Ok, I have an argentine black and white. I got him in late october 2006 and he still was a baby with a bit of green on the head. He's now 3 feet long already.
He has never taken to fruit. Only ever ate it once because I tricked him but he has learned the trick within 1 time.
When I first got him, he was fed by the previous owner on a diet of DRY dog food pellets. Needless to say, he was hungry as hell. He still never ate fruit but he took to various meats like chicken, beef, rodents, eggs, fish, insects and all that. I offered fruit but he never ate it.
Then, about a couple months ago, he started to eat ONLY fish. An occasional shrimp or two would go down with it, but nothing else. He won't eat no fruit, and I have been trying and trying. I got him to eat some papaya once by cutting open a fish like an envelope and stuffing fruit inside and closing it up. But then he learned it next time, he won't eat the fish or anything else if it so much as fruit juice on it, even a little bit. I've been giving him vitamins with vitamin/mineral powder on fish and extra vitamin C powder.
However, I determined that he should be off of insects and eating fruits due to his size. Because i keep reading that you should start giving some fruits when they are off insects, and that as babies, they don't take to fruit easily. I KNOW they can eat fruit from hatchlings onwards just that I know that they don't take to it usually until older. Now, my tegu is big now, but he's actually well less than a years old, probably more like 6 months. I wonder if he's not old enough to like fruit and he'll just grow out of it?
I've tried all the other stuff. I've tried cutting up meats and mixing with fruit. I've tried cutting OPEN meat and stuffing fruit inside. And now he's been starved for 10 days and last night I gave him a mixture of about 60% fruit and 40% fish and he won't eat any of it, not even the fish parts. I'm starting to think its too early?
He won't eat ANY thing but fish and some shrimp. LOTS of fish he will eat, so he's hungry. But he has gone off of rodents, chicken, eggs, insects all that stuff.
Maybe I should wait till its a year old before giving fruits? And in the meantime give him meats with vitamin powder? It just seems practically impossible to get them to eat fruit when he won't even eat most of the meats now.
And I am wondering, if they are so omnivorous and eat fruit naturally in the wild, how come they are so finicky about it in captivity? I mean, I am sure they are hungrier in the wild, but I am sure there are enough insects/rodents in the wild that they will be able to eat at least something, not like this not eating a bite in 10 days and still not want fruit.
How the heck did he get like that????
