Tegus have razor sharp claws and it can make handling them a painful experience, despite their tame disposition. Unlike cats, tegus are very unlikely to scratch you on purpose (tail whipping now, that’s a different story!), but if you are keeping one around the house you’ll still want to regularly trim their nails so you don’t look like you’ve been mauled by a big feline every time it climbs over your lap.
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Nail trimming
This is best done as a two-person job. Have someone else tightly hold the tegu, ideally while it’s asleep, and gently clip the very end of its claw, where the sharp tip is. You can use a regular nail clipper, nail file or dremel for larger pets. If you don’t want to do it yourself, find a vet that offers mani/pedi services, they are usually not too expensive.
Smoothing claws without clipping
Tegu owners often recommend letting your pet do its own nail trimming by letting it walk over sharp surfaces as it would in the wild. You can achieve this by adding sandpaper sheets / cat scratchers and real slate stones to the enclosure.
TEGU QUICK LINKS
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.