Food schedule...help

[nikki1292]

I'm going to be getting a tegu in like a month (I suspect it'll be under 7 months old) and wanted to have a clear idea of what it should be fed and when. I've put together a little schedule to help me that has variety to it to help me along throughout the week. Let me know what you think and feel free to correct what you think is wrong and whatnot.

Sunday: scrambled eggs, turkey, cod liver oil/or beef liver.
Monday: turkey, crickets, fruit.
Tuesday: turkey, fish.
Wednesday: turkey, mouse (frozen/thawed and the appropriate size)
Thursday: I was actually told NOT to feed the tegu the day after feeding a rodent. Right or wrong?
Friday: turkey, fish.
Saturday: turkey, crickets, fruit.

Everyday the food will be dusted with vitamin powder.

[bubblz]

I would be careful with feeding the same food everyday because just like us,.. they do get tired of it. Which they will refuse to eat it for quite some time. On another note depending on what kind of meat it is,.. when fed too often it softens their stool and or makes it oily. When I feed seafood I skip the CL oil.

Since some foods take longer to digest you don't have to feed them every day and they may not be hungry enough to do so. Which isn't a problem,.. as long as they have enough fat stored in the base of their tail.

I feed a primarily Whole Prey diet so my tegu eats 3-5 times a week. In between time after a whole meal if he's hungry I give him something light like a mixed meat and fruit meal.

An easy way to tell how hungry they are and gauge how much they'll eat after you have had it for a while is the Skin Fold method. Which is pretty much looking at the abdomen to see how empty or full they are. When they're full their tummy is nice and plump. As they digest their food and or after they poop a fold or flap of skin starts to protrude along each side of their tummy. That lets me know what and how much to feed,.. not too much of a fold and they'll eat little or nothing at all. There's more of a fold when their not as full so they'll eat more.

[laurarfl]

I would feed mice alone on that day and drop the turkey. As the tegu gets older, I would add more fruit, too. I'm a fruit feeder, so I add it at almost every meal. There's no reason not to feed the day after feeding rodents unless your tegu is just gorged full.

[nikki1292]

So I won't feed turkey everyday so that it won't get sick of it. Would it be best to feed the tegu every other day? And as for the cod liver oil, where can you buy that and what brand is best? I've looked in stores and can only find pills.

[HernandosMom]

We offer fruit every day, and try to keep switching in different varieties. The other side of the coin of tegus getting tired of certain foods is they can also develop stubborn preferences, like an icky cat. We want to avoid that in order to get a variety of nutrients in him and also for our own convenience of avoiding reliance on a single food item.

After Hernando graduated in to full adulthood, we stopped offering protein with every meal. We initially cut back during the winter. He has never deeply hibernated but we are always apprehensive if he doesn't poop within 3 days of eating a furry or feathered prey item. In his fully active season, we offer a protein every second or third day -- more often when we're able to give him good exercise. I don't know the reptile physiology, but with humans, you can only utilize so much protein at a time, then the rest gets passed out. Protein doesn't store up in the body the way fat-soluble vitamins (A, D) do. A chronic excess of protein (in humans) puts a load on the kidneys; without signalling to the body that you are thirsty, you have to know to drink lots of water, and a tegu might not know to do that no matter how patiently you explain it to him.

Every tegu is different, but I suspect that one under 7 months old might still have the appetite of a growing tegu child -- wanting to wolf to its capacity every day. As long as you are able to provide plenty of exercise and watch that the base of the tail (Hernando's "investment") isn't too fat, I don't believe there's any harm in letting them eat their fill as often as they want. Their appetite does top out.

[Herpgirl]

I feed Tonka everyday. Seems like after he goes to the bathoom he loses a pound. I try to mix it upI also feed fruit every meal. He loves blueberries some days I offer turkey, mice, huge bowl of roaches, shrimp, scallops, liver, scrambled eggs(maybe 1x weekly). I just take a look at hisbelly like others have said if he is still nice and round I will just give him some treats like hornworms.

[laurarfl]

I would feed a growing tegu every day.

[nikki1292]

Ok, here's another question. Can I replace turkey with chicken breast (cut up to accommodate the size of the tegu)? Also, what brand of cod liver oil do people use, or what is recommended?

[laurarfl]

I have fed chicken breast before, but I usually feed turkey because it is easier and cheaper. I don't use cod liver oil, so I can't help you there.

[tupinambis]

The one thing that should be stressed in this is that "the food will be dusted with vitamin powder" is completely inadequate. Maybe I'm reading too much into this statement, but I just want to make this clear as glass. While "dusting with vitamin powder" is fine for just vitamins, it is absolutely insufficient for calcium with a organ/meat based diet. Think of it this way, if you aren't offering whole prey, then you NEED to make sure they are getting the same amount of calcium (ie.the bones) as if they were eating the whole prey FOR EVERY MEAL. Look up the data, if a 50g mouse has 32mg of calcium on average (these are just numbers off the top of my head, LOOK THEM UP !!!!!) then you need to make sure every time you are offering turkey/chicken/beef/organ/whateverwithoutbones, then for every 50g of meat you need to be putting into it 32mg of calcium supplement (that's CALCIUM, not vitamin powder, read the labels, learn your amounts). In other words, you should get a good scale if you're going the ground meat route and don't simply trust in "a dusting" to make up for lack of knowledge.