Reptile & Amphibian Forums

as it turns out, my newer arg. b&w just prefers live prey. up until now, i'd only been able to get him to eat steak (he has an argentine taste, undoubtedly), a little egg, and a little snail. but today i put him in with some crickets and he turned into a lean, green killing machine. after he offed the 1/2 dozen or so crix, i put in some can o'crix, and he was so riled up that he ate 5 or 6 more of those. my question is, how have some of you managed to wean your tegus off of live prey? for now, i'll just keep on giving him a few live crickets, then giving him dead, but i don't want him to get too used to live, thus encouraging him to go for small, warm moving things (i.e. fingers, not a problem now, but it will be later!). so how have you guys managed to make the switch? any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Mine is just a garbage disposal, when its time to eat, its time to eat, he got my thumb yesterday lol (He let go almost the instant he realized he had my thumb instead of his Kiwi, guess you aren't safe even when you feed him with Hemostats).

yes, i know... one of my tegus eats like a pig, but the other is very, very selective, usually only going for live prey. again, does anyone know of a good method to wean tegus off of live food? advice, opinions, experiences appreciated. for now, i'm just giving him a few live crickets to send him into a wild feeding response, and then putting in the live food and crossing my fingers that he'll go for it. as time wears on, i plan to give less and less crickets and more and more dead food until he may (or may not) accept dead food readily. think that will work? it's worth a shot. if anybody has any suggestions or comments, feel free to drop in your two cents.

Insects unfortunately in my 18 years of experience do not preserve well. Items such as Can-O-Crickets and other freeze dried food is questionable and probably best avoided. My suggestion would be to continue feeding your Tegu live insects.
When your Tegu is big enough for rodents, I have seldom run across a monitor or Tegu that really cared if it was alive or not, (snakes can be a different story). Frozen / Thawed mice usually are accepted without much fuss as Tegus are opportunistic feeders which often feed on carrion in the wild.
About aggression and live feeding, I personally do not see the connection. Tegus recognize patterns, they possess the same level of intelligence as domestic cats and they pick up on routines and they can recognize the difference between hands and food. The trick is to avoid associating the two together.
Do not feed your Tegu with your hands, feed with tongs, or place the food in a food bowl, again do not "teach" your Tegu that hands=food. Do not try to handle your Tegu if you think you may have food smell on your hands, their senses are very keen in this regard.
If your Tegu is still young remember it is growing and it wants to eat constantly, that could be part of the aggression you are witnessing and in time that will diminish.

I Hope this Helps, and anyone else feel free to chime in.

-Kit

I must have a strange Tegu then, because he completly ignores any smell on my hand, he stops to see what it is, but its like he knows that its just a smell on my hand, not actual food.

Try dragging the frozen rodent across the bottom of the cage and get him to chass the rodent . If he chasses the rodent I bet he will try and kill it and eat it. take care Russ

How old and how big is he?If he is as young as I Think he is , Gut loaded Dusted Incects twice a day is all he needs. Feed him as many as he will eat at each meal. This is all I feed Santiago till he could eat a hopper size mouse. He got a pinkie every 2 weeks and he would not even look at fruit at that time. I would feed Santiago 70 crickets in one meal some times.Now he geats Rats , fruit, and a few king mealworms . I only feed him every 5 days ,alternating fruit and Rats. Take care Russ

Have you tried feeding appropriately sized rodents? As soon as he's able, get him on pinkies, fuzzies, hoppers, etc. along with the crickets. I would just stay away from processed insects altogether. I would bet that if he ate steak (that's not live) he'll eat a prekilled or f/t mouse of appropriate size. It may be that the can o' crickets just isn't very appealing to your little one. Also, heed the advice about not feeding with your hands. I've been feeding mine in the same blue bowl since day one and have never had my fingers mistaken for prey. She knows to look in the bowl and not at my hands for her food. She sees the bowl and knows it's feeding time. I also have been feeding her fruit in a white bowl and as soon as she sees that, she's kinda like, "Oh, that's not mice or turkey, so it can wait until later. I'll just sit here and bask." but still doesn't try and attack my hands. She knows that the hands simply carry the bowls that carry the food. They becomed conditioned to their surroundings and routines very quickly. Good luck!

