Taming Help Desperately Needed

to see that I got this thread on the correct path! Iguanas are EVIL! Having kept them for many years when I was younger and naive, I now get them in as rescues and am using Wes's idea with the grill.

I have a scar from a "to the bone iguana bite" 25 years ago! I work with snakes everyday and have no scars from them. Lots of cool lizards out there that make good practical pets. Iguanas are absent from this list. About one out of 50 are manageable and that one will be a female.

Thanks to the few of you that took this serious. I'm also happy that my raised stress level on making this little guy happy is to the enjoyment of the others. My wife and I spent about 3 hours perusing web sites and books to find the perfect blend of foods for his diet including which foods give which nutrients and what percentage of each food group he should have in his diet. We have spent just as much time on every aspect of this guys health and habitat. To say I am unprepared is highly offensive to me.

I can't tell you all of the web sites I have used. I know anapsid.org and greenigsociety.org have been a big help. For everything that I've looked at, I've tried to make sure that it was stated in several sources so as to make sure it wasn't some kook spouting off.

As for books, I have the following: The Iguana: An Owner's Guide to a Happy Healthy Pet and Caring For Green Iguanas: Breeding, Feeding & Selection. Amazon has both if you are curious what they are.

I'm glad that people jump to conclusions that this was an impulse buy and that I have no clue what I am doing. I have owned an iguana before and never had the problems that I am currently having. I'm very worried that this little guy is going to become so scarred mentally that he will be skittish all his life. I want to avoid this which is why I am desperately reaching out to others in the community.

Considering the time and money I've already dropped into this endeavor, I don't want to back out unless it is the last option for this guy living a happy life. I don't want to stress him out for the rest of his life (which will be shortened due to heightened stress).

Jason,
I applaud your efforts in researching the care and committing yourself to do the right thing. But if you want a friendly lizard it's not likely to be an Iguana. We do tend to assume a lot on these forums and for that I apologize for myself. In my experience (over 40 years), I tend to think of people that WANT to keep Iguanas are either inexperienced, a masochist, or a legitimate reptile rescue.

Originally Posted by Tim Cole

Jason,
I applaud your efforts in researching the care and committing yourself to do the right thing. But if you want a friendly lizard it's not likely to be an Iguana. We do tend to assume a lot on these forums and for that I apologize for myself. In my experience (over 40 years), I tend to think of people that WANT to keep Iguanas are either inexperienced, a masochist, or a legitimate reptile rescue.

I have met a few people who genuinely knew what they were doing and just liked the species too. They were few and far between though.

To say I am unprepared is highly offensive to me

Tough. Suck it up buttercup, the answers that actually address your issues aren't always going to be the answers you want to hear. You're keeping the animal in a reptarium, reading Melissa Kaplan, anthropomorphising and are apparantly inexperienced enough to not realize you have done all these things which are highly questionable.

There are people here who have tried to clue you in to the realities of the situation and open the door to a discussion which would leave you educated. If you get your panties in a bunch everytime someone says something that doesn't fit in with your entire two books and three hours of web browsing, they'll get sick of trying very very quickly.

Your iguana is a specific species of animal. It is not a toddler and it is not a dog. Do not treat it like one if you want it to be healthy. Do not think of it's behavior in human terms and do not create human problems where none exist.

On the whole, reptile behavior is instinctive. Instinctive does not mean simple, it just means that the responses and behaviors that are displayed have a genetic basis first and are slow to change based on repeated experiences. Being large, active diurnal territorial harem breeders, iguanas are actually towards the top end of reptiles when it comes to declarative thought and changing their behavior but this isn't saying a whole lot given that the next group over are ambush predators who sometimes won't move for days at a time.

Young iguanas are skittish. This prevents them from being eaten most the time.

Adult iguanas are physically defensive and even agressive. This prevents them from being eaten and makes the individual iguanas more successful when it comes to reproducing.

