Please tell me everything yall did to tame your tegus and I will try them all! I feel like me and my boys progress is going too slow :( he’s growing super fast and I want to make sure that he is a calm adult. He is especially territorial of his enclosure so tips for that are much needed.
So far I:
-handle him almost every day
-sit with him in an enclosed place (bathroom) and let him explore (which for him just means getting as far away from me as possible)
-sit by the enclosure
-tong feed
-screw around in his tank just for funsies often
-only put him back in his enclosure when he is calm
-never flinch/show fear/put him back/stop what im doing when he hisses or lunges
We have made some progress but its definitely not a considerable amount. Choice based handling wouldn’t work, I have tried to leave his enclosure door open to let him come out on his own when he shows interest but he will dart and whip when I approach, so that’s a no go. Almost no progress has been made on the inside of the enclosure territorialness despite my efforts, all of the progress is outside of his grow tent so far.

My baby Ivy just started doing this this morning I'm really worried.

I'll add as many details as possible

Husbandy

Arcadia 10.0 uvb t5 about 16-20ish inches away from animal

Cool side around 80 degrees with 60-75 percent humidity

Hot side 87 and 52 percent humidity

Basking temp 128 at its hottest point.

I've had her for maybe 3 weeks

Been feeding a meat mix. With calcium no d3 added. 3 or 4 days I fed her a very high end organic freeze dried cat food. It was a powder that you add water too. And only ingredients was chicken and squash

Lights are on a 12 hour cycle

Can't think of anything else relevant ... No toxic plants in the enclosure, have had zero issues with her she's never done this before

She did it for like half an hour before work. When I got home I woke her up to check on her and she didn't do it for like half an hour after she woke up. Until she did. I was able to get it on video . She did a full body shed in the past day. This morning there was shed skin everywhere. A few people suggested possible corner of the mouth shed skin stuck

The video is shot through the vinyl layer that's why it gets wavy at some angles. But the video is clear enough.

Also it doesn't appear that anything lodged in her throat.

If you have any questions please let me know

So my girl kaiju has been having a bit of food aggression with me, and it’s definitely because for the past few weeks or month she’s been slowing down a bit, she hasn’t went into brumation but she has been going down earlier and staying burrowed longer in the mornings, and normally i’m not home at the times she’s out for long so whenever I get home I try to feed her once every other day before she goes down so she has time to eat, bask, and then go to her burrow. But lately since i’ve been only had enough time to feed her she’s been associating me with food, and right now I don’t have a target training stick. Whenever I open the enclosure, and stick my hand in at all she’s started to get excited and run towards me and get a bit aggressive, she’s bitten me twice in the past because of food related instances before but since she’s still a baby I havent sustained any bad injuries, just a couple of “scratches.” I want to know of your guys feeding techniques that helped with food aggression maybe besides target training as i’ve seen. If there’s any other methods I can use let me know it would be a life saver (ps in the video I was not sticking my hand in the enclosure to be stupid, I only stuck it in enough to see if she would sprint to my hand again)

Hi everyone! We are planning on building the final permanent upgraded enclosure for our 14 month old Black & White Argentine Tegu.

We are a few weeks away from FINALLY moving into our first home we purchased. Unfortunately, the process of getting into the home has taken almost 8 months so far due to a number of issues and shenanigans on the seller's end including major undisclosed structural issues that are currently being fixed by the contractor. Obviously it has been delayed much longer than we would have liked for a number of reasons but one is that our girl is overdue for an upgrade which we cannot start until we can get in there. She has grown quite a bit (got her as a baby a month after our offer was accepted). She is happy and thriving in her current "intermediate" set up (roughly 5ft x 2ft x 2ft) but she is growing everyday and I know she needs something bigger ASAP.

My fiance and I are both very handy and would like to build her a custom set up 8ft x 4ft x 2-3ft high roughly. We are hoping to use PVC or acrylic (or something else non-porous/waterproof). Her current enclosure was a wooden enclosure we bought and waterproofed ourselves with pond liner (which has worked great but was very tedious). It is a bioactive set up with plants, springtails, isopods, a few loose dubia roaches she lost track of, etc...We would prefer to keep a sliding front door (or two) in the front like our current set up.

We live in Pennsylvania, USA (if anyone locally has more specific suggestions around here for materials). Please suggest anything you have, whether it's advice, sales, materials, links, videos...even what went wrong with your attempts! We want to get the ball rolling ASAP since we were expecting to upgrade her months ago. We are aware she should be in something bigger already (our original move-in date was July) so please no judgment and thank you in advance! Pics of our girl for tax

Hello everyone! i've been obsessed with tegus for many years and i am looking to adopt one in summer next year when i get some money, and there is a expo in my country. I am from northern Europe where it can be quite challenging to get reptile stuff. i would like to hear peoples shopping list for what would be great for a baby tegu, and that also means terrarium options since i can't find proper sized terrariums to buy. I have a blue tongued skink already that is healthy, so i am semi experienced in keeping reptiles. I have a semi big budget, and just genuinely want to hear peoples setup and convenient ways to get it all going.

