Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Are hatchlings and adults able to be housed together or is aggression likely to occur?

There have been a few reports of adult aggression toward hatchlings in captivity.

I have never personally seen aggression of adults toward hatchlings, HOWEVER, even the most passive adult may occasionaly bite down on a foot or toe and cause permanent damage to a hatchling when feeding. It is unintentional, I even see the adults waiting their turn if the hatchlings are all over the plate so as not to bite down on another lizard, but an accident can leave a baby maimed for life. So, my advice is to keep them separate. Also, the babies should have very finely chopped food compared to the adults and a baby who is dragging a flower around shaking it from side to side to break it down often gets attention of an adult who then wants to share and drags the baby all over the enclosure. So..no, don't keep them together.

Update: Well we gave it a try with close observation and these are our findings.

An adult male was placed in a 5ft cage with 2, 6mo old youngsters. The male did a couple of push-up when placed in the cage but showed no overt aggression. One of the youngsters ran right over to the adult and climbed on top of him! We held our breath but still no aggression was observed and both babies ended up climbing all over him. When he went in a hide to sleep they followed him and slept on top of him. We were very shocked by this behavior. They were caged together for about a week and at no time was aggression observed and they continued their obsession with climbing on big daddy but we ended up removing the adult because we noticed that the youngsters were spending more time in their hide and were less active. Our thought was that he had claimed the cage/area and they were respectful of this but we didn't want them to feel stress so big daddy was removed.

So, this is posted really as a general fyi to anyone considering this. It looks like family groups are possible but I'd recommend a much larger space and the feeding comments from an earlier poster must be considered.

every little bit of knowledge we can spread among each other helps the animals live a better life-Thanks again for the follow-up message.

Not sure how to direct you, but google "tetrapod zoology" which has numerous incredible articles on animals, and then scroll down or "ask for" squamates. There is an article, among many other incredible articles, on the "amazing social life of the green iguana". This will give clues to our own iguanids, the Chuckwallas, and how they behave after hatching. You will enjoy it, y'all!!