Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

This is my first post here. Here goes....I am strongly considering an Argentine B&W Tegu as a present to myself this Christmas. I have been reading all through this forum new and archived, using search engines and all of the reccomended websites. I am all ok on enclosure size, diet, behaviors and heating but i am a little hung up on substrate and humidity. The deal is i keep my animals in my room where i have nice white carpet. I really don't want to use dusty wood chips, mulch or soil, stuff like that. I know what a vacum is but, in the past (in other houses) i have noticed that irreparable damage is inevitable. With my snakes i have always used paper and used my private bathroom shower to do the dirty work. With snakes that require high humidity i have found it easy to keep humidity high with water over the heat source and not using screen cages etc... So im wondering if i could use aspen or that paper care fresh stuff or something like it. I know it's complicated because soggy aspen or care fresh would probably be a mess. Maybe i could do a high humidity hide only? It's a dilema so any brainstorming or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I understand he/she will need a good hide, just like all my snakes. Also im wondering with all the sticky fruit, turkey meat, occasional egg etc... do you use a food bowl? I think thats my only dilema.

I try to always offer a picture with my questions. Sorry i have no Tegu pictures yet. Thanks for your help. BTW, this is a nice friendly forum with some great pics. Thanks alot guys and gals.

I am learning a ten pound tegu is not for those whoare unwilling to deal with a mess. Every night I come home and clean. I still feel that it is a good trade to have my tegu but there will be some sort of mess that is notcompatable with white capeting. I keep my tegu in a room with a tile floor so that any mess is easy to clean up.

Brian

my little guy is pretty messy, but its worth it. i dont think that paper stuff is a good idea because tegus love to burrow, and that wouldnt work so well with that. also, he likes it when i periodically increase the humidity all over his cage to simulate rainfall- this is when he is most active as well, so i keep his house pretty damp. my advice: rip up the white carpet. its just not going to work.
ian
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buy the ticket, take the ride...

i know some people are probably goin to disagree with this but i keep a real thin layer of mulch in his cage. but his hide box is stuffed with coconut fiber (this stuff works great at holding humidity) and he loves it and is looking beautiful as ever. hope that helped a little, justin

Honestly, I have never been able to get the humidity above 30% in the terrarium because of the lighting and that I use only repti-bark and no cypress mulch because it's easier to clean. I make sure the hide box is always moist, in addition to giving baths when a shed is approaching as well as lots of fruit high in vitamin c. I have not yet had problems with shedding. One should, if possible, keep overall humidity higher.
JonV
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The Blue Raja, Master of Silverware, forks speciality.

Yeah I agree. It's almost impossible to keep the humidity up in a big enclosure. Besides it's not excessively humid in Argentine, Alabama, or where ever else people keep them outside. I think where humidity comes into play is in the hide box or burrow (in nature). Burrows are very humid and it's easy to keep it up to almost 100% in a hide box too. Also they do naturally spend a lot of time in that burrow, according to Bert’s site over 80% of their time.
http://www.agamainternational.com/merianae_housing.shtml