How do I make my green iguana not aggressive?
Posted by Admin | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 05-06-2009-05-2008
1
my little green iguana whips his tail when I try to get him, he bit me twice. when I change his food, he whips me again. he Even he whips my other ig when she is in the heat rock. how do I make sure he doesnt be agrisive
Okay first REMOVE the heat rock or cut the wire from the heat rock. Heat rocks can cause serious under belly burns.
http://www.iguanaden.org/care/hotrock.htm
If your iguanas are housed together you need to separate them. This can cause aggressiveness due to not getting the proper amount of UVB/heat and/or food.
http://www.greenigsociety.org/multipleigs.htm
Iguanas are either dominate or submissive … when you house together one will be either way. You have a 50/50 chance if your iguana will tolerate you as it's slave owner. Some iguanas will not tolerate us humans some will tolerate us humans.
When you first get an iguana it can take just a couple months for your ig to stop whipping/biting or it can take 6 months, a year, or even longer.
Do not back down from your iguana or your iguana as won the dominance. If you need to remove everything from the tank (hopefully its in nothing smaller then a 55 gallon tank if it is under 8-12 months of age), remove everything to get out. Your iguana should calm down after a couple of minutes after holding. You need to make sure that you take your iguana into a quite place to relax and calm down. Have you tried head rubs, tuberculates scales (the bumps on neck), this can help relax more.
Temps and UVB does also play a roll into maybe why your iguana is possibly aggressive:
never let temps drop below 70F …
basking 92-96F if temp is too low digestion is slowed too high food digests too fast and nutrition is lost
medium/middle (overall) 88-92F
cool 75-84F
at night 73-84F
UVB:
there are some UVB that can cause eye damage to any reptile
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/index.htm
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/fluorescenttuberesults.htm
http://www.uvguide.co.uk/whatreptilesneed.htm
USA: ReptiSun 10.0, Repti Glo 8.0 or ReptiSun 5.0
UK: Arcadia
The new thing that some pet stores are trying to push are the ESU 7% tubes … they do not produce the UVB that your iguana needs
Distance that the tube needs to be away from your igs body that you will need to adjust as your iguana grows:
ReptiSun 10.0 8-10inches, Repti Glo 8.0 6-8inches or ReptiSun 5.0 6-8inches
Arcadia 6-8inches (6 inch = 15.24 centimeter / 8 inch = 20.32 centimeter)
Sites for you to read:
http://www.greenigsociety.org/
http://www.iguanaden.org/
http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/index.html
A great book to read and have on hand:
Iguanas for Dummies by Melissa Kaplan
Yahoo has some great iguana groups for new and old owners of iguanas, if you'd like to join:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/BabyIguana/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/IguanaDen/