The Ultimate Iguana Care Handbook

Table of Contents:

Introduction...4
Chapter 1: Your Pet’s Home...5
Chapter 2: Planning Your Habitat...15
Chapter 3: Heating & Lighting Your Habitat...29
Chapter 4: Maintaining Humidity For Your Iguana...44
Chapter 5: What Goes Into My Habitat...47
Chapter 6: Taking Care Of Your Iguana Correctly...52
Chapter 7: Cleaning And Maintaining Your Iguana...57
Conclusion...60


Introduction
You want to own an iguana? Do you know what it takes to
make that happen?
Owning an iguana is not something simple. You have to
balance their living environment with their needs for the
most natural levels of protection. If you don’t invest the
time in finding the right type of living area for your iguana
and give him the proper care, he will not be as healthy as he
should be. In fact, without the right environment, he will
perish.
There are many people that don’t invest enough time in
determining the right living environment for their iguana. In
the first chapter, we talk about just how important this fact
is. The bottom line is that without a carefully controlled
living environment, the iguana can become ill. The good
news is that we’ve taken all of the guess work out of it.
You’ll learn how to properly build a home for your pet, how
to maintain it, how to properly feed and clean your iguana
and even how to begin training your pet. With these things
in place, you’ll be able to bring home an iguana and call him
your pet. And, he’ll love you for doing so!
5
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.
6
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.
7
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.