Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Recently I semi rescued (had to buy from the evil a-holes) an Arg BW about 8 weeks ago. He was in terrible shape and stuck in a 10 gallon tank with another Tegu both were at least 12 inches and way skinny and of course no water and about 1/4 in of substrate and the list goes on ,even their tails were sunken in so naturally I couldnt let him (guessing sex) stay there because it broke my heart. I am not sure of age or anyting but I am guessong 6 to 10 months. I wish I could have helped them both.

Ill post before and after pics later today. With info I got here and from Agama and a few other places he is doing well. He now lives in a 6ft4in long 30 inch wide 4 ft high 2 level condo and is putting on weight and is growing fast (15 inches last time i measured. I mainly wanted to say thanks to you all here and I am looking forward to showing his improvement over time.

Here is what he looked like the first week.

The tegu in this picture is not skinny.
Look at the base of the tail ..it is nice and round .. this is where a tegu stores its fat .
It may not be fat in the belly and most likely this is because this animal had been hibernating and not eating .(it's been a very cold winter and many tegus hibernated this year )
A fat belly only means the animal is currently eating and not hibernating .
Skinny tegus/ ill tegus will have very skinny flat tails .
If your tegus tail is nice and round like this you do not have to worry about it starving to death =)
-----
Stella St.Pierre
www.bluetegu.com

And now after 8 weeks or so.

Great job getting him back to great health. He's such a sweet looking Tegu. I have stopped going to most pet shops anymore because I get heart broken too and you can't save them all. Of course, I always put in my two .02 about the husbandry practices. Great job! Don't forget to post more pics in the future. Good luck to you and your little buddy. Have you named him/her yet?
-----
JS

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

I have named him Tigger. Because he always jumped out of his first cage because it was only 12 inches high and opened from the top.
He is a good boy. It took me a while to get him to trust me but now he is totaly mellow most of the time. Just gets squirmy from time to time.