Billy

listen, i've tried fish (grouper), turkey, steak, cheese, hardboiled egg (yolk and white), besides the canned insects. i offered him a thawed pinky, and he turned it down. it's not like i am giving him only canned foods, it's just that i use them now and then to vary his diet when i can't afford, or manage to get something else. i just said that i'd try to switch him from live crickets to dead crickets because dead crickets resemble and smell like live crickets. from there, once he is used to going after nonmoving prey, i start spicing it up. up until now he's refused the canned stuff over and over again because it doesn't move. why he goes for the steak, but not fish or turkey or other things is beyond me. i dust what i offer him, i vary his diet (when he allows it), i give him uv light. he's just picky. today, after the ritualistic offering of seven live crickets, he ate steak and dead crickets. he's doing fine.

Yeah it sounds like he's doing great! Just cuz it's on the topic one thing I do to get them to eat stuff that doesn't move is to put it down right in front of their face. Then they're more curious about it and when they flick their tongue they taste it.

It is good to hear that your Tegu is eating, although I'm curious as to this "pickyness" you're describing.
Aside from the weeks leading into their hibernation cycle Tegus tend to eat consistantly, so this (to me) sounds odd when a seemingly healthy Tegu turns its snout up on food.
Can you give additional information about your enclosure, setup, and routines?
Can you share some detail about your Tegus behavior aside from eating?
I am especially curious about your Tegus basking temperature.
I ask only because I'm trying to understand this strange finicky behavior you and some others have described with their Tegus. I have never seen it except in cases where other aspects of my husbandry was off in some way.

It's possible that if we as group examine this, we collectively might stumble on some patterns that we may all learn from.

Thanks!
-Kit

he doesn't trun down live food. EVER. he just is very fickle about nonliving food. he's scarfed pinkies, fuzzies, and crickets, but he only does so consistently when they're live. thing is, the local pet stores don't always have appropriately sized mice. they often run out of crickets preety often, too. as for his enclosure... it's 4*2*2. he's got a basking rock that raises him closer to the light. there are also spots where he can squeeze under the rock, too. on top of that rock, the air temp is about 107 degrees. there's also a uv light up there with the basking light. there's a rubbermaid hide box with damp sphagnum moss, its around 80 degrees in there. there's a pretty large water dish, too. the bottom of the enclosure, except the hide, is filled with hay. i really think that this tegu is just picky. he specifically wants live food, and live food only. he's about 16 or so inches long (guesstimating). i'm just hoping that he'll get more receptive to nonliving food sooner or later, because the pet shops near me don't always have enough pinkies and fuzzies on hand. today he ate a fuzzy and a dozen crickets. as for our routines... i take him out once or twice a day for about 15 minutes or so, depending on how he reacts to it. i handle him and let him patrol the house a little, too. i feed him outside of the enclosure, he has no problem eating the live stuff, but gets picky with the nonliving items. i give him a soak in the bathtub in warm water about once or twice a week. he's shed once already, he's passing feces and urates once a day or so (they look normal). he basks during the day, and sleeps all night. to the best of my knowledge, i'm doing everything for him. it's not like this is my first herp, either. i've been raised in a household with many iguanas, geckos, monitors, and tons and tons of snakes. i've seen enough animals to know they can just be picky, but i was at first concermed because i have never seen a picky tegu. i can never recall any of my friends or acquaintances having picky tegus. he just likes live... he only eats nonliving if he has to, and then, not much of it. fine, i'm not squeamish, it's just that pet stores are often quite inconsistent with pinkies and fuzzies (crickets too, sometimes). i've geeb trying to convince my girlfriend that we ought to start a small scale mouse colony. she doesn't really want to though, because she bred mice for years and absolutely hates the stench. anyhow, i digress. my tegu turns his snout up at nonliving food. but he's ravenous when it comes to live. picky? yes. healthy? yes. inconvenient? yes? worth it? yes. that's the story.

Based on your post it seems that your Tegu has developed a behavior around living food. I don't know a better thing to call it, but I have run into this with some Wild Caught monitors I have taken in.