Unhealthy green iguanas are docile green iguanas. If you care about the animal's well being, you do not want a docile iguana because it indicates that there's something wrong. Something retarding it's natural instincts to be dominant and agressive.

It's commendable that you care so much for your next party flavor, er pet, but truly, they don't make good pets.

I've had hundreds over the years, I used to wholesale and retail, and long before I quit doing that I quit carrying iguanas at all because they so often do NOT make good pets.

There are exceptions, there always are.

Out of the hundreds I personally sold, maybe a dozen were friendly enough to be handled regularly. Of that dozen, I'd say at least 6 bit their owners at one time or other, all not only painful but serious, several requiring stitches. Women in particular are bitten badly when they menstruate.

My own brother has one that is puppydog tame, I've had two that were great WITH ME, not others.

I wish you luck, but really, I doubt you'll have it.

Get a bearded dragon or dwarf monitor, heck even a savanah monitor, they all have better attitudes than adult iguanas.

We may seem harsh but you are not the first or second or third or twelfth person to come here with the same questions and answers from the same sources.

Hang around a bit and you'll see.

There is more knowledge on this site than anywhere else on the web.

If you are going to get books get ones that are useful here is one.

BIOLOGY, HUSBANDRY, AND MEDICINE OF THE GREEN IGUANA

by Jacobson Elliott R. (Ed.)

It is one iguana book I have heard only good things about.

Orig. Ed 2003


Digby Rigby balboa28279@mypacks.net

me and my partner have 2 iguanas, the first one we got was a baby and he was well happy to be handled from the beginning, tho still now when we go to get him from his cage he goes a bit mad but as soon as he is in our hands he is fine! our other iguana we got must have been around 2 years when we got him, on the first day he sat in the room and tailed whipped for the fun of it, you couldn't get nowhere near him. then slowly my boyfriend would sit closer to him and hand feed him and talk to him then eventually hold him. it took a long time,and a lot of scars,but now he is the calmest out of the 2 of them and is happy to be picked up, the only aggression he really shows is to the little iguana. So it just takes lots of time(we think from some of the ways Jake reacted he was abused it his last home)and lots of patience. we have had Jake for 9 months now and it probably took around 2 months to calm him a bit, where he would wander around the room whilst we were in it, but probably took about 3or4 month for him to be really happy to be handle! Hope that helped

I lucked into an amazingly tame, sweet baby iguana once. He was hand-fed on a daily basis and throughly spoiled. We hit a few bumps when he went through puberty - nothing a band-aid couldn't fix, lol. He was truly a great pet for about 4 years - until my ex-husband killed him, but that is another story.

So I decided after a while to get another iguana. After a few weeks I swore that the little beasty was defective, so I returned her to the pet store for another iguana. And that iguana proved to be possed by satan too. So that iguana went back and I gave up for a while. A couple of years later I tried again when I was contacted about a large adult iguana that needed a home. And THAT iguana proved to be evil too! Now I keep nice, friendly reptiles...like bearded dragons, and ball pythons, and boas...

My point is this. We are not trying to make you feel bad. It is just that we KNOW from experience that a "good" pet iguana is far and few between. I was lucky enough to get a great iguana - but it was pretty much a once in a lifetime kind of a thing. My advice is to give up the iguana if you are looking for a good pet.

Jamie

sorry...that is supposed to be "possessed", not possed.

Originally Posted by Valley Dragons

My advice is to give up the iguana if you are looking for a good pet.

The thread is getting a little outdated and I'm not sure if the original poster is checking the site anymore or not but...

When it comes down to it, someone interested in purchasing an animal will have much better success if they first identify an animal that will usually meet what they want out of it, rather than selecting an animal and trying to change the way it behaves or the care it requires.

Active, interactive and discinclined to bite, whip or run away are traits that can be found in many species. It's easier to purchase one of them than it is to abuse an iguana into a semblance of what the owner was expecting.