I had the same problem

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ The Iguana Forum ]

Posted by Flavia Guimaraes on March 06, 2003 at 14:38:04:

In Reply to: Wrangling an agressive - and ill - male, need a little help! posted by mobrz on March 06, 2003 at 09:57:06:

I used to raise my 3 males together since they were tiny babies.One day they reach sexual maturity and started to attack each other.Then i separated them and everything is OK again.Even the submisse one that didnt grow very much now is growing and geting fat.
You need to separate your igs now before its too late!He will seriously hurt the female no doubts about it!About puting the med on him you have to towel him everyday.He will bite the towel and become frozen with the towel in his mouth then you put the med on his chin.Look at the photo!Another thing.If you can keep him in the sun this will help a lot to heal the burns.My Godzilla for instance is in his breeding season and seriously damaged his face during his attacks against his cage's walls.I didnt put any med but the bruises are healing by themselves because i keep all my igs in the sun. Sun is very good to keep iguanas healthy.
About your ig's burns,what you did to stop him from being burned again?
##################################################
:Hi ya'll, I could use a little advice on handling a cranky 4 foot male without hurting either myself or him! Little bit of background... we adopted 2 iguanas from a friend of a friend about 3 and a half years ago when they were juvenilles. They were just over a year old when we took them in, and they had been raised together, so we kept them together. Now he's just over 4 feet long and she's around 3 and a half. We custom built them a cage where they have several levels and plenty of room to move and climb around, but mostly they stay next to each other on the top level. He's bullied her a bit in the past, mostly around feeding time. Nothing major, he just occassionally lunges at her to give her a start so he can have first shot at the food, even though I always prepare a bowl for each of them and set them on opposite sides of the cage. He became ill a couple of weeks ago while we were out of town, the vet said he received burns from hanging too close to the heat lamp. As a result he has a nasty infection from his chin to his chest. He's on antibiotics and we clean him and treat the infection twice a day, and it's coming along nicely, though he'll likely have some bad scar tissue to show for it. We've found it easiest to treat him in his home, as he gets very nervous if he's outside of the room he's used to being in and goes into a panic. Giving him the antibiotic is a trial, as he won't open his mouth for us and I can't pull his jaw open because I'm afraid to hurt him, since his chin area is part of the infected area. Yesterday was our first really warm day of the year (89 degrees), and just as I thought he was calming down and accepting the treatment, he got all fired up. Now, not only will he flee from us and try to protect and hide the infected area from us, he's attacking his cagemate. He's head bobbed at her before and stood on her back to assert his dominance, but now he's biting, and biting relatively hard. While we were trying to clean him last night he went into a fury and began attacking her. Luckily he only broke her skin in one tiny spot between two of the scales on her tail, producing just a little dot of blood, no other damage. She finally wised up and decided maybe the lowest level would be the safest place, but she's very timid and submissive, and I'm afraid she may actually LET him do real damage to her before she flees. What may be worse is that he's hurting himself during these attacks. I couldn't figure out exactly what he did, maybe bit his tongue or the inside of his lip (which is partially infected), but he had a decent amount of blood in his mouth. He also slammed into the side of the tank and re-opened part of the wound on his chin during one of his lunges at her. I'm at a loss as to how to handle him. Of course I don't want him to hurt her and have never seen him like this, but he's injuring himself at a very sensitive time. When we were treating him last night he made several attempts to swipe us with his claws, and opened his mouth as if to threathen to bite twice... and he has never since we had him done anything more than give a half-hearted tail flick to show his disapproval at something. Even the good old 'rub the neck' trick isn't working on him now, he's too intent on dominating. I don't know what to do other than keep him a little cooler than usual, and hope the female understands it's a good idea to stay away from him right now. Short of seperating them... anyone have any suggestions?

Follow Ups: