Argentine Tegu, The Best Pet Lizard?

Well, hi there I'm here today with Gus Gus who is an Argentine black-and-white tegu because we want to talk to you about Argentine tegus who are possibly The greatest pet lizard you could possibly own You might have seen a little bit about tegus before on our video about the five Best pet lizards you could possibly own or five of the best I'm gonna be totally honest with you guys Gus Gus is probably my very favorite pet reptile that I have if I had to get rid of everything else and I could only Keep one reptile that I have it probably Gus Gus Because he's spectacular and he's fun and he's a bit of a handful sometimes But he is so rewarding and enjoyable. So we're gonna talk today about Death rolls and The Argentine tegu to discuss the Argentine tegu we're gonna I'm gonna start off by telling you that we give them an overall score of 3.2 out of 5 and that might strike you as a little bit odd because I just told you this is maybe my favorite of All the reptiles I own and it's only getting 3.2 out of 5 But we will explain and it will come down to our five categories which are handleability care hardiness availability and upfront costs So, let's start with handle ability shall we this is an excellent demonstration of Why the tegu gets a 3 out of 5 for handle ability? They are honestly Spectacular for a great big powerful lizard, but they are a great big powerful lizard I'll tell you some of the great things about them They're unlikely to bite and that is a Spectacularly great thing when you're talking about a lizard that is this big with this sharp of teeth and this powerful of jaws This is a lizard that could do you a tremendous amount of damage if it wanted to they can bite hard and fast They can stand up on two legs and sprint This is like a tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex and so thank goodness They're not very inclined to use those jaws and that's actually one of the big reasons that we Recommend the Argentine tegus and not the Colombian tegus the Colombian tegus You can get them for a lot less money But it's a lot harder to mellow them out than it is with the Argentine tegus the Argentine tegu though spectacular so the Argentine tegus, these are like your black and white tegus your Blue tegus your red tegus. These are these are excellent tegus that are unlikely to bite you. They're also Mellow Relatively, I mean, you know This is a big lizard that could run very fast if he wanted to and he is staying up on this table at least That's pretty good stuff. And honestly, they at least appear to like attention they will come right up honestly Gus Gus only does what he wants to do and So when it comes time to get him out of his enclosure if he doesn't want to come out he won't come out, but I just open up the front door and he comes right up to me and He is excited to get out and go exploring He seems to enjoy it when you pet him a little bit. I mean he comes he raises right up into it He's not he's not protecting himself. He's not getting defensive. He doesn't increase his rate of breathing or anything like that but he genuinely seems to for lack of a better term, he seems to enjoy the attention and He's fun some of the downsides One of them that just Scares me to death and it's I think the biggest downside about tegus versus monitor lizards is tegus can drop their tails Probably not likely at his size that he would drop a large portion of that tail, but They can drop it and it's sad. It doesn't grow back very well. I'm mostly worried that somebody will step on it Having it get stepped on or having him whip it into something Those seem to be the main ways that a tail gets broken. And then of course, they've got the muscles to detach it entirely I'm always afraid that will happen It scares me and you know, I hate that about a lizard and they can do that They've also as we mentioned before they've got powerful jaws and they've got claws that can scratch He wanders around enough and I've got some big stones in his basking spot in his enclosure So his claws don't tend to tear me up anymore as a death roll But you can see he doesn't love to be picked up He's sort of honestly like a dog, you know, you have a medium-sized dog You can pick it up, but they don't love it. You know, they're usually kind of squirming around trying to get get away They'll scratch a little bit and it's exactly the same way with a tegu He's not ideal to pick up and hold but he is really great to just be with and to interact with my other Warning about tegus is all of them Have gone through a grumpy adolescent phase and at that adolescent phase, they're big enough to hurt you I've never had a problem with Gus Gus indoors But a lot of lizards can see ultraviolet light which doesn't come through windows. You might have ultraviolet lights In fact, you should have ultraviolet lights inside of his enclosure But outside of his enclosure He's maybe never seen you under the light of ultraviolet light and you look different When you've got that ultraviolet light reflecting off you you can't see it But he can and the first time I ever took him outside. He went ballistic I'd never seen anything aggressive from him and suddenly he was jumping through the air at me with his mouth open I had a pillow that was nearby on the porch and I grabbed that and I stuck it in front of him and he pulled It out of my hand and shook it and threw it I was grateful that I was just able to corral him back into an enclosure and since then Whenever I bring him outside, I bring him outside on the harness He did that one more time when I took him outside and then after that he's been just like this outdoors Just mellow as can be a good boy Never a problem, but that first time was scary I honestly think this is the most fun lizard in the world to interact with I told you before he's harness trained So that's that's a harness that goes kind of a little bit around in front of his arms and and behind us his arms or His front legs he'll step right into it and then it clicks over there and I keep him on a leash And even my two-year-old daughter can walk him. I love this. I love that She knows to be careful about his tail You know, we always watch to make sure that he's not