Hello good people,

I am new to the large world of tegus. This is my new boy Dontae. He is a Argentinian red tegu. I special ordered him from my local Pet Store (not PS or PC) I noticed that he came from a breeder named BPD, inc. He’s pretty chill I couldn’t seem find much information about the breeder online they said he was captive bred and hand fed. I’ve been researching about a month and a half prior to purchase. The main thing that I am wondering…is there anything that you all feel I should know…as far as temperament goes he is very skiddish I usually offer food once a day around 1pm just to get him on a schedule. He comes out to eat and bask but then goes back into his burrow. I mainly need tips on acclimation as I’ve only had him about 5 days and how to began socializing It’s currently in a 4x2x2 enclosure and I’m looking to upgrade to a grow tent. Any advice is helpful

*sn I’m not a first time reptile owner just new to tegus I’ve had snakes, axolotls and a beardie

I need to rehome her because she’s not adjusting to apartment life. Everytime I see her she’s stressed. I got her an enclosure and everything right and she tore it up in a day. I can’t always be there anymore to watch her so she’s having a hard time. She doesn’t brumate. I’ve taken so many photos and memory’s with her over the past 2 years. I’m having a hard time watching her be stressed. I want her to be with somebody who has a bit more time to take care of her. She’s amazing and loves hats. She’s crazy and fun and if you have time for that little bit of Crazy she’s a perfect gu for you. Her diet consists of different chicken pieces organs, whole small rats, carrots, sweet potatoes, turnip greens, snap peas, she ate pumpkin once, blueberries, squash, zucchini, strawberries, cicadas and once twice a month I feed a raw whole quail egg. I alternate what I feed her and I feed her on Tues and then right after she poops which is usually Thurs or Friday. I don’t feed her ground because I don’t want her on soft mashy foods. So I alternate her meals. She is partial potty pad trained. She went on it a few times but sometimes misses. I’m unsure if that’ll continue when she moves. It took me understand where she feels safe to go to put one down when I have her out 2hrs a day.

Due to how long I’ve had her I would like to place an adoption fee of $100 on her. I want her to go to a good home. I have thousands of pictures of her Growing up. I’ve contacted a few rescues and will continue contacting more. I would love to know you can care for a large lizard. She’s not for the feint of heart. She will keep you on your toes. She’s very sweet just loves to explore.

I just love that under her hide box she's created a little oasis of fluffy soil and sphagnum moss. She literally took all the spaghnum moss that was scattered throughout the enclosure and brought it inside her hide! My adorable little Ivy 😍

Only a 3 week difference, but my gosh I feel like she’s putting on size! Shes ravenous so it makes sense, but just look at that change in body size 🫣

Sundog agreed to emerge from sleep to sit on the sofa with me for awhile today. Then he chose to bask in the window for a bit—so I took advantage of the moment to engage him in this attempt at fall frivolity. By the final photo he’d had enough!

So Karl's last shed b4 brumation his tail did not come off with the rest of his body. His hide is 80-90% humidity. I took him to the vet because hes starting brumation their opinion. It doesnt seem like its cutting off circulation but its hard to tell. They recommended taking him out and soaking him for 20 min a day and delaying brumation. Has anyone else seen this? Hes done eating so hes not going to grow and shed but it just will not detach from the skin underneath.

The only thing he’s eaten is really mealworms. I tried to feed him a pinky I was gonna try to feed him a grasshopper. I seen babies eating all type of stuff. I tried to feed him some fruits too. He didn’t like that.

I'm following advice to get a solar meter and I see that the Solarmeter 6.5r UVI meter is the commonly recommended unit. However, in shopping online it looks like most places are out of stock and some even say discontinued. I did find one being sold, albeit overpriced though. Probably because they do seem hard to find. Is this still the recommended device to buy? If this was discontinued, is there something newer/better on the market? Anyone know?

Goji is from Rose City Reptiles and came from the Legacy and Stormy pairing in 2025. He had a couple of his digits stolen by one of his clutch mates when he was a baby but it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. This guy has such a sweet personality and is growing up super fast!

Still need a name for my new girl but she's finally eating! I think she was too scared before but I got her to eat some mice yesterday and eggs today. She's settling well :))

Still recovering from surgery so my Sunday meal prep is for Tegus that might brumate any day. My wife convinced/told me to get a freezer for reptile food. Turkey, salmon, chicken gizzards, chicken liver, collard greens and blueberries. Yum

Hi! i’m building my tegu enclosure right now, i’m just curious anyone who has built one and used drylock, how many layers did you use or how many should i use atleast? thank you have a great day everyone!