He's Here! - our replacement tegu has arrived safe and sound!!!

[John1982]

Hi everyone,

For those of you who may not know, we had our original yearling female Argentine Chacoan tegu delivered to us last week. Unfortunately she had arrived deceased, it was very upsetting. We cannot imagine what the poor girl went through

Well, it's been a week and our replacement chacoan has arrived safely! This time it's a boy, Argentine Chacoan yearling!!

Glad this one got their safely. He's a great looking GU!

I have a couple of questions:

Regarding the INSIDE temperature of the hide box; what is the best INSIDE temp for the hide box?

Your hide should be on the cooler side, when he wants to heat up - it's basking time. If you can swing it, mid to upper 70s would be a good hide temp. Offering deep enough and plenty of substrate is the easiest way to let him thermoregulate. Then he can dig down as close or far from the heat source as suits him. It's also a good idea to have some damp sphagnum or orchard moss in the box hide to help with sheds.

Also, so, he refuses to eat right now(but has drank water), approximately how long does it normally take for a new tegu to finally decide to eat?

Depends on the tegu. Ask the previous owner what his favorites were and you'll probably have him gorging as soon as you can fill a plate. I feed as much as they'll eat daily until they get close to max size. If they hibernate well this usually happens around year two.