Worried about our new tegu

[isdrake]

Me and my boyfriend brought an Argentine black and white tegu recently. We have only had her for one and a half week.

The plan was to first build a large enclosure and then buy a tegu. However it turned out that tegus are really rare in Europe. And there is no breeder what so ever in Sweden. And since they are CITE-listed they are pretty hard to import...

However we where lucky and found a guy who had a young B/W tegu that he didn't want anymore. So we thought since we where planning on getting a tegu any way and we had found a little one in Sweden that was i need of a new home... well, we bought her (we are calling her a female until we know her real sex).

But know we are worried about her health. Turns out that she is 10 months old! She does look very small for being so old.

She is about 30 cm long (1 feet). She weights 17 gram (0.04 pound). Is this normal for a tegu at that age?

I know hibernation has huge influence. And I don't know if she had hibernated before or not. But I don't think so due to her age. We are worried that she hasn't got a proper diet nor UVB lightning in the past.

I will post some photos of her. Can someone please take a look to so if everything is okay? She is shedding at the moment.

Right now she is doing really well. She is eating a lot, poops and have just began so shed. She is active, curious and seems to enjoy her temporary enclosure. She had a little problem with the feeding bin at the beginning but now she really getting the hang of if. I even think she has grown a little during the two weeks we have had her.

I would really appreciate other peoples opinions about this.

 

[skippy]

i wouldn't stress too much. is she eating? have you supplied her with uvb? those are the crucial elements, really. she seems small for her age but, as long as she's eating and roving around a lot she's got a good start :mrgreen:

 

[mr.tegu]

Well the good news is your tegu is eating, and active. from the looks of your pictures i may see 1 or 2 health problems. The pictures may be misleading to me but i see a bent bottom jaw? Am i correct? Or is this substrate on your tegus mouth? If this is a bent or sagging jaw your tegu is showing signs of m.b.d., or maybe some kind of mouth rot.(hard to tell in the pics) In my opinon mouth rot is easier to treat. You cant do much about how your tegu was raised, but you certainely can take over and make this little tegu thrive and have a happy life. Obviously u.v.b light is a must. good temps in the enclosure, i keep my tegus at an ambient hot side of 92 and cool side 75, basking of around 100-110 no hotter. and a good diet of fuzzie mice and gut loaded insects, ground turkey, boiled eggs and so on. To promote good sheds keep humidity up in enclosure, i can keep mine at around 70 percent most of the time. When my tegu was small i kept a good eye on its toes during shedding to keep from ringing and losing the toe, baby oil works good on toes around shedding time. Her size is small to most tegus at 10 months old but like you stated, we cant be sure if she hibernated.(most likely she did). Keep up the good feedings and uvb lighting and warm temps and you will see a huge growth spurt soon. please let us know what is going on with its jaw so we can further help this tegu out..

 

[chris allen]

17 grams is super tiny......I would think they are about that or so when hatched(just taking a guess here since I have never hatched them). Sure you didn't mean 170? From the pics, she does look small, but bigger than 17 grams.

 

[txrepgirl]

Next time when she poops look at her poop and see if there is any undigested food in there ( sorry I forgot to mention it on the other forum ). If there is undigested food in there ( like the hair of the rodent ) than the UVB light isn't strong enough and I would make sure the temps are high enough 100-110. Here is some info for you on mbd in case your Tegu has it. I recommend to feed her some rodents 2 to 3 times a week. The calcium she will get from the rodents is the best. Please make sure she has the right UVB and the right basking temps or she will not be able to digest the hair from the rodents properly and she could get impacted. Also when she is shedding I don't recommend to pull on the skin that isn't ready to come off yet because you can cause some damage to the skales and the skin can get infected. It's OK to try to rub it off just don't pull on it. It's normal for the skin on the tail to come off later than the rest of the body.

MBD info:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.anapsid.org/mbd.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.anapsid.org/mbd.html</a><!-- m -->

Shedding info:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.anapsid.org/shedding.html#liz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.anapsid.org/shedding.html#liz</a><!-- m -->

 

[isdrake]

If you could please use Celsius we dont use F over here in Sweden =)

Some info.

We are using a Exo Terra Sun Glo 160w lamp at about 50 cm hotspot has 42degrees Celsius then a gradient from 42 too 25 from hotside to cool side.
Getting Megaray for the new enclosure but the SunGlo works good and has a good

Sun Glo is an UVB lamp. Also using UVB light rod thing. WE have a humidity at 70% during morning and evening. during the hottest parts of the day its down to 50-60% she has.

We will post a better picture of her mouth this evening when we get back from work / movie( James Cameron Avatar release )

We have an an fogger and ar large basin for bathing and a small basin for drinking. To keep the humidity up.

Her poop is like dark stools. ( just feeding her crickets and zophbas atm ) Powderd with vitamin and calcium powder.

Getting pinkies this weekend to try with. As she is getting larger she will get our nicly gutloaded b.Dubia we have breeding our selfs =).

She basks allot and usually takes small trips around the enclosure. And gets back to basking. So it might have been a problem with no or low UVB.
To my knowledge he hasn't hibernated. But i cant be sure trying to get hold of her orgins.

Best regards
Isdrakes boyfriend

 

[laurarfl]

Sun Glo is a halogen lamp that does not produce UVB, but does have some UVA properties. It is the Solar Glo that is a mercury vapor bulb made by Exo-Terra. Just wanted to make sure you had the bulb you think you did.

Here's a temperature converter:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm</a><!-- m -->

It looks like you want basking temps to be 43 C.

Definitely keep up on the calcium supplementation as everything it is eating right now has a low Calcium : Phosphorus ration (insects, pinkies, etc). You'll want to make sure the tube UV is within 12" (I like 8 personally) of the basking spot since UV dissipates over distance. Or, use a Mercury Vapor Bulb like Megaray, Power Sun, or Solar Glo.

That is a small tegu for it's age, but with proper care, it can start to take off in growth!

 

[isdrake]

Sorry yes its a Solar Glo lamp 160w the UVB kind. (self ballansted mercery vapor bulb ). its imposiblle currently to move the uvb tube. but we are builing a new enclusure during the end of the year ( 3.7m2 ).

 

[mr.tegu]

[quote="txrepgirl" if there is any undigested food in there. ( like the hair of the rodent ) than the UVB light isn't strong enough
Is this a true statement? I am aware of feeding to many rodents at one feeding could result in fur impactions, but not due to u.v.b being to weak or not enough. Can you please explain further the effect of u.v.b effecting the digesting of rodent fur.

 

[isdrake]

Yes, I did mean 170 grams. ;P Gave her pinkies for the first time today. She seemed to like them.

I have tried to get photos off her head. But it's hard. I only have from the side. I will try to take some from the front if I get the chance.

I'm not that worried anymore because she seems really fine. And I can't see anything wrong with the poop.

We will take her to the vet someday in the future to get her looked at and get some insurance. But I don't want to stress her with that right now then everything is so new for her.