Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i dont know what is going on. my male rhino, bello, who is about 2 1/2 has suddenly turned into a crazed monster. he used to be the most gentle animal who would actually follow me around. it seems like over night he has turned extreamly agressive. he tries to attack me if i try to clean his cage or handle him. i have been wearing gloves. if i dont i would have had to go to the hospital to get stiches because he grabs hold of the gloves and shakes his head. is it the breading season? what can i do to stop this. please help. thanks

Ben

Have you been feeding him alot of protien ? Too much protien can cause aggressive behavior,as well as numerous health problems. Has someone else been interacting with your ig ? I sometimes find that after being away a couple months, some of mine are sometimes a little hostile towards me when I first come back.
It is not breeding season. Mine have breed in June, both in New York and in Californina.
Rhinos, like many other lizards, can be made to be be mean just by the way they are interacted with. If you wear gloves, grab him like you are afraid that he is going to bite you, chances are that the restraint will scare and injure the lizard, resulting in him trying to bite you. Once this pattern is established it can sometimes take a long time to break it.

Take him off all forms of animal/insect protien.
Reduce any plant protien.
Always move slowly around him.
Shallow warm baths can work wonders for relaxing and taming.
Avoid force if handling. Scoop him up from underneath, never grab from above.
Be patient.
Good luck

thanks for the advice. i will take him off the protien. of course he was only getting plant protien such as green beans and peas but none the less... also i always would just scoop him up and he had no problem with it. now as soon as i put my hand infront of him he lunges for it, glove or no glove. i have been pretty busy lately so i havent had much time to spend with him. thats probably the cause. i will let you know if this helps. thanks again

Hi, I agree with John but there is one more thing to consider which is probably pretty remote. Aggression CAN be a sign that the animal is in pain. When Kharma had a relapse this past Feb. with her leg issue (gout and possible bone infection, still pending) she got mean. It was very out of character for her. She was doing these "mini-lunges" off the couch if we got too close. This went on for the 5 days before we could get her to the vet. I did some research on pain in reptiles and increased aggression was at the top of the list. Her leg hurt and she didnt want us to touch her. Literally the day after we got her home from the vet after being on rimadyl for less than 24 hours she was back to being her same old pleasant self. So, the moral of the story is, pain CAN cause increased aggression so keep an eye on him and see if there are any signs of injury. Make sure he is walking fine and whatnot.

Carole

PS I cant tell you how amazing the rimadyl was. One day she was dragging the affected leg the next it was fine.

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Check it out. www.reptilecare.com

that was one of the first things i thought of but i dont see any signs of pain at all. he is very active inside his enclosure, eats like a pig, basks and all that good stuff. thanks for the advice and i'll keep an eye on him.

The problem is, he now considers you a rival. Don't ask me why, because I had the exact same problem with a male I had. One day he just snapped. Chances are, he will never be gentle towards you again. Mine was like that for three years. Agressively coming at me anytime he saw me. Funny thing is though, he was not aggresive towards any of my family members, our dog, or friends. I did a few tests, by having family members and other adult male friends walk around his outdoor enclosure. He completely ignored them. Then I would walk out, and he would run and charge me ramming into the wire on his cage. It started to get real unnerving, especially when I had to feed him at night so he wouldn't see me. Sometimes, he would though, catch my scent at night, and come charging out of his kennel blindly trying to find me. I finally had to sell him. I couldn't handle it anymore. I did buy another pair, and this male is extremely docile and shows no aggresion at 6 years of age. My old male is in Florida and gets along fine with his new owner. Who did you buy your male from? I wonder if it is genetic.

oh man thats not good. i love him but cant have an animal of his size and strength charging me every time he sees me, especially when he is full grown. its so weird. its like he snapped over night. i got him from my local reptile shop when he was just a baby. he has always been extreamly tame even after he lost his sight in one eye. always been a little food agressive though, kinda like a monitor or tegu. i am going to try to keep working with him for a while. hopefully he will turn back around. any more advice would be great. thanks

well we just had a really close call. i was working with him just a few minutes ago. i had my leather work gloves on. he clamped down on the gloves and shook a few times and then let go. okay not so bad. well then he decided that my leg looked tasty. thank God i had baggy pants on. he grabbed my pants and shook. he would not let go for ten minutes. i had to take my pants off so he didnt get skin stuck in there too. i have decided to sell him. i do not want to lose a body part or put my family or other animals in danger. thanks for all the help everyone. i just purhased a kingsnake classified account so you will see him there shortly.

