Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Folks,
what do you think? Is it possible to keep a semiadult White Throat and a adult BW Tegu together in a large setup (15ft x 12ft) ?

Tegus taste good, mmmm. Ok Sobek, thats enough, lol.
Seriously, no, WTs are lizard eaters, snake eaters, bird eaters, and get large. 2 separate cages are needed, most definitely, unless of course you dont like your tegu very much.

How much does she weigh now? Gorgeous as usual =)
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also keep in mind when housing different reptiles together that some can host(carry) parasites that never effect them and almost never show themselves without a fecal or bloodwork being done, where others when housed with them can contact the parasite and it can be deadly. in the wild few, very few different species would house together in close quarters..

If the animal is healthy the parasites will not affect them. Also the petstore books you read about parasites transferring and killing them was written by those who could not keep either species alive for long let alone healthy.

maybe you havent dealt with parasites before but they will affect a reptile and once a rep gets parasites, depending on the type of parasite and the species of reptile, psarasites can cause irreprable damage to its health, such as kidney and liver disease/ damage. and parasites can be deadly. in the wild a reptile has the immunities to fight the parasites and bacterias he encounters. when we produce captive these immunities fade and finally disappear altogether due to the need no longer being there to fight the problem it once fought. then when a wild caught is put in with the captive, the parasite is reintroduced and there is no way the captive can fight since the immunities are non existant now. parasites kill a lot of reptiles, and cause damage to many others. just like with mites, eventually without being treated mites can kill . parasites feed off their host.

Captive reptile is.
They have strong immune systems, they heal very very fast, in fact so fast your head spins sometimes. In the wild they have predators, drought, cold, famine, disease, many kinds of parasites, and people collecting them to sell to the leather trade and to those who may doom them through bad husbandry in the pet trade. In captivity a wild caught animal stresses easier than a CBB animal as the CBB has never seen freedom, so it doesnt miss what it doesnt know. CBB animals are more resilient in captivity because they dont have that lack of freedom as a stress. If you care for them correctly they dont have predators, disease, famine, drought, unusable temps, etc, in the right conditions there are very very few parasites internal or external that will even slow them down.
The key words are "in the right conditions, or something resembling the right conditions". At one time I allowed a vet to treat some wild caught monitors and other reptiles for parasites, all had something in common, they died in no time at all. I stopped treating any reptiles for internal parasites, I only treated them for external, such as the few rare cases of mites Ive helped others with, or removing ticks, guess what they live, are healthy, and happy. Treating an animal for parasites sucessfully is like putting a temporary bandaid on a severe laceration, proper husbandry fixes the problem, parasites are not sucessful if they kill their host, if they did so, they would be extinct, and they would be called predators not parasites.
Have you ever seen a monitor digging or running around that does something dumb like rip a claw out, or the end of a toe? Ive seen a few do this, by leaving them alone in the dirt to heal on their own, they heal shut the injured toe overnight, and grow a new claw in 2 weeks or less. This is an example of an immune system, stress kills immune systems.
Another point about testing and treating for internal parasites, the parasites keep themselves in check naturally, when sickness, stress, dehydration, etc set in the parasites need to find new hosts or territory, if the host is dieing they reproduce like mad.
Also when fecal exams happen, they are to check for the presence of shedding eggs or parasite segments, and escaping parasites looking for new hosts. When a healthy monitor has parasites it may not show except once or twice a year, each in a few days time, sometimes more. So how many negatives will show before a positive on a somewhat healthy monitor, many many, sometimes it may take continual testing for years to get a positive.
The problem with old petstore monitor books are that they repeat advice from 30-40 years ago and from authors that dont even keep monitors or havent kept one alive for even a year or more.

Sounds like you spend too much time in the bearded dragon forums!
Seriously though, I've only been keeping reptiles for about 4 years, and my first was a bearded dragon. I am going to admit right now that the husbandry I gave that little guy (well, he already an adult when I got him) was horrible. You know what? It was the exact husbandry I was told to employ by the bearded dragon forum and by the bearded dragon manual. Basically, bearded dragons (and most reptiles) are kept at temperatures that are too low, they are kept in a stressful environment, and they have no humidity to speak of! It's like people are purposely trying to dry out their reptiles!

