Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have two female Blue's a little over 2 years old, and one male Blue I recently rescued from a store in San Diego.... he seems to only be a little over a year old in size, but must be about a year and a half in age. I say this because he was not taken very good care of during his life before I aquired him. His tail was very skinnney when I got him, I doubt the store or the previous owner ever fed or maintained him properly. He definatelly does not feed like my other blue's -they are vacuum machines! His head is actually larger than my females while the rest of his body is sucked up skinney. I am fattening him up the best I can. yaddayadda yadda.. to my point of this post.

My blue females are caged in sepperate cages to keep them from fighting. When I introduce the male to either female in a open enviornment e.i. bathroom or livingroom or a 3rd cage or one of the females cages, -The male appropriatlly named "homes" after John Homes, is all about it. He constantly tries to mount the females to get his groove on. My females do not seem to be interested tho, constantly dashing away from "homes" and eventually try and hide from him to get him off their backs.
I have assumed this is because its dead summertime hot and the females know its not time for them to be humped. Homes does his best almost every day but never gets past second base I guess.
As much as I want him to hit a homerun, I'm thinking I need to cool the females for a few months, which I won't be able to do artificially, so I"ll just have to wait for the winter to do it for me. Then as spring comes around the corner I assume they will both be in the mood and a homerun will be hit? Until then should I cage all three tegus in three different cages?

The evil store I bought him from said "tegus are so easy to breed, all you do is take a hard plastic suitcase and put them in it for a day". If I did this I beleive they would start some crazy S&M and when I open the suitecase they both would be all battered and still no success.

I guess I just wanted to know if anyone out their has any experience or advice for me? I beleive I just need to wait until the winter comes and goes to set the females ovulation cycle.
Is it bad to keep the male in a cage with one of my females until then? It saves me electricity and space and cleanup time using two cages instead of three... not to mention my diamond X Jungle python cages...

Thanks for any comments, I'll post some pix of them as soon as I can find someone's digital camera.

Sounds like every male blue tegu I have had, happy breeders. The best thing to do is cycle them, we are almost into winter so just let the temps and light cycles drop with the season. The females might let him in spring, I have had many eggs from females that never "let" the males but that won't stop a male tegu.
Try to get lots of size on them before the cool down.
I would keep them in different cages, males will try to breed all year. This can cause lots of stress on the female, slow eating, etc. That will drop their size before breeding season, you don't want that.
Tegus are easy to breed, crank the humidity when spring comes and let the magic happen.
Good luck,
Jeff Houston

Thanks for the response Jeff. My Male wants his sugar
on the daily, and I am worried it its stressing my female.
Thanks for the confirmation on that one. Especially all the biting on her tail. You ever notice
how much wider the male can open his mouth compared to the
females? I'll separate them today through the winter, and hopefully sparks fly in the spring.
What kind of artifical means
can be done to the females to cycle them? I'm in San Diego coastal area and the weather here stays pretty much the same
all year round. Could a heatless cage for the female or daily/nightly says on my bathrooms cold tile floors help cycle
the females?

I've also noticed the male I have seems to have more curiosity than my females. When they roam free after a dump in the dumper cage I use, the females always seem to want to go hide some place in my house. The male seems to enjoy wandering in the open space and watching my daily activities, never seems to hide. Which is working out nice, when the females hide someplace he roams around to find them and scurrys them out of their hiding spot for me. Anyhow.. Thanks for the respone Jeff

Male blues I have noticed are the roughest I have had. They never tire of getting turned down.
Just cool them down when the weather drops. I am in Orange County, CA. I dropped light cycles and temps around Nov and turned them back on in spring. When the weather gets cold, that is a good time. When it gets hot, start feeding again. It is nothing magical. The temps in your house should drop enough in the winter to cool them. Just kill the heat and lights for a couple months. (give them water, stop feeding 2-3 weeks before turning off heat, etc, etc)
When your house heats up in spring start turning the lights on, they will get up on their own. Give them 1-2 weeks to wake up and get some food and then start breeding.
Males are more outgoing than females. Remember, in the wild the males have to find females to breed. The females just need to be found, easy for them!
Good luck with them,
Jeff

Got it, again thanks for the info!
If I were to artifically cool a female how long would I need
to cool them for? 2 months, 4 months?

I'll just let nature run its coarse and reintroduce them
when my snowboard season comes to a end.

Thanks again.

Sounds like every male blue tegu I have had, happy breeders. The best thing to do is cycle them, we are almost into winter so just let the temps and light cycles drop with the season. The females might let him in spring, I have had many eggs from females that never "let" the males but that won't stop a male tegu.
Try to get lots of size on them before the cool down.
I would keep them in different cages, males will try to breed all year. This can cause lots of stress on the female, slow eating, etc. That will drop their size before breeding season, you don't want that.
Tegus are easy to breed, crank the humidity when spring comes and let the magic happen.
Good luck,
Jeff Houston