Are my iguana's back legs broken?

Question

i have had my iguana for about 2 months now and he still does not use his back legs for climbing or walking he even falls off of his tree branch and does not use the back legs to get right side up. i bought him from the pet store like this and have not seen him use his back legs once? What can i do he does have control over his tail but does not whip.

Answer 1

It might be a calcium deficiancy take him to the vet asap

Answer 2

Take him to your Vet. They can fully tell you whether the back legs are indeed broken, or completely unusable.  

Answer 3

Your iguana could have an internal impaction in his digestive tract. Which is lethal to any reptile. When reptiles lose ability of their back legs it is very serious and could be an impaction. Contact a vet immediately. Your iguana coud also have MBD or metabolic bone disease. This causes the bones to grow irregularly and he could have broken or twisted bones.

Iguanas need more than just romaine lettuce. (something petshops don't tell you) Romaine lettuce provides almost no nutrition alone. Most people don't know this. They need a large variety of leafy greens such as: Collard Greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, beet greens, kale, collards, bok choy, Swiss chard, dandelions (pesticide free and no lawn treatments if you use wild ones), parsley, escarole, spinach. And other vegetables such as: squash, zucchini, sweet potato, bell pepper, broccoli, peas, beans, okra, grated carrot, and sprouts.

You need to give more than one of those a day. I would pick a few to begin with and then change it every few days just to make sure he gets all the right vitamins. Also are his lights a dayglo or nightglo bulb? If so.. those bulbs don't give off enough UVA or UVB. The proper light bulbs and fixtures aren't cheap either, but you need to supply it in order to have a healthy iguana. They cannot properly digest their food and absorb the proper vitamins needed without them. Sadly, nothing you can do can reverse MBD if it is indeed what he has (however I lean towards impaction more). Bones won't straighten themselves out.

Also the enclosure/tank he is in should be atleast a 50 gallon tank as a baby. Iguanas grow to be as large as they are destined to be. Regardless of the myth "they won't get any larger than their tank." They grow to be 6 feet or even larger.

There is so much more I'd like to share, but I didn't want to write a novel. However, I really advise you see a vet ASAP. It is really sad what happens to iguanas. A lot of petstores don't care for them right, then try to sucker people into buying them before the die and lose profit. If you return the iguana to a petstore, he will most certainly die. Do the right thing and take that poor baby to a vet like he deserves. Apparently the petstore didn't think he did.  When I got my iguana from a rescue, he was missing his spikes (someone pulled them off) and he was very upset with everything.. just because of things that happened to him when he was a baby. He never really warmed up to anyone but me after a few years. He sadly passed away yesterday from cancer that was undetected and had no symptoms. I wish he had something that was as detectable as these signs are, so he could have gone to a vet to get taken care of, my husband, kids ad I miss him terribly! Good luck with your ig!

Answer 4

I believe he actually might have a deficiency. Take him to the vet ASAP.

Answer 5

Take him/her to a herp/reptile vet ASAP!

When buying iguanas at pet stores, they can be in "bad" health/shape because many pet stores do not know the proper care for iguanas.

A herp/reptile vet would have to determine if the legs are broken or not, since it's pretty hard to see/touch/feel over the internet. Since I am not a registered vet, I can not give you medical advise w/ Yahoo! "rules".

Hope you can find a herp/reptile vet close w/ using one of these links:

http://www.herpvetconnection.com/

http://www.arav.org/Directory.htm

http://www.anapsid.org/vets/#vetlist

Sites for you to read:

http://www.greenigsociety.org/ - http://www.iguanaden.org/ - http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/index.html

A great book to read and have on hand:

Iguanas for Dummies by Melissa Kaplan

Yahoo has some great sites for Iguana owners... these groups helped me and still help w/ questions .. if you'd like to join:

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/BabyI... - http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Iguan...