Basic Iguana Care

You have just left a pet store feeling triumphant – you have a mini-dinosaur in a box! Okay, not really. Its just a pet lizard, but reptiles are still cool… blooded. Yes, they are cold blooded creatures and for that reason you will need to get an incandescent heating lamp for your iguana. In the wild the bask in the sun all day long in order to warm the blood and produce the vitamin D they need in order to process calcium properly. Some pet owners advise you to get timers for these UV lights to insure 12 hours of daylight for the health of your iguana. Iguana’s require the temperature to be from 75 degrees to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

Iguanas need a lot of room. Ideally, you need housing that is able to handle an iguana that might grow 5-6 feet in length and weigh up to 18 pounds. Otherwise, as your iguana begins to grow, you may find yourself spending a lot of money on updating your iguana’s housing situation. Some iguana owners claim that they can be allowed to roam the house and trained to do their business in a kitty litter box, but for reasons of health and safety, they should not be allowed to roam. Even just the scent of some common household cleaning products can be enough to kill an iguana. Another thing to remember is that iguanas are climbers, and as such if left to their own devices in a domestic space they could conceivably get into a lot of trouble. I am thinking here of that ceiling fan you didn’t look at closely before you turned it on…

To clean your iguana’s habitat, you should use hot water with no other cleaning agent for reasons already stated. Drinking water should be changed daily, and their should be a seperate source for bathing water. If you do not have a pan for your iguana to bathe in, some iguana owers will fill a sink or tub and let the iguana loose in that for a little while, the temperature of the water should be the same as the room temperature.

As vegetarians, iguanas eat lots of dark green leafy vegetable and in captivity may require a calcium supplement. Iguanas are quick digesters, so their cage will need to be cleaned daily. The best bedding therefore comprises newspaper and paper towels for easy clean up. This type of bedding is also non-toxic to your animal as other types like kitty litter might be. (Kitty litter granules are small enough to be swallowed and do contain chemicals that would be harmful to an iguana.)

Iguanas need to visit the vet once a year for shots and check ups, just like any other pet you may have. So be sure to follow up with your vet and enjoy your living, breathing representation of the time in prehistory when giant lizards ruled.