New to tegu's.

mmebwilliams · Member Joined: Sep 13, 2006 Posts: 21

I'm actually near Cardiff in south Wales. The room didn't work out as well as i'd hoped, i set the light up emptied the room sealed it and tried out the heat, unfortunately it takes about an hour or two to heat up and i'm only just breaking 90 degrees so i'm going to go with the idea of making an 8x4x4 viv and putting a partition shelf in so that i have two 8x4x2 viv's and i have already put a deposit on a lovely little red and ordered another black and white. By doing this they all have their own tanks and in time i will be putting the two b&w's together and then eventually the red, basically because the red is a hatchling at the moment and i'll need to wait for him to grow a bit. And then hopefully cause i will have 3 viv one maybe two of which will be empty i have a spare for the female to go into after laying, obviously this is two to three years off depending on how frisky my male/s are.

One question though is your lazy or could mine start hibernating. The reason i ask is because he seems to be still on the times of the shop, i'vv got the lighting on for 13 hours a day as i've been told both 12 hours a day in the summer and 14 hours. He goes and digs himself in about 6 o'clock and then doesn't wake until 11.30 maybe even 12 o'clock. Is this normal or is he starting to hibernate?
Thanks

worleygurl · Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:59 am Post subject:

It sounds like your tegu may be getting ready to hibernate. Tegus do not simply decide one day "Okay, today I shall hibernate" and immediately go to sleep. This happens over several weeks. They start to eat less and less each day, and sleep more and more.

As long as your tegu is healthy, alert, bright eyes, not underweight, etc. he/she will be fine hibernating. Hibernating is a very base instinct for them and you really can't stop them. A lot of people say if you raise their temperatures and offer food daily, they won't hibernate. This is simply not true. It is instinct for them to hibernate and if they choose to hibernate, they will do so.

Read up on some of the other posts re: hibernation to get more information

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