It sounds like their may be some sort of fermone issue here. I have noticed that they like to chase my black dog, but ignore the golden. Maybe there is some genetic issue, it would be interesting to find out where the pet store got the ig ? Sorry to hear that you are giving up so soon without more experimentation. For the animal to have snapped like that, something has to have changed.
Good luck.

I think your iguanas are just racist...lol

Selling him is probably wise. Who needs to be stressed out and scared over a pet lizard that is to bring you joy. If you do decide to get another rhino, contact Bob Ehrig. I got a pair from him, and although the female was at first skittish, she has tamed down. The male however is a big friendly guy that allows me to walk in his cage and scratch his back. He has never showed any aggression towards me and is a joy to have.

Feed your rhinos leafy greens, and they will be docile. Throw a few super worms into the equation, and watch the way they act afterwords -- especially hatchlings. I have seen similar results when I first started adding marion reptile food to their salads. Increased protien = increased agressive behavior.

I don't know where your getting your info from, but protein will not cause aggresion in iguanas. If he was feeding his rhino that much protein, his rhino would be showing other signs of nutrition ailments. The rhino may be showing food aggresion towards the protein "item", but that wouldn't cause it to show aggression towards people or other lizards. People/Lizard aggression is hereditary.

I think agression is being confused with excitement. When I give mine chicken or grapes, bread or even strawberries they make a bee line for the food and then to where its coning from, which is my hand and me. They like it so much and , this a guess but instinctually they dont want to share, so they move quickly and deliberately to get all they can.

If we were talking about dogs, that would be called food aggresion. In this case, I would also call it food aggresion. If all my other cyclura attacked for food items, then this behavior would be considered normal, but they generally don't.

I'm not convinced its aggression, at least not in my case. In Zeus's, sounds like it. But lets say it is , why some food and not others. How come it happens the same in 2 different species. Is it a learned trait. Mine have food available from 7am to 7pm so its not like they are starving. They both live alone so there is no competition. i dont have the answers to those ?'s. My feeling is that they know what I have once they see it, like it a lot, dont get it often so when they see it and or taste it , they want it bad. Since they dont have hands, they lead with their mouth. I have never been bit cuz he wanted to bite me. I have been bit cuz I didn't get the food out of my hand fast enough. As you know its a big mouth and they are not delicate. I can go into the cages at any time food or not and handle both with out fear. You may be right, I am just trying to figure "why?" if you are.

Zoomed dry food is one of the "protein" foods that does not seem to produce any "excitment" displays after offering. Although 2 separate independent studies have found it to have lower than advertised amounts of protein. It is one of the wheat germs of iguana foods.

Aggresive: vigorously energetic, provoked offensive, attack.

Excite: to arouse emotions or feelings. Excitement: an excited state or condition.

Which is it ?

.

People/lizard aggression is hereditary ? Where are you getting your info ? Tame adults tend to produce less nervous offspring, but aggression ? Environment and people/lizard interaction seem more significant. Such as a mean charging adult male rhino that was shipped out from the keys, and tamed by frequent warm baths and an indoor environment.

The protein aggression is based on my first hand experience working with cyclura cornuta, although I know a lewisi cross breeder that would not feed his hatchlings any insects -- he claimed it made them too aggressive.
The protein aggression I am referring to is primarily during and after feeding time, some protein items do not produce the results that I have observed, but it seems to be the common thread in all the foods that do. For instance, they will display aggressive behavior towards eating grapes, but do not make aggressive head displays or attack each other after eating grapes.

A reccomendation to reduce protein was based on Zeus's initial post and my lack of any info on how he cares for his ig. My daughter got bit by a tame ig, I think her finger might have looked like a super worm. A glove could be mistaken for some form of protein food. My group will sometimes attack each other to hedge the others away if they see alot of a high protein dry food in the salad that I am bringing them. I always bring more than enough food for everyone. Hatchlings will often do alot of head bobs, chase sometimes even bite each other after a salad that had a large portion of protien in it. I can't help but think that it gives them some sort of adrenilin rush. Although this rush is not usually directed towards humans, if there is a chance that it can, why not take it out of the equation.
Based on Zeus's follow-up posts, I don't think protein foods had much to do with his situation.