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Thread: Impacted? Please help

  1. #1

    Default Impacted? Please help

    Hi everyone,

    I have a baby black and white tegu, and I am worried he is impacted. He looks pretty "fat," I have had him three weeks and he seems to have gotten a bigger mid section since he arrived. His diet is pretty steady, regularly eating beef liver, turkey, superworms and eggs. I feed him on his basking platform, and a few times he dragged his beef liver over the cypress mulch, and seemed to eat a few small pieces of mulch. He has defecated recently and seems to be active and alert. I attached a few pictures of him. Does he look like a normal, growing tegu baby, or should I be worried? I have tried feeding him outside his enclosure, but he just doesnt ever seem interested in food outside of the tank.

    Josh
    image.jpg

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    San Antonio,TX
    Posts
    9,505

    Default

    Hi Josh. Welcome to our Tegu forum family. I don't want to tell you what to do. But I highly recommend to feed your Tegu outside of the enclosure. Trust me, if he is hungry enough he will eat. Tegus can go without food for a little while. Since he looks very tame and doesn't look like that he is scared of you I think it will not take long for him to eat in a dark bin or in the bath tub. From what I can see from the photo is looks like he is very healthy. But it's hard to tell is he is impacted. If you feed him every day it's normal for them to look this big. What you can do is give him a luke warm/warm bath. Usually this will help them poop. If he poops in the water without any problems then he is not impacted. Even if he ate a very few pieces of mulch. But if you see him wiggle his hips side to side ( like my female did in the video below ) then he is impacted. Sometimes if the humidity is to low or they don't drink enough water the urates can get very hard and they will have a hard time going to the bathroom ( doing the wiggling ). If he is wiggling his hips I would hold of on feeding him solid foods and just give him some stage one baby food for the protein.

    This is how a impacted Tegu tries to poop:

    Rich is not how much you have, or where you are going, or what you are.Rich is who you have beside you.

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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Central FL
    Posts
    4,349

    Default

    Well, from that bit of photo his weight looks good. All of those foods are low in calcium and the CA: P ratio will be off. You'll want to supplement every meal without bones with calcium. The superworms and ground turkey are the biggest culprits.
    Laura R (FL)
    1.0.0 Colombian Tegu
    1.4.0 Argentine B&W Tegu
    1.2.0 Red Tegu
    1.2.0 B/WxRed Tegu
    1.0.0 Green Ameiva (yet another teiid)
    7 other lizards
    1 little gator
    3 FL box turtle
    1 Sulcata tortoise
    16 snakes
    5 fuzzy pets
    4 little frogs
    a bunch of creepy bugs
    and a partridge in a pear tree

  4. #4

    Default

    Yeah I am now going to be feeding him out of the cage. All of his good is dusted or mixed with a calcium supplement. He is not wiggling his hips like that at all.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    San Antonio,TX
    Posts
    9,505

    Default

    This is good to hear. I'm sure he is fine then. Please keep us posted. Thank you.
    Rich is not how much you have, or where you are going, or what you are.Rich is who you have beside you.

    Our videos :

    http://www.youtube.com/user/txrepgirl

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