Baby tegu mood swing

firecar96 · Member Joined: Jan 27, 2008 Posts: 40 Location: Michigan

Well I had something interesting happen to today. My girlfriend went to take the new baby tegu out of his cage and he turned into psycho tegu. She moved the log to pick him up and he immediately stood up on all fours, arched his back and started hissing at her and whipping his tail at her and opened his mouth and got all puffy.
I was in the room when she did this but she started yelling my name, so I ran in there to see what was wrong, and I saw she was trying to get him out and she asked me "if this was normal for the tegu", which of course it wasn't. Apparently it made great effort to try and bite her, even running after her hand trying to bite. So I had her and the friend she had with her leave the room. I sat next to the cage for a couple minutes waiting for the little guy to calm down. Then when he did, I tried reaching my hand in there to pick him up and he immediately ran over to me and clamped on to my hand. He bit harder than he ever has before. I was shocked, because it has been two weeks since we got him and he gets handled everyday and has never exhibited this kind of behavior. He has been eating fine. He eats like a pig and gets plenty of time to run around and he has a more than big enough cage for his current size.

Does anyone out there have any ideas or theories as to why he did that? After he bit me I took him out and he still made great effort to bite me. After a couple minutes he calmed down and was normal again. I was able to handle him like normal days.

Any idea's?
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Same old circus, different clowns. The story of my life.

txrepgirl · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:31 am Post subject:

Do you feed him in the enclosure ? because that can cause problems like this.She also maybe could of scared him when she reached in there.Try to talk to him for a minute or two when you open the enclosure,than put your hand in there but not close to him.So he can see your hand but knows that you don't want to harm him.Take your hand out after a while and do it again.If you are worried about getting bit (what I did with my second Tegu ) I put on a long sleeve sweat shirt.Put the sleeve over your hand and than get close to him.Let him lick you for a little while than slowly slide your fingers out of the sleeve and slide them under his chest and than stomach.Tegus usually don't like to be picked up because they don't like to have there feet of the ground.Also always have your hand in front of him when you get close to him.Other wise he gets scared and wants to bite.Hope that helps.Oh,a nother thing.Please make sure that you always wash your hands first before you touch him because if he smells food on your fingers he will bite you.

jose2187 · Honored Member Joined: Mar 08, 2008 Posts: 259

my new baby b&w is very agro he tail whips and tries to bite all the time. once he is in my hand he calms down my red is very tame but I am still working with the b&w he is still a hatchling

i0r · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject:

Simple.....by removing his hide spot the trust was broken. What i've noticed about tegus is that if you want them tame.....then it's their way or the highway. You can't manipulate them like that when you want....it's when they want. Best thing is to wait for him to get out of his hiding place. That means he's not scared and will probably not bite you when trying to pick him up. Now how ever you gotta re establish the trust.

Good luck
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0.1.0 Argentine B&W, Juancha

bubbasherps · Respected Member Joined: Dec 16, 2005 Posts: 459

I agree

The shelter should be a safe place for your tegu

I once moved my tegu shelter and disturbed him and took me 4 months to get trust back from him

now i hold and pet mine when they are active out of the shelter works much better

jeff
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TEGUS TEGUS AND MORE TEGUS

Dragonfruit · Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject:

Tango definitely has his days where he will wiggle his tail at me and arch up like he's saying "oh yeah? Try me!" so I just leave him alone. He does not get fed in his enclosure and I NEVER force him to come out if he doesn't want to, which is rare. But he is also not a baby. He is going to be 2 this year I think. I agree with i0r's post completely. Trust is a big part of it.

-Tango's Mom