Chapter 1

Your Pet’s Home

Even before you consider purchasing an iguana, you must consider its needs for a proper home. Since the iguana’s health is dependant on the actual environment that he lives in, it is essential that this part of the process happen first, before anything else.

Iguana’s use their homes for more than just shelter. It is imperative that his home provides the necessary protection but also the right heat for his well being. Unlike the dog or other mammals, iguanas must have a well maintained climate in order to stay healthy.

This is due to the iguana’s need for the wavelengths of the light within its home. They will use these wavelengths to aid in their metabolism as well as in their body chemistry.

What Was Home Like?

If you consider where the iguana is from, you can see what his needs will be in the climate that you create for him. The extreme temperatures of that environment were also fairly humid. This combination is what his body is conditioned for and therefore must be replaced in the shelter you’ll provide for him if he is to survive and be as healthy as he can be.

Without an environment that is conditioned for the right temperature and humidity, your iguana will become ill, it will suffer and it may even die because of this one simple factor.

What does he need, then?  There are several key pieces of information to consider. We’ll break them down for you right here.

Size

Do you need lots of room?  The iguana is so small, how can they even imagine needing so much room?  No matter what you thought about his size or the room he needed, this is an important consideration.

First, they aren’t small. In many cases, an iguana will grow up to six feet in length. That’s a lot of iguana for you to provide shelter for. There is one misconception out there about this, though. Many think that if they limit the room that they provide to their iguana that they will be safely protecting it from getting extremely large. This is not true. He will continue to grow.

Iguanas start growing at a faster rate then they will down the road. But, he will grow his entire life.

Within your first year of owning him, your iguana will likely grow out of the 55 gallon aquarium that you bought it. For this consideration alone you should carefully decide on whether this is the right pet for you. Space is necessary for the animal.

The animal will need enough room to roam, not to just sit still. While they grow you can expand their habitat to make it larger to fit the iguana but you must take into consideration this often, as they will continue to grow throughout their lifetime, even as they are older.

The rule of thumb is that your iguana’s habitat should be at least twice the length of the animal and it should be taller. The taller it is the better. The minimum size for a habitat is that of six feet. It is minimum because this animal is likely to continue to grow. Without enough room, he will suffer needlessly.

Without the right size cage, your pet will suffer. He may injury himself just moving around. He will be stressed, which can cause him to be less friendly to you. Those that limit the iguana’s ability to move will cause his muscles to become weakened.   If you don’t have this type of room to provide to your pet, don’t make his suffer at your expense. You should consider a pet that is smaller.

One way to know what the proper size of the habitat for your pet should be is to notice any injuries that he may have. Those that have been rubbing their noses on the glass or the doors will have burn marks or injuries there. You may see broken claws too which means he was likely scratching and looking for a way out.

In addition, these wounds are an indication that he or she is not getting enough exercise in climbing. This is especially true of an animal that has weakened muscles. Monitor the size of your iguana to the size of his cage.

Monitor the growth of your baby iguana. When you start to notice the he is about 1/3 of the length of his habitat, you’ll want to consider replacing it with something larger. But, it may be more cost effective if you instead provide a large enough habitat for your iguana from the beginning.

Nevertheless, during the first months of his life, a large sized aquarium is big enough for his needs. But, he will outgrow this within that first year. In addition, realize that your iguana will be fully grown within two and a half to three years time!  Make sure you are planning ahead for when that next need arises.

The Lighting

Another important area of the care of your iguana is that of the lighting. The lighting plays an important role in the care of your pet. You’ll need to carefully monitor the amount of light he gets. But, let’s spell out just what is needed here.

UVA and UVB:

These are the two most important considerations for the lighting of your iguana. He needs both of them.

UVA:  This light will be responsible for stimulating the natural behaviors of the pet. This happens because it is a natural part of what makes up natural sunlight.

UVB:  This type of lighting is also important. Without UVB, your pet will not be able to make vitamin D3. He also won’t be able to metabolize calcium. This will leave him weak and prone to injury.

Lighting is important for a number of reasons, but first of all because of their health. Without the right type of UV lighting, your iguana is likely to suffer from a condition called Metabolic Bone Disease or MBD. During this condition, your iguana will suffer in a number of ways such as with jaw and bone deformities, weakened bones as well as an early death. Unfortunately, it is common among iguanas that are kept in captivity.

