Do Green Iguanas Eat During There Shedding Season?

Question

My baby green iguana wont eat.I don't know its temp.I turn on hes UV light at 10am and turn it off at 11pm sometimes 12pm.So he doesn't get light during the night time from 11pm-10am.I take him out from 5pm-7pm to roam around my living room and take him outside for 30 minutes.Sorry for that long story =] Excuse my horrible english.

Answer 1

Yes he should be eating.. Get a heating pad that sticks to the side of his tank so he'll be warm even when the lights are off! :) Make sure it has enough greens!!

Answer 2

It could be the hours the lighting is on, you can buy a timer for the UVB/heat to go on/off. 11pm or 12am is a bit late. Try 8am-8pm or 9am-9pm. If you have a young iguana, they can not keep body heat very well, so if he is roaming around shouldn't be more then 15mins.

You need to know your iguanas enclosure temps, a thermometer w/ a probe at the end placed at basking area of your iguana under the heat source is the best place to have ... heat source not UVB. Also w/out knowing if your iguanas temps are where they are, he/she may not able to digest the food he/she eats.

Temps:

never let drop below 70F ...

basking 92-96F if temp is too low digestion is slowed too high food digests too fast and nutrition is lost

medium/middle (overall) 88-92F

cool 75-84F

at night 73-84F ... having a temp gun works the best to know what your igs body temp truly is.

*** NO HEAT ROCKS PLEASE ... they can cause major burns on the under belly ... igs dont feel heat from below so they will sit there not knowing they are burning themselves ***

- Depending on enclosure size, depends on wattage, but for basking light (along w/ UVB tube) you can use a house bulb for heat during the day, you don't have to use one of those costly basking bulbs you buy at the store (night if your house gets below 70 a CHE should be used - produces heat no light)

- Stick on glass thermometers do not work, they can read incorrect, get a good thermometer w/ a probe at the end, and place where your iguana is basking under and at his/her level, you will get more of a correct temp reading

This could be why your iguana isn't eating. Some iguanas don't as much when they are shedding but still eat.

Has your iguana seen a herp/reptile vet? If you bought your iguana at a pet store, I highly recommend you taking your iguana to a herp/reptile vet, because pet stores usually do not know the proper care for iguanas, and your iguana may have mites and/or parasites that need to be treated by a herp/reptile vet. Here are some possibly vet listings:

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...