Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi, i'm looking to get a red tegu and i have heard that feeding them can get pretty expensive. any owners notice this with this species or other tegus?

thanks

They tend to eat a LOT! The expenses are directly related to how much of the food you raise yourself. If you have to order all of your mice and insects...it gets pretty expensive pretty quickly. If you breed your own, the cost is fairly low.

my staple for my red is the sandiego zoo diet or whatever its called. besides ground turkey, bone meal, and a centrum vitamin i also add flukers repta calcium and repta vitamins. i also add a jar of goobers baby food (one with just a fruit). i also cut up a few red seedless grapes and mix that in as well. lastly i add an egg, shell and all. i think i start out with like a 2 to three pound pack of ground turkey. my red who is also named Red loves it and never seems to tire of it. he is very healthy. i break it up into about eight servings one pack and freeze it. it not only feeds a large juvie red that is 32 inches long. but i also feed two, 28 inch columbians with it as well. i even take a little of this and add it to the diet of three box turtles. i figure the whole concoction costs about five dollars to make. it is about a week to a week and a halfs worth of food for all these aniamls. that 's not much more than canned dog food. every three or four feedings i vary it up and give him (them) something different. sometimes it is a mouse (previously frozen), sometimes cut up raw chicken that was previously frozen, sometimes ground beef, beef heart, strips of steak, an egg, cat food (they're not that crazy about getting this, they get cat food when i'm out of sandiego zoo diet), etc. the thing is the variety items don't go over as well as the sandiego zoo diet ground turkey concoction. they actually seem to like this more than anything else even the mice and pinkies.

What size portion of this concoction do you find yourself giving to your Columbians? And where do you get the bone meal?

Thanks,

Ryan

my advice - breed your own or BUY IN BULK.

My tegus cost around $100 a month to feed, but I also have five.

Hello,

What about for a hatchling? It shouldn't be too expencive to feed them. What should I be feeding mine. Also the San Diego diet that was mentioned. Where do you order that. Sorry, maybe I should of started a new thread with all my different questions.

Lizardlady

you should try crickets, i get mine from a local baid shop. Its like 3.00 for a tube. i would say thats 100 crixs!

Hello,

Yeah, I buy the crix in bulk now. It seems the only thing he'll eat. Now I'm having a little problem as the size to get him. They allways seem seem too small. He's a hatchling.

Lizardlady