Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Folks,

Has anyone noticed the popularity of Tegus going up and the prices going down? I see B&W's on the classifieds for $25-$30. Knowing how many Iguanas are purchased every year and later dumped because "I didn't know they got that big" makes me fear Tegus are the next Iguana. When they are sooo cheap and at that age, small, they seem like a great pet. What so many do not understand is the care needed, the enclosure size necessary to sustain a healty Tegu and how big they do get. Anyone else fear that Tegus are about to become the next Iguana? Sure scares me! I see more and more inexperienced keepers getting these wonderful animals as their first and hope for the sake of the Tegu that they are not "The next Iguana".

Disclaimer: This is not meant to offend anyone. I was just wondering if anyone else noticed this and had an opionon? Peace to my tegu loving bretherend!
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Peace!
KofSeattle
Reptile-Like
Here lizard lizard.........

No lizard should ever have to become the "next iguana" the iguana shouldn't even be such a pet store pet. The thing is that most people who buy iguanas are pet store people meaning they don't look up stuff on the internet. also have you ever seen a pet store sell a tegu? i have seen 1 and that pet store is IMO one of the best of all times. If you buy an iguana, BD, or a tegu there they make you buy the stuff from them there.
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0.1 "Tremper" looking Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 normal ball python (felix)
1.1 Feral cats that we adopted (Fuzzy, and Bear)

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at least I hope not. They are not farmed by the hundreds of thousands yet, as iguanas are, and they're not wholesaling for less than $2, like iguanas are. In the last 9 years we've had 2 Red Tegus come into the rescue, both missing toes and tail from poor husbandry. We've also taken in 5 Columbian Tegus, mostly because the owners didn't like the attitude. Compare this to the hundreds of Green Iguanas that have come thru the rescue and it doesn't seem like a problem. Tegus still command a decent price from the breeders and are selling for good money at the local shows.
The animal that is worrying me is the Savannah monitor. In the last 2 years we've taken in a dozen or more Savs, most in horrendous shape. I'm hearing the same stories from some of the other rescues. We currently have 5 Savs in house, all in good condition but in need of some socializing. Next in line....Niles.

Hey all! I hear you on that savannah issue!...I work in a Pet Store and I make sure I DON'T sell to people that shouldn't have it...I've told people they were sold or any other excuse a number of times. But I've seen another store here sell a veiled chameleon to a kid to keep with her Leo!!! This would be the same store that sold me ARG B&W with a broken leg. But even up here the price of monitors is going down so much...When we used to get Savannah's they were only like 40$! But hey....You guys still have it easy compared to me...Thanks to Ottawa By-Law, Tegus, monitors, iguanas (including anoles, basalisks and any other member of the iguana family), any snake over six feet, and all bugs are ILLEGAL! That's right!...We've had SEVERAL REALLY knowledgable people asking me to order them in something like a mangrove or a peach throated monitor, or a tegu...But we would get shut down...By Law's excuse? If they got loose they could mess up our ecosystem...How long would a tegu last in -45 degrees (celsius) weather?...Like honestly...Sorry just had to do some [bleep]ing there...It REALLY pisses me off!

We are getting more and more savys here. It seems everytime I get a savy tho I am now also getting a gator in. I have yet to get a tegu.

Another thing is I dont really ever see Tegus in stores yet. I did have to do some searching, but I did find who was selling the savys here. In fact I found 8 stores. And of course all of these stores also sell iguanas and most sell gators. I did thank the owners for not allowing me to retire.

Unfortunatly I think that the disposability of our society makes anything disposable. I sit as the reptile representative on a state wide rescue group and I know first hand people are dropping well over 1000$ for dogs or cats and turning around and dumping them in a few months as well.
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Cindy
PHFaust

Email Cindy

Land of the Outcasts!

