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Thread: Homicidal Gold Juvinile

  1. #1

    Default Homicidal Gold Juvinile

    For those of you who don't know, I was, originally, not a tegu owner when I joined the site, merely looking into getting one. I became an enthusiast because of my friend Nogga and his baby B&W Argintinian, Ben. Nogga and his two lizards are now living in the house with me, and I'm helping him to take care of them... thus I've kinda become the mom. (gushes over the adorable Ben)

    Anyway... Nogga and I recently came into the possession of a total Bitch of a Gold tegu. It's only a juvinile, and we think it might be a female. However, the thing is a true monster... from what we've seen of it so far. We're attributing at least some of the aggression to stress and hunger, but even in its settled home, the thing is supposed to be a bit insane. We just bent to look at it in its transportation container... and it launched itself at the wall to try and get at us.

    We're going to settle 'her' into a nice tank here, and get her acclimated. So far the plans include trying to follow the taming tips in the Help section, feeding a bit more often, and very slow, gradual work. Nogga is the more experienced of the two of us... much more rather... and thus will be doing most of the handling until he gets the brat a bit more calm. We're gonna get some leather gloves for handling, create a seprate feeding area, and such. As well, until it's more calm, we're going to feed it dead (though as fresh as we can get)... and then work it back to live when it's nice (well hopefully).

    Does anyone have any personal tips to add for us? We'd like as many suggestions as we can possibly get, because if we can't make at least some measure of progress by Faire season, we have to find a different home. NEITHER of us want to do that, for we believe that when a lizard comes to us, especially through adoption, there's a damned good reason for it.

    Please, ANY suggestions are welcome. As it is we're printing the taming tips page and posting it up by the tank.

    Evani~

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Central Maine
    Posts
    1,689

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    Evani,

    I have seen many Colombian tegus who have had a 'bad' temperament. I use the word 'bad' lightly because with work the temperament can become tolerable.

    I have a Colombian Black Tegu here that I rescued. It was very 'wild'. While using my own taming method I was able to calm it to a point, but it's still not 'calm' and it's still very territorial. Not a kid safe lizard like my Argentines.

    I am not saying 'don't bother try', just keep in mind you can only do so much with some Colombians once they get to that point.

    Java, the rescued tegu in my statement above will bite when your hand enters the enclosure unless you are very slow and calm. I can change the water bowl and remove waste with him in it as long as I am slow and don't startle him. He needs to see me coming when I do that.

    I can use one hand to distract him and place the other down over his shoulder from behind and grasp him and he will stress for a minute and calm right down once he is on my chest. If you attempt to pick him up from any angle where he sees your hand coming he will run or bite. After 3 to 5 minutes of holding and stroking him, he calms to the point that I can let him lay without holding him. If I reach for him suddenly or move quickly and will take flight.

    A note to people reading this thinking of buying a tegu in the near future. Though Colombians can make a good pet I generally don't recommend one for the first tegu unless you have alot of time and learn quickly. Pain tolerance is a plus too.

    Rick

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Providence, RI
    Posts
    54

    Default

    I also have a colombian, as usual Rick is dead on. "Lady" enjoys when I am home in fact she has recently started following me around when she is in her enclosure and I am doing tasks around the house. BUT, She is not nice when I pick her up or handle her. She as Rick said she must see me cleaning her enclosure and stuff. I don't attempt to handle her from the front I learned from the first attack. I have had Lady for about six months and can't imagine coming home and not having her there. She is very aggressive, but when she is calm she is so much fun. As I started to deal with her more and more I realized alot of her aggression comes from fear.When I handle her, as long as I spend the first three to four minutes assuring her she is ok, than she is a baby. But any change in the number of people around or activity in the room and she will revert back to being aggressive and tentative.

  4. #4

    Default

    ((Grrs cause I posted before, and it's not showing up))

    I'm calling her Goldie now until we're absolutely sure we're keeping her... we confirmed last night that it's definitely a female.

