hello there. my black and white tegu, lil scaley, died sometime today. for the past 3-4 weeks she has been huffing and puffing and hissing at us. she would also shake like she was having a siesure. she was eating normaly and usually calming down after being held for a while. we kept her on schedule with lighting and kept her temp appropriate. we asked the place we bought her from what it could be they told us to hold her more. they said she was just scared. last night when we tried to feed her she was shaking all over quite hard. she refused food, even eggs. my boy friend held her for about an hour after that then put her back in her cage. today she didnt come out to bask at all. we looked in her cage about an hour ago and found her in the same place she went to sleep last night..... does any one have any sort of explination? i would greatly appreciate it. she will be deeply missed! btw....she was about 17 inches long, and about 5 months old i believe....i hope this helps!
reptiles don't shake when they're frightened. In all likelihood it died of a calcium deficiency. It's not always diet related - you can give it plenty of calcium rich food but if it isn't getting vitamin D3 it can't metabolise it. Nor can it metabolise calcium if it can't access hot enough basking temperatures. Do you have a photo of your setup?
i dont have any photos of it. but the light was a foot from the bottom of the enclosure. we had a large peice of wood that she could bask on which was right under the light and was at an angle so if it was too hot/cold she could move up or down to a comfortable place. we had a 100 watt bulb and a uvb bulb that we would put in sometimes. we took her outside so she could bask (we put her on top of the fence where nothing could get to her). we also dusted the crickets in "repcal phosphorus free calcium with vit d" every week or two. i think it had a lot do do with lack of experience. i hope this helps, and thank you for responding!
What was the diet aside from crickets? Would you know what the temperature was on the basking spot (surface temperature)? Often if a lizard can't get access to a hot enough basking spot to properly metabolise its meals, it can develop vitamin deficiencies even when its diet is supplemented. I know that on the monitor forums there are often posts about monitors which have developed metabolic bone disease despite the owner telling us how much calcium the animal received, and the culprit is usually insufficient basking temperatures, often paired with low humidity.
What did you use for substrate? About 13 years ago I was contacted by a guy who had a Savannah Monitor with the same symtoms. Come to find out the wood in the vivarium was ceder as well as ceder shavings for the substrate. Scott
