Taming a Tegu

I have a pair of one-month-old babies arriving soon.

Does anyone know how much you should handle a Tegu to make it tame?

What kind of tegus are you talking about? Columbian or argentine? All can be handled once they are acclimated and eating well. Once a day is good if possible. Argentines make great pets ( I have six )and become dog tame. Columbians don't take to taming as well. A bit flighty and bitey. Of the Argenitines the reds are the best then the blacks and then the blues. Good luck.

Most definately. As far as those little guys are concerned,your hand could look like a preditory bird. It's a natural response for them to try to get away. Soon after they realize you mean them no harm, they calm down. Be gentle with them to reinforce that feeling. As tegus get bigger they have less enemies so they naturally are less fearful. Were you sold a pair? Do you know how to sex them? Males will have to be seperated before they reach sexual maturity. Good luck.

Like people mentioned... bigger ones tend to be a little calmer to begin with. A lot of herps mellow out as the number of potential predator species goes down.

One thing to watch out for... and in my experience one of the biggest reasons some sources will state that tegus in general are agressive (although there certainly are behavioral differences between the species/subspecies) is the ease with which they develop a feeding response.

If you go into the enclosure in the same manner on a daily basis and drop food in, they will reccognize the pattern and they will meet the enclosure opening with an open mouth at full force. When it's your hand, rather than food... well, this hurts a good bit if you're not aware of the response and don't give them a few minutes to realize there's no food coming. Since this is a species which should be fed daily (or close to it anyway) it's important for you to open the enclosure and at least change a water dish or spot clean with the same or more frequency than food is introduced. Handling them or not when you do this is slightly incidental but not a bad practice, as long as it's appropriate handling and they aren't stressing too badly (not much of an issue with subadults and adults, who generally don't seem to mind, neonates can be flighty though). If you want to feed outside of the enclosure as they get larger and are taking less insect prey, either in a seperate feeding enclosure or simply out of a bowl on a tabletop- this will also retard those agressive feeding responses.