New B/W Tegus

[themedic]

Hey everyone this will be my first post but certainly not my last.

I just received my package from Varnyard, what a great guy and speedy shipping also.

I purchased 2 tegus, un-related male and female, they are awesome I have not measured them but I would say they are about 13-15 inches long although I could be wrong, I will be sure to dock there length tomorrow so I can measure each month and track there growth.

They are in a custom cage I built, and will more then likely spend there entire life cycle in it unless I plan to move them outside in a bigger enclosure.

I took them out of the shipping box and they were pretty cold so after holding them for about 30 mins I decided to put them in a warm bath and let them chill for a while they seem to really enjoy it and one of them even pooped, which is a good sign!

Do tegus get darker or get lighter with age?

One is definetly darker and has less white, I am thinking this is the male, and one is alot lighter with more white, guessing this is the female, they are both equally cool and cant wait till they start putting on some weight.

I offered them a sliced up boiled egg, but bobby from varnyard said they were in hibernation so to my suprise they werent hungry. No biggy I just wanted to make sure if they were hungry they would have something to eat.

I know the tank is kind of tall 3ft to be exact, but I am making a custom design inside of the enclosure to enable them to climb up towards the light if they desire!
Hopefully in a couple of months they will come out of hibernation.[attachment=2]

 

[Jefroka]

Welcome to Tegutalk!

They're too young to know for sure what sex, but call Bobby and ask him if he sexed them. Bobby's very good at sexing even young ones.

The cage is not big enough for two full grown adults. If you do make another one you can subtract a foot of height. Nice design though.


...Jefroka

 

[mis jaksin]

Congrats on the new gu's! The enclosure looks nice (not sure bout the width/depth of it), but i'd be cautious with them getting nose rubs. When my gu wants out he rubs his face up against the glass until I open it. With that screen, they could hurt their noses pretty quick.

 

[themedic]

Thanks for the criticism , its like a hard plastic I wanted to go with metal but the plastic was a little more affordable, next build I will use metal for sure.

The dimensions are 60x27x36, I was going to make it wider but I decided to make it 27 inches instead because at first I thought I was going to have it inside.

Its outside right now, under a car port so I dont have to worry about rain and heavy winds.

 

[isdrake]

I agree with the others. This cage looks REALLY good.

It's hard to tell the size in the pictures. But I seriously doubt that it could house ONE adult Tegu.

 

[themedic]

Yeah thanks for the props, it was my first time I ever build a cage it took me one day then another to do 2 coats of grey paint other then that it was pretty easy.

Now I am wishing I made it 2ft tall instead of 3, and wishing I made it 3ft wide and 6ft long. This should hold them least for a year or so, then maybe then I will build another cool cage for them to live in.

They really love to burrow I think its pretty cool, they basked today for about 5 hours and then went to burrow agian so I turned the lights off round 7, I have a 10.0 UVB light, and a 150w heat lamp for them, I will get a hydrometer and thermometer for them tomorrow so I can monitor temps and humidity levels.

thanks agian i'll keep you all posted with new pictures every so often!

 

[themedic]

is it safe to take wake my tegu in hibernation to give them a warm bath just to make sure they poop if they have too and stay hydrated through there skin with the humidity dropping due to the temp change and no light humidity will drop obviously in the cage.

I've read some articles they say just to leave them completely alone.

 

[reptastic]

congrats on the new guys, to answer your question yes some b/w tegus do get darker with age. I wouldnt worry to much about em in hibernation, i got a tegu from bobby about 6 months agoad she decided not to hibernate and grew alot, and i got my other tegu in mid december and he was hibernating with bobby and stayed under for a few days when i first got him now he is up eating everyday. so they may abandon hibernation ut if not just leave fresh water in there cage if they re thirsty they will come out and drink

 

[themedic]

Thanks for the info, I decided to bring them inside its going to be in the 30's tonight, the 40's tomorrow and the 50's the next day. although I am sure they can handle these temps in the wild i didn't want to chance it since they are babies.

So they are chillin in a plastic Tupperware with about 6 inches of mulch, ill check on em everyday to see how they are doing, I wish they were out of hibernation so they would eat. I ordered 200 frozen pinkies and that should last a while, also I am breeding my own meal worms and crickets.

I know your not supposed to hand feed, but through my personal experiences if you hand feed from a young age I view that the feeding response isn't as aggressive, if I am going to hand feed I should start now cause If i try to do it when they are bigger obviously they will be more prone to bite me.

I guess when they come out of hibernation I will know, if they are very aggressive even at this age eating out of my hand I'll probably just use the bin method but yesterday I had a spray bottle and I was misting the mulch, one of the tegus starting to lick the mulch like it was thirsty so I started to lightly mist at the tegus mouth and it start to just drink right out of the mister opening as I slowly sprayed water in his mouth, I thought this was a great response and agian its showing the tegu that I am a friend and I am trying to help it.

I think these animals are smarter then most people think, I am very impressed on there alertness.

 

[Pikey]

pinkies aren't the best (mostly fat) but you can get some very small fuzzies (less fat & not much bigger)

if you can get Dubias they are WAY better than crickets & breed better

TheRoachRanch.com (best prices i've found cuz $25 & up get free shipping)

 

[themedic]

Wow thanks for that tip brother.

Seems like Dubia Breeding is way easier and more effecient.

Do you breed your own roaches?

 

[Pikey]

yup i have a collony of dubias & hissers

 

[themedic]

Nice, how often do you feed your tegus roaches, i bet they just devour them, does it take alot to fill them up?

 

[Pikey]

well the big guys only two of them eat the roaches they get them as like a treat (every once in a while)

Harley my li'l one eats them every 3rd day (he gets them when he eats mice/rats)
on rodent day he'll eat like 5-8 big dubias & then 2-3 hopper rats or a small adult mouse
he used to eat 10-15 of them every other day then he went down for 2 months then woke up and was eating them faster than my collony of 250 could take got down to less then 60 big ones left with 10 adults so i had to order 100 big nymphs to add to them cut down his intake of the dubias and now i have 2 totes one of breeding and a feeder collony (i dont feed out of the breeders but if the feeders get low i dump some of the breeder babies in the feeder tote)

i got like 40 or so hissers

 

[themedic]

Nice. yeah seems you have a pretty good rotation, I just bought 2 gu's from bobby they havent eaten yet cause they are in deep hibernation. hopefully they come out soon, if not im prepared to just let them stay asleep as long as it takes. man you can get a good 100-250 colony goin for like 80 bucks, thats not bad....

 

[themedic]

heres a pic of one of them basking, the other one was asleep under the mulch

 

[themedic]

and another

 

[txrepgirl]

How cute . I don't want to be rude but I was just wondering what are the temps right under the basking spot ? How far away is the UVB light ? the lights just seem to me to be a bit to far away from the Tegu. It UVB light hast to be a sertain distance ( 12" I believe ) in order for it to work right.

 

[Pikey]

i'm worried about the screen front letting out the humidity, but if it's a MVB light i think the range is 3ft max (the tube lights are 10-24")

And you might not want to use a clear hide it can make them feel unsafe

 

[lazyjr52]

Very nice cage and gu. Just a suggestion but you might want to move the lights a little closer and use plexiglass instead of screen.

And it's great to see a tegu with that much living space. I'm sure he's happy.