Re: agressive iguana (kinda long, sorry!)

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Posted by Flavia Guimaraes on August 02, 2002 at 09:51:06:

In Reply to: Re: agressive iguana (kinda long, sorry!) posted by pcfmeliss on August 02, 2002 at 08:28:11:

May I ask you a question?(I cannot believe I am talking to you!!!)One of my 5 igs is a 2 and a half years old female.She is very healthy( I keep all my igs outdoors, 12 hours of direct natural sunlight every day, very good food, baths, no mites, never sick, etc...).Until now she never laid any egg!What is her problem??
A few days ago I thought she was gravid(eating toooo much, a little change in color) so I prepared a beautiful nest for her.Do you know what happened??She didnt even look at the nest and one of the males are living inside it!!I listened him digging and digging the whole day and now he is sleeping in HER nest!!
Thank you for your help!
Flavia
*****************************************************************:An ov**erall darkening of skin color is a sign of stress. From your post, there are several possible reasons:

:It may be too hot for her inside her enclosure. You indicated that the room was in the 90s - it may be higher than that in the enclosure/area she is in. Being too hot is as bad as being too cold, so the temps need to be watched.

:When you keep the day lights turned off because the day/room is hot due to the outside temperatures, you mess around with their heads. ;) Seriously, you do throw off their daily routine and their neuroendocrine system which recognizes "day" when bright morning light hits the eyes (which in turn send signals to the pineal gland). Instead of keeping her lights off, how about increasing ventilation to reduce her air temperature when it gets too hot, and at least putting on the UVB fluorescent at the usual morning day light time.

:Healthy igs should hit sexual maturity at 12 months, with their first breeding season 6 months later. So, you should be able to figure out when her season will start, though there is some variability based on how far north (or south, in Flavia's case ;) the iguana is from their native range.

:Lastly, when did you return from your trip to Maine. Iguanas often get cranky when their daily routines have been disrupted. When the disruption is because their primary caretaker is gone, leaving them either in care of someone else (especially a stranger but can be just as bad towards, say, the spouse) or boarded.

:There's an article on change-related stress at my site that address some of the other causes of stress.

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