Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My boy is now a year and 11 months and spoiled rotten. He is 100% part of our household – it took hours and hours each day since he was 5 days old but oh boy it is so worth it. He sometimes goes to work with me, goes with on holidays, help with the shopping and is a local at the sports club. He climbs on my lap/chest each night and watch tv until he falls a sleep and I carry him to bed at about 21:00.

I studied the book called the Green Iguana,The Ultimate Owner's Manual,Author: James W. Hatfield Iii and follow it to the best of my ability and always try and improve. This book says that if you keep an iguana in a cage with white/blank walls then it is a sentence to hell. For this reason I tried my best to copy his natural environment.

Forest has a room with a tunnel that leads to an outdoor cage. He uses the tunnel when we are at work but he roams free when I am home. Our South African houses are built with bricks and then plastered; therefore I do not have a problem with the high humidity affecting the rest of our house. Another plus point about SA is that we have lots and lots of sun.

It took my husband a month to paint the walls inside the room, a week to build the tunnel and another 2 weeks to build the outdoor cage. (Isn’t he just wonderful!)

We’ve replaced a big section of the door with plexi-glass so he can see us and we can see him.
The walls before we brought the things inside:

The netting against the ceiling is to create a feeling of tree tops. It hides all the wires for the lighting and protects the ceiling from the high humidity.

We chopped down two trees and left it in our swimming pool to kill everything living inside it. It took 6 men to get it into the room! Forest grew up with life plants all around him and therefore I have never had a problem with him eating the plants. All the plants are iguana-safe. He uses the COMPLETE room, every branch, basking ledge and even the ground and windowsill. The same with the outdoor cage, he uses all the ledges and loves laying on the grass.

The idea was to extend his outdoor cage to reach his room but I changed my mind and used the space to build outdoor cages for my dragons.
Here is the loooong tunnel. It only took forest 2 tries to get it right.
Still in progress:

Finished:

I grow all his food, mustard, turnip, rocket etc. and I’ve planted hibiscus, nasturtium and lots more in his outdoor cage.

Wow, that was a mouth full, I hope you liked it!

Holy cow! That is how you do an iguana right! Way to go and beautiful caging! My wisconsin iguanids are jealous!
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Cindy Steinle
PHFaust
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Wow, that is one lucky iguana, i wish i had the room to do a room like that for my kiwi. And you have given me some ideas to. Thanks for sharing. I love the tunnel and outside cage. But i live where she cant go out yr round Thanks for your post i just love to see ig spoiled like that!!

ABSOLUTE congrats on what you did! YOU are a extremely devoted and caring owner, I wish every captive iguana had such amount of space to roam. Many zoos dont do half of that! You are going to be very sucessfull in raising your ig, its going to grow BIG.
Actualy with that kind of space you could breed igs, not a prob about it.I also must confess that Im too a big fan of growing food for my igs.
Tell me its the hobby big in South Africa? From time to time I see hobbists from there.

Very Nice! Iguanas are very rewarding when allowed to experience diversity. I agree on the adult size of your Iguana, big! I too followed the guidlines of Ultimate Owner's Manual. I had my boy as a small dude and he always had large enclosures, then a perch with free roam of a reptile room, he got BIG! Bigger than any Green Iguana I've seen yet, very similar to the Iguana on the cover with James Hatfield.

Now thats a happy iguana. I too like that book. However I dont agree on 2 things that books advices on. I dont agree on "training" your iguana, it will only create stress for both, good chances that the lizard wont lissen to you and its a waste of your time and energy. Iguanas should be tamed with the maximum patience you have and if necessary potty trained wich is fairly quick and easy (mine are both), but now train your iguana to avoid it from climbing into furniture and using "No" to avoid missbehavior?! Forget about it. I also dont agree on facing your testosterone full breeding seazon agressive male, to show him your the "alpha iguana", it will put you at risk because now he wants to rematch and you will endup badly bitten. Agressive males should be isolated and let alone untill their madness naturaly goes away! As simple as that!

Thank you, this was my boy "Sato the Destroyer", he passed on. I totally agree about wild Iguana behaviour. I always approached the idea of having a handable lizard that, if he could at least not precieve me as a threat that was a huge leap for a green iguana. My boy Sato was that lizard, I was a lizard of nuetral or lowering standing as far as he was concerned. He was never tame but tolerant of the stupid homo sapien holding him captive! I forgot to add I do not agree with taming, leashing, cuddling on the couch, or the worst, dressing up your Iguana! These are wild lizards, provide the best environment you can, get a chair, sit down with a beverage and just observe, I gurantee you will be happy! I think I will post this for folks new to Iguanas, its important for the Iguana and enriching for the homo sapien.

So trully trulliest upmosttrully true

I assume this message means you agree... Its funny I traveled out of state this weekend to family's house, in which they showed videos of my nephew's 2nd bday, at any rate with crowds amidst and all the youngsters I brought Sato the Destroyer out (which my Iguana did not care for kids, they are: unpredictable, shifty, uncertain, and sometimes crap their pants)he was a cool customer, I will post a video when I can. I should mention it was on his terms: straight from the enclosure, and when he was stressed or wanted to climb a 50' pine tree, party was over. Thats respect...

That is absolutely gorgeous! I'm glad my ig is facing the other way behind me or else he would want one, too!