room, kitchen, dining room, and study. I now live in a duct tape wonderland, and any reminiscent of a hiding place once found by a friend's ferret has been annihilated.

Upon shopping for my tegu's new home, I encountered numerous conundrums: what type of enclosure, what is the cleanest and safest substrate, how do I want to control humidity, &c??

After much deliberation, pictured below is the current setup I decided create. There are still modifications that need to be done, though the foundation is essentially complete. Most changes will be depended on how the tegu interacts with her surroundings, and whether revisions will be imperative to her comfort.

40-gallon breeder tank for tegu hatchling

The terrarium is an Exo Terra Large/Wide (90 x 45 x 45 cm), equivalent to a 40-gallon breeder, with two doors that swing open from the front. I initially purchased two tanks, a standard aquarium requiring a top mesh lid and this Exo Terra. I wasn't confident that the Exo Terra, with front opening doors, was worth the additional hundred or so dollars (the 40-gallon aquarium was purchased during the $1 per gallon sale at Petco), but after many considerations it was indisputably the best choice for me.

My reasoning? Well, here it is: accessibility, accessibility, accessibility!

• Cleaning: I am a short, petite girl, and therefore the ability to clean the enclosure from the front is inexplicably amazing. Despite the fact that there is only substrate located in a single area of the enclosure, I am not so delusional to believe substrate will not end up all over the entirety of the tank. Removing substrate from a top-opening tank has proven difficult for me in the past.
• Lighting: Because this is an animal that requires regular handling and interactions from humans, I plan to be in and around the enclosure multiple times a day. Although UVB lighting should not be placed on top of a mesh screen (it impedes UVB rays and makes the bulb less effective for your reptile), having to deal with lighting fixtures when reaching in and out of the terrarium would become tedious. The Exo Terra allows permanent placement of a fixture (located in back left corner of tank) at a desirable angle, parallel to the floor.
• Handling: It is debatable whether or reaching downward into an enclosure inhibits the "taming" of a tegu hatchling, but I have found front doors permit quick access to any area of the terrarium, allowing swift removal of the tegu if ever needed. 
• Removal: Lastly, tegus are large lizards. Although this is tank is incapable of serving as a permanent housing unit for an adult tegu, it will be used for the first year of it's life. As it gains weight, removing a less-than-amenable lizard by lifting it out of the enclosure may become difficult. By placing the enclosure on, or close to, the ground, this would allow the lizard to merely saunter out of the terrarium on it's own. If physical removal were necessary, the doors would allow less lifting.

The flooring consists of Brazilian slate, purchased from Home Depot. The largest piece of slate is 40 x 40 cm (16 x 16 in), and the others are 15 x 15 cm (6 X 6 in). I chose this particular tile type due to it's ability to retain heat (a temperature gun is highly recommended to check the surface heat of the slate on a regular basis). The lack of substrate will permit me to monitor the tegu's bowel movements, and easy collection of samples for veterinary examination. This is especially important, in my opinion, for young reptiles; early detection of illness or distress can potentially increase the chances for a positive outcome (signs of impaction may become more obvious, noticing loose stool may indicate parasites and allow quick treatment, etc.). This is not necessarily the ideal flooring for a tegu, but should not be problematic due to the presence of a dig box. Please view my other post, "Home, Sweet Home: Tegu Housing," for the generally accepted "ideal" tegu substrate.

Instead of a terrarium full of substrate, I provide a digging box - a box filled with Eco Earth loose coconut fiber substrate where my tegu can dig if desired. Regular misting of the substrate will allow my enclosure to maintain the proper humidity. Stairs or a ramp will also be added for easy access into the box, and the location of the box may be moved.

The only source of heat and light present in my tank comes from the UVB bulb. Currently, I have a PowerSun 100w Mercury bulb placed 30 cm (12 in), parallel to the floor (distance from the floor is dependent on the type of bulb). It will be kept on 12 hours of the day and is controlled by a Zilla Digital Timer Power Center. My ambient temperature drops to 24 C (75 F) at night and the cool side stays around 28 C or higher while the UVB bulb is on, therefore an additional heat source is not required. Avoid coil bulbs!

The hide is from Whole Foods, and is currently located on the cool side only. I may, or may not, provide a hide on the warm side, depending on how my tegu does with one hide. Many tegu owners find that their tegus do not ever come out if a hide is kept on the warm side of the enclosure, which makes taming and socialization more difficult. I will be providing tegu-safe cloth materials for it to bury in.

Temperature is monitored with an Acu-rite Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer. It can simultaneously monitor the temperature in two different locations: the hot side (basking) and the cool side. Humidity is also measured. 

I do intend to add branches to allow various distances from the UVB bulb, and possibly live plants. Once the tegu is acclimated and deemed healthy, I will most likely fill the enclosure with substrate throughout. 

Please view my other post, "Home, Sweet Home: Tegu Housing," for the generally accepted "ideal" tegu enclosure.