Impactions are very serious and I have two on-line friends who lost their tegus do to impaction this year.

In the wild, tegus eat plant matter which adds fiber to their diet. This has been argues as to whether they prefer plant matter or if they are just being opportunistic. Plant fiber is quite different than rodent hair and serves to clean out the gut and keep things active. I choose to feed my tegus fruit along with their meat and I'll add plain Metamucil (about 1/4 teaspoon) to ground turkey to add fiber to the diet.

Since the diet of young tegus in captivity are usually low in calcium, it is also important to supplement with calcium and to move the feeder rodents up in size to ones that contain a bony skeleton as soon as possible. Calcium serves to keep muscles active, another important part of gut motility.

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