Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Howdy, from Oklahoma! (I'm actually a native of Texas, but work takes me to OK). I have a beautiful 6 1/2 year old female iguana named Picabo, (pronounced pee-ka-boo). She is the friendliest, tamest, most spoiled iguana I have had to date. I've had two others in the last 10 years. Picabo was found loose outside of a apartment complex. Some tenants there were feeding stray cats by leaving a dish of food out, and there was this lizard eating with the cats! After a few attempts to catch her, they finally cornered her and grabbed her with a towel. She was turned in to a local vet, who was nursing my last iggie, Amanda, at the time. When Amanda passed away, the stray little iguana was offered to me, and the rest is history.
Now, on to my first question here on this forum. When it comes to trimming iguana nails, I've read and read all of the info out there, and the consensus is to just cut the very tip of the nail off. I've done this, and it does help to keep the needle points dull, but the rest of the nail does keep growing longer. Six years into trimming Picabo's nails this way, the body of the nails have continued to grow, and are now pretty long and curvy. Can/should the nails be trimmed shorter as they are starting to cause her toes to splay out in different directions? I can see the quick of the nails but I'm uncertain if I should trim them closer to the vein. These nails are actually hollow inside and if I trim too far up, my fear is exposing the inside of the nail to infection. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Jesse

Normally for an arboreal lizard I would say NOOOOOOOOO. But in any case where the nails are recurving and the toes are splaying, CUT THEM, and NEVER past the quick! Even a millimeter past the quick and they can and will bleed, and not to mention it hurts. Ever bitten your nails past the white part or bitten off your cuticle? OUCH. But if she freaks out during trimming hold her in a towel and do it very gently. Also if you have the correct setup, and lots of rough surfaces, nails should take caee of themselves and you will likely not have to do it again. Hope this helps!

Good luck on your rescue, you might be able to pull it off!

Thanks for the reply. She doesn't move about as much as she used to, so she doesn't give her claws a workout. Her habitat is big, 80" tall, six feet wide and 3 feet deep. I took out the climbing limbs that used to be in there, as she was catching her nails in the cracks in the limbs. She also had trouble turning around on the limbs, so I now have wooden ramps with carpet on them for her to climb to the top. The top also has wooden shelves that she lays on all day. I wish we could post pictures directly to the forum, so you could see her setup. Twice she fell off of the limbs after catching a nail, and ripped the nail right off. One of them grew back, but the last one has not. I found both nails inbedded in the limb, so that's why I replaced with ramps.

Jesse