Sleep Swimming

martee · Member Joined: Apr 22, 2007 Posts: 65

I went to bed pretty late tonight and before I did I checked on my tegu to see where he was sleeping this time. He is actually passed out in his bath tub with about 2 inches of cold water in it. I turned a red heat light on for the night to warm the air temperature a little bit. and i also poured some hot water into the tub to warm it up. He is usually really relaxed during the day, but he wont let me move him when hes trying to sleep.

Question is, could he get sick, or a respiratory infection from laying in the water? the water is clean, its just a bit cool, the lights have been off for a few hours now.
Do tegus instinctually know better than to put themselves in illness-causing situations?

aplusreptiles · Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:10 am Post subject:

Nero557 · Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:42 pm Post subject:

yeah i was also confused about this too, my tegus or beardies never have done it, but my savannahs used to do it when they were little, now i only have one, but and although he loves swimming in his pool and hes really good at it too, but when he was little he slept in the water, completely under... i was afraid he was going to drown himself... but he chose that over his hide until he got bigger and now he just uses his hide to sleep. Reptiles are weird, but usually if you just watch them you can find out what they want or what problems you have in your setup. I think, just my opinion, that my savannah just wanted a better hide to sleep in, at that time his water bowl was smaller than his hide... so i think he wanted to feel more secure, because when he got bigger, he also got a bigger water bowl and he slept in his hide rather than the water... just my thoughts...
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