[ Post a Response | Green Iguana Society Message Board ]
Posted by Monica
on 7/18/2012, 2:43 pm
198.169.188.226
We have a 6-yr old adult male green iguana that has been a part of our family for a few years now and even though he has a huge cage in our living room, he is allowed to free roam IF he wants (and for years, he really doesn't want to much).
Beamer has always been very regular in his schedule. He comes down from his night-time sleeping platform to the heated/lighted platform at 7am... soaks up the rays until about 10:30am and then comes out (or asks to come out if the cage is closed) to go potty in the bathtub. After he goes potty, he likes to soak for 30-60 minutes and then he comes out, sits under his heat/UV lights for another hour and then goes to the top of his cage to eat and hang out for the rest of the day in front of the picture window.
NOTE: Beamer's cage is an open wire system with wooden supports that is kept at room temperature, so it is imperative that he uses his basking area to warm up and get the proper amount of UV rays (which he has always done in the past.)
Lately, he has been driving us crazy! For the past few weeks, all he wants to do is sit in the bathtub! At first, we just let him, since we could tell he was ready to shed in the front, but then realized he would have spent the night in the cold water if we had let him. We started taking him out after a few hours and putting him back under his heat lamp, but he just crawls out again and beelines for the bathtub and crawls in. If the cage is shut, he scratches at the doors and is very restless for hours - often to the point of just giving up on the floor of his cage and ignoring his food and the heat lamps for the rest of the day. In fact, right now, he is sitting in the bathtub, with no water in it, in the dark! Because of all this, he hasn't been as regular with his meals. He used to eat a HUGE salad every day and he now is down to half that amount and some days, he might just pick at it and not eat at all, if he hasn't warmed himself up properly. If offered his favorite foods like bananas, nasturtium flowers, mac 'n cheese (yeah, I know, it's a special treat only), cherries, etc, he will gobble them up, so I'm not too worried about his appetite.
I am getting concerned that he is not keeping himself warm enough, which is causing him to decrease his food intake. Is this something that will pass as soon as he sheds his skin on his front legs? Like I said, it's been about 2 weeks now, of this change in schedule.
The one plus on all of this... he finally potty trained himself, after years of us working on this. He walks to the tub, gets in and goes potty on his own.
Thanks for any suggestions and advice.
Monica
Responses
« Back to index | View thread »
