theTegu.com - Tegu information, photo gallery, forums, caresheets, diet & nutritional info, taming tips and more for the argentine black and white tegu, argentine red tegu, blue tegu, colombian black tegu and the colombian gold-phased black tegu. Tupinambis merianea, teguixin & rufescens.
Nice pics Its good to see that he has a great appetite on him already.
I would caution you not to keep feeding by hand - you really, really dont want him to develop an association between your hand and food. Trust me, a big tegu launching at your hand because he thinks hes going to get fed is a scary experience Tegus will learn that certain items mean food - for Ricks, a clicker or yellow tongs (or anything long and yellow) will annouce that food is present, and for mine its his feed bowl. My tegu will literally launch at the bowl when he sees it and go a bit crazy with it, and there is an interesting tale on here of Ricks attacking a yellow pen because it looked like the feeding tongs.
Of course, what you do is up to you. Just a few words from experience, heh
Joined: Dec 11, 2004 Posts: 216 Location: BC, Canada
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2005 3:20 pm Post subject:
Nice looking tegu but I agree with Johelian that hand feeding can be a bad idea. My tegu still associated my hand with food and it is a hard habit to break.
Trust me the first time a foot and a half tegu jumps straight upat you mouth open you will change your feeding strategy.
Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 972269 Location: Central Maine
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 5:39 pm Post subject:
John,
The risk involved with hand feeding a tegu is very high. I wouldn't suggest posting as if it was a light matter or someone with 8 or 9 fingers may one day be knocking on your door.
Anyone who has a lot of experiance, or perhaps one bad experiance, with hand feeding tegus will suggest not hand feeding.
Joined: Dec 08, 2004 Posts: 998 Location: South Florida
Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:20 pm Post subject:
Rick again to each their own. There is risk involved yes. There is also risk involved getting up in the morning. I've hand fed everything from monitors and tegus to 12ft+ retics (I will not hand feed venomous snakes). I've seen someone try and hand feed an adult B/W and have their finger taken off. You do need to know what it is you are doing. I've been hand feeding animals all of my life and I don't intend to stop. Never did I recommend this, it's completely up to whom ever owns the animal. _________________ John Light
http://www.jlexotics.com/
Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 972269 Location: Central Maine
Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 4:15 pm Post subject:
John,
Anytime there is a discussion on hand feeding being bad you are there with an "I always hand feed. It's fine" post. If you are going to post like that you should also post a warning of the dangers.
If people start hand feeding people will get bit, probably seriously. The doctors will be required to ask how this happened and next thing we know tegus will start getting a bad rap over 'poor handling'.
Instead of repeating myself you can see my opinion here.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Login
Its good to see that he has a great appetite on him already.
