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.
Yeah sometimes igs like to bath, play around in the water etc. My first green used to literally jump into her water tub, get back out of it.. jump in it again.. All darn day it was the oddest thing.
I would plan to build (or rebuild) a cage that is fully enclosed. Plywood with glass doors or something etc.. Even a doggy door so they can get out. It works. The problem to open air cages is room temp for us is not sufficient for reptiles unless you dont mind your room temp at 90 degrees year round. I have a separate room for mine and ac might be on elsewhere in house you go in to the igs and very hot and humid.. Like going from canada to florida with the swing of a door. Anyways the problem with colder cages is the iguana is very open to getting ill, plus when they are sick they tend to go to a cold spot which only worsens the problem. And humidity in an open cage.. well unless you are in mexico or something good luck.
Our male used to spend 6 to 8 hours in there everyday. Luckily I was able to stay home aso we just kept draining and adding more water. He even took his meals in there.After talking about it with our vet we decided perhaps he wasnt getting enough hydration in his enclosure so we bought a couple humidifiers and paid more attention to the humidity levels. It did take him some time, since the bath had been his routine for over a year but now he just gets his several days a week for an hour soak.
Have a free roamer or open enclosure humidity is always an issue so do whatever you can to get water in him, see if it makes any difference.
I would get a humidfier and aim it under his perch, which you should be able to do from outside of the cage. If you need to you can get one of those crates like a milk crate that school kids use for files or paper work? Walmart has them for about 4 bucks in the student supply section, it will prevent him from burning himself via hot steam.With the crate you could also place it inside of the enclosure.
You know, that's an extremely good point! It's been hot and dry here lately (which is saying a lot since we are in the Pacific Northwest) and I had noticed he had gotten just a little constipated a few weeks ago, but quickly remedied it by sprinking water on his food. He's well hydrated now though. :) He actually started pooping twice a day this past week and the second time is mostly completely water. I'll give some things a try, starting with a humidifier in his cage.
I also think I will reduce the amount of time the heat lamp is on, as I just realized he has been nose rubbing and he hasn't done that since he lived at the school, over 2 years ago. He has also been trying to get into my sewing "closet" that is much cooler than the rest of the house. This all makes sense now. Low humidity, too high of heat.
do you have the doors covered with plex to keep moisture in the enclosure? Doing some foam at points where doors don't quite meet frames would help hold humidity too. Pretty setup you have. Once you get the humidity thing fixed, you're going to have a really happy iggy!
