Reptile & Amphibian Forums

b4 i take it to the vet i wanna no if this is normal. my red 4 month old tegu throat is kind fat, and if i touch it i can feel somehting tht feels like the lump ppl have in their throat. is tht nomral? if u guys could feel yr tegus throat and tell me if u feel anything like th it would help. also i have 1 more problem. ny tegu isnt a eater like most ppl say thiers is. he only eats every other day or every other other day. jsut cuz e doesnt want to. yesterday he ate 1 pinkee mouse and wont eat today. last week he ate 10 adult crickts and didnt eat for 3 more days in shich he ate this pinkie mouse. but the only reason i think he ate the pinkie mouse was cuz i annoed him with it and he bit it and ate it

i dont know about the neck thing but soemtime my tegu will go a day or two with out eating.. how long have you had him/her for? also try feeding different things sometimes they get bored with the food.. i know mine does he get bored very easyily.

hope everything works out!!!

mike d

I guess I'm just really confused and now concerned for your Tegu. A couple of days ago you were asking advice about getting another Tegu, and today you are now asking if your existing lizard is sick, and wondering why it doesn't eat too well?

My thought is to take your Tegu to the vet and have that lump looked at, and to have an overall health check for your animal. If your animal is found healthy, please give serious consideration to the care you are giving it.
I could not guess as to what the "lump" you are describing is without seeing for myself, so please take it to a qualified vet regardless of advice you get from this or any other forum.

-Kit

I remember you from the water dragon forum about 1-2 months ago & if I can remember correctly, you had 2 babies, one of them died so you gave the other one back to the pet store & then wanted to go out & get another lizard that is "easier to care for." I strongly advise you against getting anymore lizards. You seem young & you need to focus on the one lizard you have & making sure it is happy & healthy, I am sure most everyone on this forum will agree.

Danielle
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1 male Chinese H2O dragon, 3 female leos, 1 adopted male iguana, 2 green anoles, 1 blue anole, 3 male bettas, 1 female betta...

xardion, i'll refrain from saying most of the things i would like to say in response to what you've been posting on this forum as of late (things such as "do super worms bite? and is the urban legend true tht they can eat thru the lizards stomach?". i understand that you're 15, but please, spare us the 8 year old girl typing and spelling that this latest post looks of yours looks like it is. you seriously need to reconsider what you are doing. an animal is a serious committment and as others have pointed out, animals have clearly died thanks to your negligence in the past, dont make the tegu next.

do 2 things:
1) have mommy and daddy take you to the vet immediately and tell the vet exactly how you are caring for the tegu and listen to and do everything she suggests you do for your animal's well-being.
2) read all of the posts on this forum. there is an abundance of information here on tegu keeping/husbandry.

honestly, you probably shouldn't even own a tegu or anything more advanced than a goldfish.
i don't want tegus to become the next "popular" lizard that gets sold to an gullible public who cannot properly care for it.

this is a mean post i know, but an animal is a serious committment on your part and i've seen (and in fact have) a tegu that suffered from a previous owner's negligence. it's not fair to the animal. his life is in your hands, and as an dependent, his needs must always come first and foremost.

just take him to the vet, double-check that you are caring for the animal correctly, and all should be fine.

good luck,
chris

do i aint doing [bleep] worng! my uncle helps me ake care of my lizards and hes had lizards since he was 9. btw the lum thing is normal tegus get tht when there young. and the eating thing was jsut cuzi swichined him into a huge cage the size of a room. thts why he wasnt eating. also the only reason my water dragons died was becuase they stopped eating there as nothing any1 could do. they woulda died on u guys to. and whats wrong wiht wondering if super womrs ite and if they can chew thru lizards stomac i was jsut curios. and if im so bad at taking care of things how come i have so many pets tht are doing fine. i have a northern pike a muskelunge 2 largemouth bass. 2 channel catfish. 3 oscars 2 cats 1 dog 1 beardied dragon 1 tegu.
and im sorry for being over paranoid about my lizard considering i jsut lost 2. i want to make sure i dont lose this 1 to so i been posting any pssible things tht could lead to any kind of illness so i can catch it b4 it happends. isnt this hat tht forum is her for. or is now here to make fun of ppl who had bad luck and got 2 sick water dragons. and the typing is only cz im homeschooled and i never have to type in complete setences so im just used to not typing fully.

sorry man, i apologize for that post. i'm just really sensitize when it comes to people that i think are neglecting their animals since mine was a result of that. i too was one of those thousands of people whose parents bought for them a green iguana as a "cute" pet when i was young. as soon as he got 4 1/2 feet long, mom and dad decided to let him go...i was only 9 at the time. so again, sorry xardion, it sounds like you really do care for the animals after all. i'm sure they'll do alright under your care, and we'll do everything we can to make sure they don't go the way of the water dragons.

chris

i just wanna no how im neglecting my pets. i spend 2 hours while i do m homework on the compuer at a time with them. and i found out more about tht lump thing, its just like his collar bone muscle or wutever. i dont want aythign to happen to my lizards so i post ever worry i have here. and now im eing told im neglecting the pets i spend hal my days with!