gonna do anything aggressive But like I said, it's been a long time since he's done anything like that He only does what he wants to do. He goes where he wants to go You can walk him as long as you don't have any particular destination in mind when it comes to care We give the Argentine Tegu death roll a score of four out of five Really as far as a great big lizard goes this is about as easy as it's gonna get but it's a great big lizard so it's not that easy the setup for a lizard this big is Big I'm talking at least eight feet by four feet That is a sizable enclosure in your house and we'll talk more about this later But you're gonna need to build this thing You know It's very difficult to go out and buy a commercially available eight foot by four foot or bigger Enclosure especially one that you can assemble inside your home because it probably won't fit through your door that is something you're at least gonna need to know somebody who can build it for you or you're gonna need access to the Equipment and the knowledge to be able to build such a thing. That's not easy on the easy side though is feeding them They eat a lot because they're big and they're active You got to be careful not to overfeed them A lot of people's Tegu's get kind of obese, but the great thing is they're an omnivore which means they eat meat and eight plants Like I said, they're easy to feed You like that banana? Older they get they're gonna eat more vegetation in their diet When they're younger, they're gonna be eating a lot more protein a lot more insects things like that as they get older It's gonna be more ground turkey. If you can get some invertebrates in there like Dubia roaches Those are gonna be great But things like banana other fruits and vegetables a very diet is what's gonna be best for your Tegu You like that stuff you like that All of that stuff is available at your local grocery store They're kind of like feeding a giant blue tongue in a lot of ways when it comes to hardiness We give these a score of 5 out of 5 Honestly, these are as rock-solid as a lizard is gonna get as long as you are doing the obvious things that they're gonna need To stay alive. They're gonna probably stay alive for you need to provide water for them food for them appropriate basking temperatures Don't let them get too cold. Don't cook them. You give them these basic requirements of life Your Tegu is probably going to thrive make sure they're getting proper amounts of calcium So they don't get metabolic bone disease. I would recommend Giving them some ultraviolet Exposure either natural sunlight or from a bowl but in general Tegu rock solid when it comes to availability We give these guys a score of 2 out of 5 They're really about as available as a blue-tongued skink the main reason that they're not overly abundant is just because it is difficult to maintain a large breeding stock of Tegus because they're great big and their enclosures are great big and most Local breeders are just not gonna have space for Tegus and that's okay But it means there aren't that many people that produce them as I said They are available If you want a Tegu, you can go out and get one you're probably gonna need to go to an expo or online Every now and then you can stumble into one in a pet shop But it's not gonna happen all that often and if you do run into one in a pet shop Make sure you know for sure that it is an Argentine Tegu and not a Colombian Tegu if it seems unreasonably inexpensive It's probably not an Argentine Tegu when it comes to upfront costs. We give the Tegu a score of 2 out of 5 The lizard is expensive, it's not super expensive In fact If the price of an Argentine Tegu versus a Colombian Tegu is the reason that you're not wanting to get an Argentine Tegu You shouldn't get a Tegu at all because the price of the Tegu is not what makes it so expensive It is it is not cheap It'll be a couple hundred dollars But the price of everything else is what's gonna get expensive for you If you have a Tegu. The enclosure for a Tegu is simple It's about as simple as a blue tongue skink enclosure except it's at least 8 feet long by 4 feet That's huge They're gonna need simple substrate that they can burrow in that maintains proper amounts of humidity They're gonna need basking lamps big ones and that don't get it too hot in any one spot so they don't burn themselves you're gonna need a Hot basking lamp and you're gonna need ultraviolet lamps. Some people say you don't need them for Tegus I say why risk it? You're gonna need a fairly decent sized water bowl so that it can drink maybe soak a little bit a great big hide several hides possibly in different areas of the enclosure so they can get to different temperature gradients and still hide and feel comfortable and we Have links to all of those things down in the description Everything with the Tegu is big. It's a simple enclosure, but it's a big enclosure Because the Tegu is a big lizard. It's the biggest lizard on our list It'll probably be one of the biggest lizards we ever recommend but It might be the greatest lizard in the world If it is the greatest lizard for you Just make sure you do your homework and I want to talk to you about doing your homework a little bit Because we have discovered a wonderful resource that we want to point you towards If you're wanting more information about this about exactly how to care for your Tegu check out the reptile files Page on the Argentine Tegu It'll give you a really good layout of exactly what you need to do to properly care for your Tegu once again, we give the Tegu an overall score of 3.2 out of 5 and even though that doesn't sound high. I'm telling you this this lizard You can't do any better than this lizard out of this world amazing T-rex that you can keep in your house as always like and subscribe And we hope to see you real soon Make sure that they're getting proper. That was a good death roll. I wouldn't even stop him and that maintains You try to keep a lizard this big on a table for a whole video You good boy Gus Gus. How you doing? You hanging in there? He's getting nice and jowly for me. Look at these big jowls. He's developing. I love that Take it one for the team. There's the there's the vase wipe vase wipe