Just because reptiles come from a 'desert' doesn't mean that you should deprive them of any sort of humidity. Go to the desert and dig down a ways. Try digging underneath a rock, or better yet, undearneath some sort of plant. If there's plants there, there's got to be water. If there's any life there, there's got to be water. Water supports life. That's why desert reptiles retreat to hiding spots that offer much higher humidity than the surrounding environment, because otherwise they would dehydrate and die quite quickly. That's what most people are doing to their reptiles, and that's when things like parasites and impaction show up. If you're keeping your reptiles right, parasites aren't a problem, and impaction just doesn't happen. The problem comes when people stop giving reptiles what they need. They keep the basking spots too low, and they give them no where to go to where they can find higher humidity. Even if it's just a box with some moist dirt in it, reptiles need somewhere they can go (and it needs to feel secure) to get that humidity they need.

Parasites, impaction, etc. are secondary to the real problem...always. People assume that parasites cause Kidney and Liver damage...it's the REAL PROBLEM that's causing that, like humidity (lack thereof).

Keeping reptiles indoors in houses is hard enough already. Just going into my reptile room (aka: my bedroom) will show you that. It's hot, and it's dry. I have to put tons of water in the dirt in my cages everyday to keep their hiding spots humid and keep them hydrated. I have a bearded dragon that has kidney problems because he had parasites because I did things wrong when he was a little guy. That's the bottom line. He had parasites and it was my fault. He had more issues and it's my fault. If your reptile has parasites, it's YOUR FAULT.

1st i dont spend any time in the bearded dragon forum or any kingsnake forum, i have nothing but bad advice and abuse in these forums. i am a qualified vet tech and have had reptiles for about 15 years. i work with reptiles not only at home, my job is caring for reptiles and other animals. i recently had my 1st bearded put to sleep because of her age. she was over 14 years old. the life span on average of a bearded is 8-10 years. i believe that the people who have so much to say in these forums should know what they are talking about and maybe even try being a little courteous to others, but mainly stop giving misinformation and try keeping your mouth shut if you are only giving opinions.

You're a vet tech? So you've seen what happens to captive reptiles. You have to understand though that what comes through your doors is only a small part of the problem. It's all about actual care, and right now most people don't know how to take care of their reptiles, and even more are afraid to try anything new.

The inability to cope with parasites is not captive breeding. You've been misinformed about that. Stress and dehydration is what causes problems. Until people understand that, they will always deal with parasites and impaction. Another thing about impaction...it does have a lot to do with improper substrate choice as well. The majority of reptiles kept on sand aren't designed to be kept on sand (just look at their feet). Leopard geckos, in particular, are designed to live in rock crevaces, but people insist on keeping them on sand because they come from the 'desert'. This is the same thing I was talking about with the water and dehydration aspect.

I already admitted that I had no idea what I was getting into with my bearded dragon when I got him 4 years ago. I had already studied reptiles since I was 5 (I had a large variety of reptile books). What I found out was, published reptile information sucks. Hardly any of it is anything more than what a petshop would tell you to do, and that is mostly just what they want you to think you should do so that you'll buy more stuff from them (yeah, you need this heatpad and this expensive calcium sand...why not get this big fancy aquarium with a screen top to keep it in, to further aid in the dehydration process?).

Don't get stuck in your ways. You can just shrug off parasites and impaction by saying captive reptiles don't have an immune system, but that's not helping the hobby in any way. Some of the people on this forum aren't settling for that explanation, and it's gotten them much further than others before.

That's great that your beardie lived that long, but I just don't get why a vet tech would settle for a (possibly false) explanation to a problem, instead of trying to solve it? I guess that's probably a lot like my girlfriend's mom who's a nurse. My girlfriend got depressed, so her mom had her put on anti-depressents. Of course, medicine will solve everything. It's not that she's juggling school, working 3-4 days a week, dancing ballet 3-4 days a week, living with parents that hate each other, are never home, and lie to her. Obviously it's not that, right? Consider environment.