Bothers me, because I have just seen tegus in our local pet stores, for $39.00. There is an almost starved "gold" and a hatchling black and white that I would have bought just to try and save it if I hadn't just gotten my two reds. And in south Florida, there is one area having trouble with monitors that people have just let go in the wild; they seem to be surviving and growing and seriously upsetting the local animal control officers who get called to remove them. I suspect they are those cute little savannah hatchlings that they sell around here as low as $20.00. The first time we went to a reptile show, my husband was disappointed not to see any really big iguanas, and I pointed out all the little kids with their new baby iguanas and their new 10 galon tanks that their parents would never have bought if they knew how big they got. And this was at a reptile show!! Yeah, It bothers me.

Leslie

Well it does bother me a little, I don't necessarily think this will be a major problem with Argentine B&W, Reds, or Blues beacuse in my experince they tend to be very docile and although the do grow to a decent size their care is pretty straight forward (in comparison to Iguanas). I think this will be more of a problem with gold and colmbian b&w, simply because of their attitudes. In the shop I used to work at the only tegus we sold where Reds, Argen. B&W, and Blues.

I certainly think something should be done to insure that no amimal it ever considered "the next iguana". I plan on breeding my tegu in a couple of years and I am seriously considering only breeding once every 2 or 3 years. I know I will never sell any of the animals I have breed for $30-40, thankfully I can keep most if not all the animals I breed.

Anyways thats just my opinion.

Kojiroh_1

1.0 Argentine Tegu (soon to be 1.1)
1.1 Normal Ball pythons
1.2 Jungle Carpet Pythons
0.0.2 Sulcata Tortoises

I know I'm a little late on this one, and even though I want to own a tegu and already own other herps this is what I think...

If you look in the classified section or breeders webpages', you will see nothing but "captive-bred, easy to care for, don't buy the other guys- buy mine, hardy", and most importantly:" rock bottom prices". Breeding any of these reptiles that we keep is, to me, as controversial as wild-caught. With the amount of reptiles being abandoned increasing every day, it should be up to us as responsible keepers to stop OVERBREEDING. Believe me, I know fisthand how exciting it is to have your pet lizard lay eggs, then to see the babies hatch out, and so on, but how many bearded dragons really need to be in stores. If everybody and their grandmother WASN'T breeding reptiles, reptiles would still demand a higher price so that only the really qualified few would keep them. What is the point of really caring for a herp and making sure that one survives, if you can go buy 5 more for 20$ when the first one dies? Even on this board you see people tell how their "pet lizard is really skinny and not eating with toes falling off because they don't know what to feed it or how big of a cage it needs", but 2 days later in a different post tell how " Lizzy had a miraculous recovery and I'm so excited I'm getting her a male so I can breed them".
I am a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I kept bearded dragons for a long time. Eventually they mated and in the long run, I had to find homes for hundreds of lizards, which aren't worth very much money compared to the time and effort expanded.But when every body is doing this with so many species, they all become expendable pets. This is why there are herds of tegus roaming florida, and this is why little susie's parents will let her kill 5 lizards before they either get one to live for A WHILE or give up, and this is why herpteculture gets such a bad name.
Even I seem to see reptiles as disposable pets as I am in the process of trading my stock. I am trading in 5 or 6 animals to get ONE tegu. No breeding, no zoo-sized reptile house, just one animal I've always been fascinated with. Why? you might ask! Because I can. Because I'm tired of those snakes and I can go down to the corner store or order off the internet any one of thousands of exotic animals as if it was a box of cereal.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that places like a zoo, or a wildlife conservation center are best left to breeding for the survival of a species. While the rest of us should be happy trying to keep that one herp alive that we were lucky enough to get from the zoo's overstock.

So the next time you think you want to breed herps, go to a pet shop and count how many bearded dragons, or savannah monitors or SULCATA tortoises there already are. Or better yet, Go to the dog pound in your area and spend a minute looking into those poor souls' eyes and you'll see that even a dog knows it was better off never born.
Thats my hipocritical story, I'm not against keeping herps, but none of us should be breeding them so recklessly.