r/Tegu

What an absolute cutie!

Hi friends, I have a ~3ish year old rescue tegu named Blizzard. Allegedly he was found abandoned in a basement, then hopped houses for a bit, and I’ve had him for just under six months. We go on walks, he likes the shower, and he tolerates me lol. He doesn’t seem to give a crap about me, other people, birds in the yard when we’re outside, kids, etc. He’s super chill and the guy I got him from said the same thing.

Recently we had to move cross country, he spent 30 hours in a car with me and slept in some hotels. He has had his tank set up at my new place for about a month, and his tank door is now always open so he can free roam in the reptile room (office) or the rest of the apartment when i’m home. He knows where his “home” is, so he will come out, stroll around, and make his way back to his heat and hide in his tank for bed time. I thought we were doing well.

Recently he’s been sleeping a lot. If I don’t wake him up, he can be in his hide for 2-3 days sometimes without coming out. If I wake him up and take him out, he’ll walk around, smell things, sleep under the couch, etc, but I have to wake him up to do that.

Today we had a really bad day with feeding. He got riled up when I had a bag of crickets to go feed my skink (he usually doesn’t care) and I had to close his tank door. He kept trying to ram it and dig to get out. I got his reptilink and I used my tongs to feed him and he charged at it super fast and bit it so hard the link kind of exploded. I then had a smaller link one of my other guys didn’t eat, so I gave him that and he completely marred my silicon tongs trying to eat it. He’s usually so gentle when taking food and this was really out of the ordinary for him.

I took him to the vet ~3 months ago and he got a completely clean bill of health. When I get back from work travel I may take him again to see if he’s still good.

Do you ever have ‘bad days’ with your tegus? Is it common for them to be so lazy? I feel like all the ones I see on this sub are so active. Blizzard would sleep all day if I let him. He eats well, he poops well, he sheds well… maybe he’s still just adjusting to his new home?

He’s never been aggressive before the past week or so, and today was the worst yet. Maybe “aggressive” is the wrong word but I don’t want to find out. I’m scared of him hurting me or other people if he decides to do this when he’s out of his tank.

Any advice or insight would be appreciated. Sorry for the long post and thank you for reading. He’s my baby and i love him so much and i just want him to be happy🫶

I missed her first circle of the living room. Silly girl.

My landlords changed their mind. They initially said it was fine to have Clifford and his big enclosure in my house, but they've changed their mind and will no longer allow him to live here. I'm absolutely gutted and feel like such sh*t. I feel like I've failed him. I'm honestly having a really hard time coping with this. I'm glad I could be a safe landing place to get him out of the shelter that wasn't set up for a big lizard. And I gave him love and care as he deserved and his stuck shed is nearly off and he's finally well hydrated. I just am so heartbroken.

If any of you tegu lovers are in colorado and might be interested in giving him a home, please let me know. I've also reached out to a couple rescues. He's a really good guy.

Edit: I can't register him as an ESA because my dog already is one. And initially they gave me verbal consent but then changed their mind in writing citing the lease. I think the enclosure and risk of water damage to the floor is their main gripe. They said they don't allow grow tents for plants either

Boswer had stuck shed his tail never shed with the rest of his body … I’ve soaked him but now he has cracks and is bleeding . What do I do .. vet ?

Mr. GurtWurt loves bell peppers.

Jima's having a slow start this morning. To be fair, so am I.

I have to use Tupperware to feed Oreo because he gets weirdly aggressive at other bowls and was thrashing them around causing his face to get scratched up.. but he really likes his Tupperware dishes 😂

He has lots of bedding it’s just on the other side of the tank because otherwise he will eat mouthfuls with his food don’t worry! He’s just special

Hii! My husband and I are thinking about getting a Tegu (long term, once we move back to the country side) and are thinking about the best possible setup. Keeping in mind this is still 3-4 years away but we are brainstorming and thinking about how we can set up all our reptiles in our future house.
We currently have a bearded dragon, chameleon, crested gecko, jumping spider, Omani spiny-tailed lizard and a leopard gecko. We are well experienced with reptiles and animals in general as I grew up on a sled dog farm and my husband’s parents are farmers.
The plan is to convert one of the front rooms to a reptile room for the “warmer” reptiles and one office for the “cooler” reptiles. Our Tegu would probably become our little puppy and roam around freely (unless our other reptiles have their roaming time right now obviously) but we are quite unsure about how to set up a “tank” for the tegu. Would you guys recommend tents? Grow houses? I don’t know!!! Please help😂

Hello again everyone! I just wanted to start off by saying thank you all for the support so far, out of all the subreddits I've been on this is by far the most welcoming and friendly!

Now, onto the question. I've had ivy for just over two weeks now and things are going great, when I got her I was told by her previous owners that she wasn't handleable and would bite or tail whip when approached. I have found none of that, she is extremely eager to come out and tolerates me picking her up (I only do this when I need to in order to get her out of a hide in my room to put her back in her Viv if I'm going out ). I've found that she doesn't actively seek out spending time near me but doesn't seem stressed or upset when I am there with her. I've seen loads of tegus that will happily cuddle with their owners or seek out attention and was wondering if these qualities are part of a unique personality differing between the gus or if it is a time and patience thing? I'd love to get to a point where she chooses to come and sit next to or even on me and I do spend most of my free time sat by her enclosure talking to her. Thank you for reading!

Greetings from Sundog! Apologies for the corny art reference, but this is Reddit, after all…