So, how do you get this? 

Of course, the best choice would be to be in the right climate and allow the sun to provide it. But, that’s not always possible. But, just because you can’t get the temperature right, it is still excellent to allow your iguana to get in the natural beams of sunlight anyway. So, the best thing for you to do is to provide your iguana with as much natural sunlight as possible.

Yet, this isn’t that easy. You see, window panes and even plastic will filter out the UV light that is coming in from the sun. Therefore, although you are allowing him to bask in the sun, he’s not getting the UV light he needs in this manner.

Here’s the plan, then:

Give your iguana as much natural sunlight as possible, without any type of filter between him and the sun. This should be a daily event for him.

Then, give him additional, artificial light in addition to the natural light. One without the other isn’t nearly as good for your pet unless he gets a lot of sunlight without filters.

You will find UV light bulbs available to you at most pet stores, especially those that sell reptile products.

In the next chapters, we’ll talk more about the lighting options that you have and how to carefully set up your habitat with it.

Temperature

Another very important element to your iguana care is his temperature. Actual, the habitat’s temperature is important to monitor. Again, in later chapters we’ll provide you with some additional resources to help you to get the temperature right, but there are some things that must be mentioned early on.

First off, realize just what your iguana is. He is cold blooded. That means that his body does not produce heat like yours does and that means you have to provide it for him through his enclosure.

One spot within your iguana’s habitat should be maintained at 90 degrees or higher F. This will be called his basking spot, where he can go to really soak up the heat. The surrounding air within the habitat can not drop below 80 degrees F.

Why does the temperature of the habitat matter so much?  What if it falls off by a few degrees?  So what?  The problem with this is that the iguana depends on the right temperature to do much of its life functions. For example, without the right level of heat, the iguana can’t digest his food the right way and absorb the nutrients from it.

Without the right light, your pet will not be able to grow correctly. He or she will likely be suffering from malnutrition. He is likely not to move around much and will remain inactive. That’s because he is uncomfortable and unhappy. He’s suffering.

But, you don’t want the habitat to maintain the same amount of heat all of the time. Providing areas that fluctuate to some level within the habitat is necessary as it will allow him to decide how to regulate his temperature.

Finally, before we move on, you also should realize that the heat that you give your iguana must not be attached to the light source. Just like you need a day and night; so does he. Heat and light are two different things that your iguana must have.

Humidity

The third ingredient that must be maintained within your iguana’s habitat is humidity.

Along with the light and the heat of the iguana’s needs, he also requires a high level of humidity. Humidity is necessary because it keeps the iguana from dehydrating. Unlike other animals, your iguana is not likely to drink all that much. Instead, he will count on the humidity in the air to provide him with the fluids he needs.

Unfortunately, the common habitat for the iguana is almost always too dry. This can cause your iguana to be mildly dehydrated at best. Even if you provide water for your iguana to drink, he probably won’t do it.

When you don’t provide enough humidity for your animal, you will find that his kidneys end up struggling. Many will suffer from kidney failure. In addition to this, humidity is needed to help your iguana to shed his skin as it loosens.

How high do you need to maintain it?  The humidity in your iguana’s habitat should be kept at least 65 percent but better if it is at 75 percent. Again, we’ll talk more about how to do this in the next chapters.

What you should get from these beginning notes is simple:  if you can’t provide for these levels of basic care for your iguana, you shouldn’t bring him home.

In addition to these features, your habitat must provide so many more things.

You’ll need to be able to provide him with things to crawl and climb on. He’ll need food sources, too. What’s more, you’ll want to determine if you’ll add a second iguana, or if you will provide him with an outside sunning room.

But, before we get into these things, the next chapter will help you to make the first decision you need to make. That is, should you build or buy your iguana’s habitat. In either case, you’ll need to know what to look for or build and what qualities your habitat needs to have.

Later, we’ll cover the specifics of other care procedures you’ll need to follow. What you should know is that the habitat that you construct for your pet is one of the most important elements for caring for him. That’s why we’ve dedicated so much to this.

Without a proper habitat, your pet can not maintain the necessary health.

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