When you post your worries and concerns it is easy to wonder why you post on an Internet Forum rather than take your lizard to a vet.
When you post that you have a Tegu that isn't eating well and then you post a short time later that you want another it makes us wonder about your reasoning.
Reality is created in language, especially on a message board such as this one. The picture you have painted for us is that you are a young person with limited financial means taking care of a Tegu who treats their animal like little more than a toy.
Alot of us, myself included, are very serious and dedicated to the care and well-being of all our herps and to top it all off some of us have been at this a long time.
These words to you are not intended to hurt or insult you, but you must understand that you need to be doing more for your animal than just talking about how much you like and care for your lizard here on a message board.
Badger needs you because to him, you are his God, and if you neglect him he will die, it really is that simple.
Listen and absorb all these messages you have been given, and take them in spirit they were given. I feel confident that everyone here wants you and your Tegu to succeed, it is successes that motivate and inspire the rest of us, and failures are really depressing.

Take Care of Yourself, and your Tegu,

-Kit

"Badger needs you because to him, you are his God, and if you neglect him he will die, it really is that simple. " Wow I like that quote, it really makes it sink in!

Rollin you are free to use it, I just hope that it got the point across without making this young fellow feel slighted.

-Kit

how am i negleglecting my tegu?? u still haven't answered that yet. I told u the reason why he wasnt eating was becuase of the new encloser i have him in. he ate jsut an hour ago for me. i have eeryhting he needs. he has his own gian swimming pool that i could almost fit in. 3 basking spots, the works.i let him run around the house everyday. i let him swim in the bathtub everyday. i give him his favorite gatorade everyday.and i try to feed him 3-4 times a day.i hold him for 2 hours or more. how is this neglection. im gonna post a picture of my setup and u tell me why im such a neglectful egu owner. i have more time on my hands to spend with my tegu than any of u guys here. i dont go to school and i only work 2 days a week.i feed my tegu, tegu treats, super worms, mice, some turtle and retile chow, canocrickets, live crickets, and sometimes meat form like a sandwich. this forum is jst really pissing me off. isnt it here to answer qwstions before u take the lizard to the vet. i was jsut curios about the thing in his throat which just turned out to be him tightning his muscles, and now im being yelled at for not taking it to the vet. i mean whats the point of asking u guys anything. iv never heard any1 here actually tell some1 whats something is. u all just say "go to the vet" what u think none woulda of thought f the vet if it wsnt for thi forum, gee some help.im done with this forum. iv never goten any advice before here. besides go to the vet.i have much better sources better thn a vet now. the reptile store owner has vets come to him and hes free, and a really great guy. so u guys can keep giving advice with your thumb up your a§§ cuz im outa here

...

i'm baffled. i don't think he likes you guys very much, but it was pretty hard to decipher. but you know what, that's one of the few "flame wars" i've ever seen flare up in here... and honestly... i doubt that there will be another one for a while. anyhow... ahem... on with the show!

so... tegus, yeah...

that one post i put up came accross as being really mean, in fact i think it may just have been plain mean, i kinda vented on the kid, my mistake. i really mean no harm though, as does no one on this forum, and i did apologize. like kit said, i think it is obvious that he cares for the animal, if anything maybe he's guilty of caring for it too much (gatorade and sandwich meat). i suppose truth be told, he's not "neglecting" it in the sense of intentionally not properly caring for the animal, it may be more along the lines of an unintentional neglect, which...well, isn't really neglect and i have no idea what the appropriate word is. anyone who has read Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and is familiar with the characater Lennie may see what i'm getting at. anyways if im in any way responsible for this or have brought some damage to the integrity of the forum i do wholeheartedly apologize. i be no means want this to tun into the monitor forum.

chris

I have to admit, as soon as I read the "Of mice and men" reference, I couldnt help but laugh. I was a litle short with the guy too, having dealt with his problems on the water dragon forum also, I guess I had to vent. We can only hope that he does take advice from some experienced source, and that "Badger" lives a long and healthy life.

Ley x

maybe a few people came off strong, but i don't really think that any of it was out of line. sad but true, all we had to judge this guy off of were his fragmented sentences and bizarre spelling. then... we had his over the top super-defensive attitude. he really couldn't take criticism. there's a big difference between flipping out because you disagree, and just disagreeing with what you're being told. it's too bad he doesn't want to use the forums as a resource anymore, but that was his choice. maybe he'll come back anyway... heck, you learn a lot just by reading, he doesn't ever have to post again if he doesn't want to. well, anyhow... that was all very entertaining and pathetic ... kind of like reality television. you can't make everybody happy...

"peoples is peoples."