1) Take an adult frozen mouse, ensure it is frozen nearly solid and take a cleaving knife or even a hacksaw to cut it in half across the abdomen, then thaw the mouse. In my previous experience I have seen that the presence of "opened" prey tends to trigger a feeding response, at least monitors find rodent guts irresistable.

2) Try the gradual approach from feeding live, to freshly killed, to frozen thawed rodent over a period of a week. Try to make the dead prey item appear alive by feeding your tegu with tongs and shaking the prey in front of your Tegus nose. Sometimes any kind of movement will trigger a feeding reaction. remember to make sure it is a feeding reaction however, if your Tegu "attacks" the prey and does not feed that usually is a sign you are stressing your animal out.

Some other ideas: Instead of crickets see about obtaining Large Hissing Roaches or Lobster Roaches. A small group of these insects breed pretty rapidly, giving you ready access to live food for your Tegu. There is alot of care information of where to get these insects and how to breed them on-line.
One thing I would consider is raising the basking temperature 10 more degrees, say in the 120 - 130 F range and see if that doesn't produce better and more consistent feeding results. You can achieve this by raising your basking platform another inch or so to the basking light, or simply using slightly higher wattage bulbs.
If you decide to do this, I would strongly recommend getting an infrared Temperature Gun. ProExotics sells the cheapest one I've seen, for $35 its a reasonable and worthy investment as these give you accurate readings of the surface temps of basking areas and othe areas of your Tegus cage.

These are just some ideas, I've had postive results with them, but always remember your mileage may vary. Thanks also for taking the time to post the details of the problem and your environment.

Take Care and Good Luck!

-Kit

i upped the bulb from 200 watts to 240 watts. i already have a temp gun, but that just gives you the surface temperature of the basking rock (with the old buld it was 107ish, now it's 113ish). however, that's just the rock's temp, not the surrounding air. and since the tegu is a couple inches higher than the rock when it basks (since it's on top of it) and it's darker (the rock is white), he will definitely get hotter than 113, so i think that's fine.

>>listen, i've tried fish (grouper), turkey, steak, cheese, hardboiled egg (yolk and white), besides the canned insects.

- The things you have tried should only be used as a treat and offered occasionally, ESPECIALLY with a young, growing tegu. Definitely stay away from the cheese because of the high sodium content in many cheeses.

i offered him a thawed pinky, and he turned it down.

- Get him on live pinkies first and then offer f/t. I've never heard of a tegu of any species who would not eat pinkies, although I'm not counting it out by any means.

it's not like i am giving him only canned foods, it's just that i use them now and then to vary his diet when i can't afford, or manage to get something else. i just said that i'd try to switch him from live crickets to dead crickets because dead crickets resemble and smell like live crickets. from there, once he is used to going after nonmoving prey, i start spicing it up.

- I was under the impression that you just got him. How old/big is he? Keep in mind that as they get older they will be more likely to eat non-moving food because that is what they are genetically programmed to do (scavenge for carrion and fruit). Be patient and keep feeding him the live stuff for now, as that is what he is programmed to eat as a hatchling.

up until now he's refused the canned stuff over and over again because it doesn't move.

- How do you know it's because it doesn't move? It may just be that he doesn't like the way it smells. How long do you leave it in his enclosure for? Tegus are by nature, very curious animals and will usually investigate anything in their enclosure that even remotely resembles food. My girl will often ignore fruit for hours, but will eventually eat some. Again, I'm going to try and persuade you from feeding the foods you are offering and try and stick with whole prey items or at the very least, fortified ground turkey in the form of the SDZ diet as a staple.

why he goes for the steak, but not fish or turkey or other things is beyond me. i dust what i offer him, i vary his diet (when he allows it), i give him uv light. he's just picky. today, after the ritualistic offering of seven live crickets, he ate steak and dead crickets. he's doing fine.

- I'm glad he's doing fine, but again, try a live pinky and see how he responds to that. Also try live mealworms, kingworms, etc. Your main priority needs to be providing the proper nutrition and amounts of food for your little one. Worry about switching him over to dead/non-moving prey items once he's established himself for a at least a few weeks. Good luck!

Billy