Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my little guy(well about 18-20 inches long) is on peat moss right now he was on cypress mulch but he wasnt digging like tegus should be and he isnt really digging in the peat moss either. he has no parasites and he is very healthly(he eats like a damn pig!!) so i dont know what his problem is. maybe he dosnt like to get dirty..lol is there anything else i can try for substrate? i was thinking like a cage carpet and giving him two or three hiding spots with that moss you can buy in the pet stores so he can hide and i will keep it moist. but i dont know what his problem is.

also i got him around May and he was around 9 or 10 inches. and now he is between 18 and 20 inches and very fat!!! do you think he is the right size? i mean i hear people talking that there tegu that they had for 13 months is now like 3 feet long and i have had mine for 5 months and he has grown about 8 inches. or should i feed him more. he still wont eat crickets and i dont know why.. he is lazy...lol he also shows no intrest in pinkies either. he like chicken, cat food, pork, greens if they are mixed in with his pork and cat food. does that sound right?

You could borrow a page from the Monitor Keepers out there and go for Top Soil or just plain dirt, as in the dirt you dig up in your back yard.

If you go to Pro Exotics http://www.proexotics.com they have an article about monitor husbandry and one of their topics is substrate. They have used a Potting Soil / Play Sand / Vermiculite mix and have recently switched to some sort of decomposed granite based soil.
The trick with soil is your Tegu will have to tell you what it wants to use, which means you may be sampling lots of types of soil before you find the one your Tegu will burrow and utilize.

I know a few people that have used soil with great success, and others that have no complaints with mulch...come to think of it, why did you stop using mulch?

Anyway hope this suggestion helps,

Take Care,
Kit.

i stoped using the mulch because he started to act different. he was acting very lazy wasnt burrowing not eating. so i brought him to the vet and he told me to try and change the substrate. because he could find no health problems with him. so i tried peat moss and got the same results. the only reason i asked about the cage carpet is because when i first got him i kept him on newspaper for a week to make sure he was going to the bathroom and he seemed to be happier.. he would go under the news paper and walk around. know with the mulch and the peat moss he just sits there.

I wouldn't worry about the not digging part, maybe he doesn't want to dig, mine doesn't, he just kinda scratches around and makes shallow little pits and never goes in them.

I put my new babies in a cage with half that is for burrowing. I used a hide log and a large ceramic pot that I broke an opening out of just like pro exotics does. I used these as a top to the mound of part top soil/part vermiculite mix I had used. They are next to each other and I kind of covered the hide log so it just gives some foundation for the soil mix. So they have two different burrows already started for them and they are constantly in there and digging some. Maybe that would work to give them something that is already started that they can go down into then dig when they want to?

Hi again Mike. I'm not sure I understand what he does; does he sleep in a dark den at night? I think it's important for tegus to have a good dark moist den or at least be able burry themselves. My tegus don't dig around to much at all except in their den (covered rubber maid 4' by 2' 3/4ths full of moist substrate). They rearrange the substrate in there so they have a long tunnel and a chamber at the end. They also make the tunnel curve so that there's no light in the chamber. If the tunnel isn't right they end up plugging the hole so it's dark in there. The only time I've consistently seen mine do that is when they needed a bigger hide box (longer tunnel). So I'd say as long as he’s making a good den and able to block out all the light that's what you need to worry about. Like in nature I think they have one main den that goes deep under ground to a chamber. I don't think they randomly dig around or make a new den every night (from watching Bert’s video of a tegu den in Argentine). I don't want to bum you out but since you asked I keep accurate and frequent records of my tegus growth. When they were around 20" long they were both growing at about 2" per week. I know before that for a short while I didn't have a good hide box for my girl and she didn't eat much or grow. In the pic the 4' by 2' hide box is burried on the right side. You can't see the entrance hole it's behind the door.