Watermelon is perfectly safe for tegus to eat and it can be a healthy addition to their diet in moderation.
Watermelon and melons in general make for a good treat for tegu lizards, as long as they are fed sporadically. This is because of the high sugar content in melons and fruit in general.
It is best to serve watermelon without seeds and rind to avoid the risk of constipation, but other than that it is quite healthy as far as fruits go.
Similar fruits like melon and cantaloupe are also great choices, and may be slightly better from a nutritional point of view, since watermelon mostly contains water (as the name suggests).
As a rule of thumb, no more than 10% of your tegu’s diet should comprise fruits, and only a small part of this 10% should come from (water) melons.
Colombian gold tegus should also be fed less fruits compared to Argentine black and white tegus and Red tegus.
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PetsWithScales.com is an informational website about big lizard pet care. We collect and provide information from different sources across the web on how to keep and care for reptiles as pets. The species we mainly deal with are tegus, monitor lizards, skinks and geckos. Our aim is to provide high quality information to help pet owners make better, more informed decisions about their animal’s diets, health and life.
PetsWithScales.com is an informational website about big lizard pet care. We collect and provide information from different sources across the web on how to keep and care for reptiles as pets. The species we mainly deal with are tegus, monitor lizards, skinks and geckos. Our aim is to provide high quality information to help pet owners make better, more informed decisions about their animal’s diets, health and life.