I'm picking up a dwarf tegu from a friend of mine this weekend, to inhabit the enclosure of one of my dearly departed uromastyx. I've not been able to find a ton of info on these guys, so I just had some basic questions.
First, substrate - what works best? I've read some use a mix of top soil and sand. Anything else work okay for these guys, even temporarily?
Would they be more suited to a cage setup with some nice big flat basking rocks, or something more in the way of large branches to bask on?
As far as food... I've ready pretty much a basic insectivorious diet, but also some people seem to use processed meat foods? What part of the diet does this make up? What do you feed? And what about a water source?
Also, the enclosure I had for my uro is basically a melamine "box" with a completely open top (the solid sides seemed to provide a good amount of security for him). It measures 48" wide by 24" deep by 18" high. With this height, would it be safe to keep the enclosure as an open top type thing, or should I make up a screen top to fit over the top (we have no other pets roaming around the house)? Are these guys so active as to easily be able to escape a cage setup like this?
Lastly, I know these tend to be the more active and skittish of the tegus, but how many of you have adults that are at least handleable, even if you're not able to let them roam around at their own free will?
Thanks for all the info!
-Christian-
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"Game over man, game over!"
-Hudson, Aliens
Currently Keeping:
3.5 Amazon Tree Boas
1.0 Ball Pythons
1.0 Southern Scrub Python
1.2 Okeetee Corn Snakes
