Loki settles the hand feeding debate :)

[apocalypse910]

 

[Rebecca Stout]

AWESOME! How precious. Lol. It's to the point of him being pampered. Could you please tell me how this evolved? Mine has never been cage aggressive. Never been motivated by food to get super excited or aggressive. My son has handfed her before. But we are still scared. She's not slow and careful like yours. She does kind snap it in a way to pick it up.

 

[Rebecca Stout]

By the way, if you title it "Loki, the tegu, settles ....." You get get a whole lot more hits I think. And I think it would come up in YT searches for reptile owners a lot better.

 

[N8bub]

What a good boy!

 

[Skeep]

Hehe, he's so lazy. "I dropped it, go pick it up for me please?"

 

[apocalypse910]

Hehe, he's so lazy. "I dropped it, go pick it up for me please?"

Haahaa - so lazy. Today I put my foot down and refused to set some salmon in his mouth. He actually huffed at me loudly and went back into his hide without eating it.

 

[apocalypse910]

AWESOME! How precious. Lol. It's to the point of him being pampered. Could you please tell me how this evolved? Mine has never been cage aggressive. Never been motivated by food to get super excited or aggressive. My son has handfed her before. But we are still scared. She's not slow and careful like yours. She does kind snap it in a way to pick it up.

Thanks! He mainly figured it out on his own - I just made sure to always show him my hands without food first. Basically I just made sure that he didn't just associate my hands with food and he did the rest. I'll note that I did this when he was tiny so there wasn't as much risk when he was learning. I think I got nipped once before he figured it out. I never punished him for getting it wrong - he just seems to naturally want to avoid biting.

He isn't always this slow - it tends to vary with his mood. He hasn't bitten since he was tiny but occasionally he'll charge over, open his mouth all the way, and do a dramatic snap on the food. He seems to know what he is doing though and only tries it with large pieces of food. If I scold him for showboating he'll huff and slow down so much with the next bite that I'd swear he was being sarcastic. With small bits of food he doesn't seem confident that he can get it out of my hand without catching me so he'll actually nose it out of my hand and pick it up instead.

Took your advice on the video name - thanks!

 

[Rebecca Stout]

Thanks. Thats great. I'm sharing this vid too.