Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Our little iggy gets a base of snow peas and shredded acorn squash...then usually a little bit of bok choy, some shredded carrots and sometimes beans and peas. Also we dust a very small amount of vitmin supplement and once a week a small amount of low ash canned dog food is mixed in for protein.

So, What's in your iguana salad?
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
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and once a month...bananas because they are his favourite...although not so good for him.
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
E-mail Me
1.2.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1.0 Crested Geckos
1.2.0 Veiled Chameleons
3.4.0 Corn Snakes
1.0.0 Tokay Geckos
1.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.3.0 South Florida Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Green Iguanas

I make three different salads for my igs. The big salad contains collard greens, kale, carrots, grapes, apples, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, squash, snap peas or snow peas, and sometimes melons, oranges, kiwi, or mangos (also violets, mulberry, and maple leaves in the spring/summer). The smaller salad usually consists of collard greens, mustard greens, radiccio, and dandelion greens. The smallest combination that I give is dandelion, radiccio or collard greens, and grapes. All are supplement with Miner-All from Sticky Tongue Farms and once every week and a half or two weeks with Essential Probiotics. Also once every two weeks, I hard boil eggs and mix them in (shell and all) to the second biggest salad I serve. Sometimes as treats they get hibiscus and dahlias.
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JS

"It's funny how from simple things, the best things begin."

Also once every two weeks, I hard boil eggs and mix them in (shell and all) to the second biggest salad I serve. Sometimes as treats they get hibiscus and dahlias.
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>>JS

Just in case you are not aware, I get about 15-20 iguanas in each year that have been fed either cheese or eggs or both. All die in my care from late stages of renal failure. I give them a final home when their owners no longer want to deal with them. Every iguana that has been fed egg that comes into my care ends up at age 8-14 in renal failure. Currently I have two in my care that are just resting here until they get too sick.

Something to think about. Animal protien is bad, in my opinion.
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Cindy
PHFaust

Email Cindy

Land of the Outcasts!

I also run a rescue. I have had many iguanas over many years and have never had a problem feeding animal protein. First of all, I take one egg and seperated over 5 to 6 bowls of food. The shells (which provide calcium) and the eggs are ground up very minutely. I know that animal proteins is a very debated issue and many people don't agree with feeding any kind of animal protein. However their have been fecal studies done with iguanas that implicate a 20% animal protein diet in their feces as juveniles and 5 to 10% animal protein as adults. Their have also been fecal studies done that implicate no animal protein in iguanas' feces. I have some iguanas here that I have had for 10 years and well over that have been rescues (juveniles and adults at the time of rescue) that I have fell in love with and kept. They are all doing just fine and are vet checked at least every year. So, I am not an expert on iguanas and don't believe anyone is, but I am not unexperienced either. I have also had iguanas come in that have eaten nothing (no vegetable matter) but animal protein from their previous owners. Some of which have indeed died, others are still alive and well after many years. I certainly do not suggest that anyone feed their iguana a meat only diet in any way shape or form.
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JS

"It's funny how from simple things, the best things begin."

Please get rid of the dog food or other animal based proteins. If you feed them alfalfa or check on the protein levels of other greens/veggies you won't need animal protein. Iguanas are herbivores!!! I know some pet stores still tell to feed cat or dog food or so on but if you check any newer publications you will see they are not to be fed that!!!

For a very good list of foods please check one of these sites.

www.greenigsociety.org/foodchart.htm
www.iguanaden.com/diet/calphosveg.htm

Just copy and paste those into your browser I'm not sure how to set up a link so that should work.

There are a lot more sites that are helpful but the iguana den one shows protein content and the green ig society even shows pictures so if it is a lesser heard of veggie or green.

Stephanie

Take it easy there...the iguana is not being fed dog food everyday here...we're talking maybe once in a while (once/twice a month).

Iguanas are herbivores yes. But in the wild they have been known to nip away at dead animal carcasses and I'd suspect any Iguana would eat a smaller lizard. Not trying to prove anything just...that dog food isn't very bad...as long as it's low in ash...monitors, tortoises, tegus, and basilisks can all be maintained on 50% dog food diets. And it's actually very healthy. (canned dog food not the dry stuff)

I didn't say feeding strictly dog food... was a good idea...I said that occasionally our iguana will eat some canned dog food as an added protein supplement. You can have your opinion, but I'll stick to mine. Actually, canned dog food can be used to get very sick and injured iguanas back on their feet faster...it gives them an added boost when used in co-ordination with veggies.
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
E-mail Me
1.2.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1.0 Crested Geckos
1.2.0 Veiled Chameleons
3.4.0 Corn Snakes
1.0.0 Tokay Geckos
1.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.3.0 South Florida Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Green Iguanas

I am not saying your opinion is necessarily wrong. I am just saying what I have read in up to date publications. In fact in James Hatfields book page 273 it sazys you can feed one portion of dog food to your iguana every 3-6 weeks but if you read closely it says the meat-less dog food for senior dogs and as far as the other lizards you mentioned you're right they can eat that even though not all the time because they are insectivores, omnivores and carnivores depending on the one!! Again not trying to argue or say you are wrong as I haven't went to the wilds to watch them in their natural habitat. When you look at scientific research done on wild iguanas the adults will have very little to no animal proteins in their system and the young iguanas have almost none. They ASSUME (could be right or wrong) that the animal proteins (insects) they get are from eating leaves etc that happens to have an insect sitting on it not from going out to eat other animals and yes I'm sure if they kill a smaller lizard from getting into their territory they "might" eat it.