    We had a pretty good handling session today, all in all. Nogga and I tegu-proofed a spare room down in the basement where he stays, put on some shoes and gloves, and closed the door. He took her out since he's the experienced one. She, of course, spazzed. Jumped around and ran spastically all around the little room, man she runs silly. Eventually, after having to change gloves cause she grabbed the thumb of one and would not let go (it seemed to keep her from being so jumpy to let her hold it), he was able to hold her mostly still and we could get a good look at her.
    Her coloring and pattern is absolutely gorgeous! Very vivid, with even black banding and a beautiful wheat-gold pattern. Unfortunately, though we did know that she was missing some of her tail, we found that it's actually an entire half, instead of just some. We managed to put some medicine on her nose where she rammed the side of her enclosure to get at us a little too hard (we just bent to look at her and she launched at us like a rocket).
    After about thirty minutes, she let go of the glove and we gave her some chicken to hold on to, in case she wanted to actually eat it. Not long after that, though she didn't swallow, just held it in her mouth, Nogga was able to get her to just sit still on his hand. She was huffing a bit, but she decided to just stay there of her own accord. Since this gave us a good look at her and a chance to put some food in without her trying to do an impression of a tegu-shaped missile, and she did eventualy just relax and hold still, we're counting it as a good session.

    Nogga and I are attributing a lot of it toward stress and hunger, cause it turns out she's mostly been on a fruit and veggies diet. We'll be feeding her dead (fresh as possible of course) until she calms down. We've a lot of Herp friends that do lizard taming and raising, one breeder, that have looked at her and are willing to help... but unfortunately they all agree that she's likely not going to be a well-handlable lizard. If this is the case, as it is quite possibly may be, we're going to have to find her a new home.
    Goldie (or whatever we end up calling her), was supposed to have been my lizard once we had her tame. I've helped several friends care for their lizards, and done the care myself when they were out of town or country, but I haven't owned one myself before. Nogga and I both agree that my first lizard should be handleable without turning spazoid... I don't really want a display pet yet.

    If we can't get her handleable, I'm hoping to find a breeder to take her. She is an absolutely beautiful female, I'm still loving just looking at her patterning, and we think that she might do well as a breeder. Even if we only get it to the point where the tank can be cleaned and food set in, and the occasional handling, that would be good for breeding because one male can fertilize more than one female, but one female can't take a bunch of males. We figure that even if she isn't companion pet worthy, she can at least be loved and breed.

    Anyway, we're hoping that maybe she can be tamed though, and I once again reiterate that any and all taming tips are welcome. We've still got that taming page from the site posted next to her enclosure.

    I'll be posting updates here in this thread so that everyone knows how things are going, and Nogga's a photographer, so he's going to take some pictures to post up.

    Evani

  5. #5

    Default The Tegu Missile

    No picture yet, but another update.

    Nogga has dubbed her with a true name now, instead of just calling her goldie or brat. Because i kept comparing her to a tegu-shaped missile, he's thus named her Missile, Missy for short.
    She's eating what we give her, and because her diet was primarily herbivorous prior to coming to us, going more for the meats than fruits. Now that we've got her steadily under a heat lamp, and her sleeping patterns have evened out... she was sleeping irregularly because of stress before... she's warmer when we take her out now. Unfortunately, her true personality is coming with that. Because she isn't cool and has the heat and energy that goes with it, she's begun dragon-rolling much more often. (Nogga and i call "alligator rolls" dragon-rolling because alligators aren't the only ones that do it). She's also gotten more bitey, and actually managed to get some of Nogga's skin the other day. Held on for several minutes before we could entice her off. She barely broke skin at all, didn't really even bleed or bruise that much, didn't get any meat. Tonight she bit the gloves three times.

    It's come to the point where we're pretty sure that she's gonna have to find another home. Nogga doesn't have the cash for another lizard, especially one that'll get as big as a tegu, and she'll be too mean for me. We're gonna get her fatter (cause when we got her she was too skinny), and try to get her to the point of sitting still more often when taken out, but we're gonna try and find a good home for her. I'm thinking that if we can get her slightly calm, we can convince a breeder to ignore the fact that she's missing so much tail. She does have gorgeous coloring, and though we haven't had her probed, we're pretty sure she's female.

    If there's anyone in the area (northern New Jersey, NYC area) that wants to take a look at her, maybe nab her off our hands, LET ME KNOW. We mostly just want 15 or 20 for her, if that. We're willing to be talked down if you're not willing to pay that much for the little brat.
    I'm gonna try and find us a digital camera as soon as possible so we can post pictures of her. A friend has one, and he may be able to come over during a handling session to take some pics.

    If anyone's interested in her, or has any suggestions for our work with her, lemme know.

    Evani

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