Could you please tell me where you have read about or seen iguanas foraging on dead animals as I am curious. I'm not saying you are wrong just wanting to see it myself okay!!

Stephanie

Actually, I'm pretty sure it was on Television...live footage...it wasn't a green iguana though...

hmmmm...I can't remember what kind...

It was either on the Crocodile Hunter...or National Geographic...those are the only two I watch.

Can't remember though...I just remember something about them eating dead animals on occasion.

And now you have my hardly reliable source...who knows?

Oh, by the way, you are right about the no meat thing...if you are going to feed them dog food on occasion...no meat and low ash are musts. But I have seen adoption iguanas (really skinny and sick) pick up very well after being fed a substancial amount of canned dog food (with the animal protein)...

but I guess that still doesn't justify feeding it to a healthy animal.

Either way...bottom line is that if anyone wants to try dog food make sure it's low in ash...no meat...and used in very small quanities or fed weeks apart...never should it be used as a staple diet.

(ON A SIDE NOTE)
I recently looked after an iguana last summer...for our local animal services. The poor thing was kept in a ten gallon tank...was three years old and was in horrible shape.

The claws had not had a chance to wear down so the feet were starting to twist to the side because of the claw length. (we call it elephant foot around hear) We almost had to amputate his left front limb but fortunately didn't. His tail had to be amputated, and his vertabrae was totally warped from being kept in the ten gallon so that he could bare walk and was unable to climb. The funny thing is...when we would put him on the kitchen floor to hang out with us...he would run to the DRY cat food and try to eat it! He wouldn't eat anything else. So we figured that the previous owners must have fed him DRY cat or dog food. And that is all he knew as food, so he wouldn't eat anything else. Of course we were not going to keep him on dry cat food but so what we did was offer him cat food...

but slowly add more and more veggies and fruits into the cat food until he swtiched his preferance to what he was meant to eat. It took about two weeks. Sadly the poor guy died just after christmas...but at least we gave him a good home before he passed. Animal services first found him on there door step in the morning...(we live in ontario...a summer's night can be cold!) they called me and I picked him up.

It boggles my mind at how people can be so cruel and indecent when it comes to the health of animals...I think some people seriously consider reptiles not as animals but as a novelty...something to show off instead of care for.

Anyway...thought you guys would maybe enjoy the story. Or learn something...I just felt like sharing.

Thanks.
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
E-mail Me
1.2.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1.0 Crested Geckos
1.2.0 Veiled Chameleons
3.4.0 Corn Snakes
1.0.0 Tokay Geckos
1.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.3.0 South Florida Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Green Iguanas

Thanks for noting that and like I said I wasn't arguing but since a lot of new owners do check these out I wanted to make sure!!

As far as the adoptions or rescues go we have also had ones come in that would only eat dog or cat food and we had to coat their greens in dog food and slowly (but still as quick as possible) give less and less dog food until they were used to the greens and veggies. For some reason though on some not all if they are used to the canned dog food if you puree their regular food and just add like a tablespoon of the dog food for smell/taste they seem to eat pretty good too.

Thanks and sorry if I sounded like I was arguing or on my high horse about it but I see too many in bad shape with kidney/renal failure due to animal proteins in their diet.

We even had a local (kind of) pet store that only fed their display iguana chicken fingers, eggs and lettuce. I tried to explain there was a much better diet but of course she knew better. ASPCA wouldn't do anything and needless to say after a very high vet bill her iguana had to be humanely (or not so humanely since it could have been prevented) euthanized.

Stephanie
Iggy Iguana Rescue and Bird Sanctuary

The majority of my igs diet consists of either(week by week it changes) collard or mustard greens. Each day I add something different to it. Like today they got mustard greens with green beans, a little bit of radicio and romaine(just a little),and some banana. Yesterday they had collard greens, Butternut squash, green beans and some bell pepper(green). I also use nutra grow vitamin supplement and powder calcium supplement. I use even more items in their salad, but that is what I have this week for them. Unless I go to the store and happen to see something in the produce isle that I haven't given them yet(that is good for them)then I'll get it and see if they like it. They eat anything I give them. I give them grapes, apples, and for some reason they really like canned green beans. I've been giving them fresh green beans, but I think they prefer canned. Are canned green beans good for them if I give them vitamin supplements also? They eat them up like it's fruit or squash. Well, that's almost everything I feed my igs. My iggys are piggys.