Before You Buy the Dinosaur: Considerations Before Getting a Green Iguana

by Robin Small

Every year reptiles become more and more popular. With a quick search on any social media outlet or Google you can often find multiple breeders for almost any species or walk into any pet store to find a variety of the most common snakes and lizards.

Among the commonly kept reptiles are ball pythons, chameleons, geckos, bearded dragons and the adorable, brightly colored, Green Iguana. Depending on where you are from you can often find them for $15 to $200. Due to their cheap price and adorable features they are often purchased as an impulse pet and even in some places given out as prizes at fairs. For the vast majority of individuals, Green Iguanas make terrible pets, however, for a few dedicated and passionate people they can make extremely interesting companions full of character. With adult males reaching up to 6 feet in length, up to 20lbs and prone to aggressive behaviors in breeding season and large females laying 60+ eggs (even without a male) once a year, they are not without their challenges. If you want to take on one of these dinosaur look-a-likes as a pet that can last 20+ years I offer the following notes to ponder pre-purchase.

Gender is the first real factor, it won’t play a big role when the iguana is little but once it is sexually mature housing a male vs a female can be polar opposites.  Iguanas can reach maturity when they are about 18 months old. For females, this means they will start to produce eggs once, or on some occasions, twice a year and they can do this with or without a male. Prior to producing eggs their appetite will increase to boost their fat stores. As the eggs develop they take up more and more space in the abdomen creating less and less room for food. When the female is farther along they will eat very little or completely stop eating for a few weeks so it is extremely important for your iguana to have those extra fat stores and be strong and healthy.

The majority of healthy females will lay their eggs with no problems but there are issues that can arise. Sometimes multiple eggs get fused together or an egg will have an over-calcified part, in both of these cases, the eggs may be too big to pass and the female will become egg bound. When they are egg bound it is an emergency situation and a vet is needed.  Either the vet will be able to get the iguana to lay the eggs often with a shot of oxytocin or surgery is needed to remove the eggs. In most cases when a C-section is performed the female is spayed to eliminate any future egg production.  Providing proper diet, lighting, exercise and a nest box is the best way to make sure your female stays strong and healthy. 

Males are often sought out for their larger features and more dramatic look but they pack a hidden personality come breeding season. In the wild, males have to defend their territories against other males in order to breed with the females.  That ingrained behavior is still present in captivity even when housed alone. This aggression can be mild to severe, including chasing their owners and pets or even biting and lunging. They can be very dangerous and extremely difficult to handle during these periods which can last 3+ months each year.  There are a lot of people who have a male and feel the need to get him a “girlfriend”, which in its own way, causes a variety of issues. Males in the wild mate consistently with many females during breeding season, so housing a male in an enclosure with a female puts all of that sexual energy towards that lone female iguana which will lead to fights and injury as the female is unable to escape if she wants to. The males can be very dominant during this time and will chase down females and pin them in order to mate, if the female comes into breeding season at a different time then the male he will most likely injure her or she could injure him while trying to get him to leave her alone.

So with such a difference in housing a male vs female you may have a specific gender you’d like, in that case it’s best to get an iguana that is a bit older and the gender can be confirmed 100%. Like any species of pet there is a training period. When referring to iguanas, it’s more of a process of gaining trust rather than training them. These lizards are a prey species especially when really young and this means they have a strong flight or fight instinct. If you have ever tried to hold a hatchling iguana you will have most likely seen this flight behavior. When you go to pick them up they will usually take off running and when they are in an enclosure they don’t have anywhere to run so they panic and can often injure themselves or if they get out of the enclosure they can easily get lost. Gaining the trust of a young iguana can be a long process that requires lots of understanding and patience. A hatchling iguana will always run when scared or threatened, but as they get bigger that flight instinct changes to fight. So when you reach into the enclosure to get your iguana, instead of running away from you, it puffs up and whips you with their tail and opens its mouth. 

I get a lot of messages where people say “my iguana is aggressive, he wasn’t like this before” most of the time it is an iguana that switched from flight to fight mode. So what you are seeing is defensive behavior not aggression, this is a good thing as the defensive behavior is easier to work with. This is their “teenage” phase and it often doesn’t last long. Once the defensive behavior lessens, then you have an iguana you can really start to handle freely and interact with in a positive way.

Owning an iguana that fully trusts you is an amazing feeling, however, it can happen that no matter the amount of work you put in with an individual, it will never fully be friendly. It does happen that the iguana just won’t enjoy being handled or picked up, which is common. Then there is the diamond in the rough iguana, one that seeks out attention and enjoys being cuddled,  following their owners around and falling asleep on them. Although it is not the norm for an iguana to behave this way there are a few that end up like this. When purchasing a baby iguana, their personalities and behaviors change so much as they age and mature, especially in the males, one day you can have a friendly male and the next day he has turned into a charging, biting, and angry dude! 

Another important fact to consider prior to purchasing an iguana, is your access to fresh produce year round. Green Iguanas should be fed a herbivore’s diet. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as thawing out a rat from your freezer once a week, iguanas need fresh salads daily which can be pricey and time consuming.  

So, along with a long and tough trust building process and the potential for aggression, housing an iguana can be expensive and take up a lot of space. When it comes to housing reptiles, there are lots of enclosures to choose from, you head to the pet store, pick up a new tank that’s ready to go, put it in your car and head home. For iguanas it’s just not that simple. Iguanas being arboreal means they need height to be able to climb and standard tanks just don’t provide the right environment. Now you can probably find a large screen enclosure to put together for a baby iguana that will work for a while but iguanas need higher humidity so a screen enclosure is extremely difficult to maintain on that front.

Your best bet for an iguana enclosure is a custom built or DIY enclosure. Some people have even dedicated an entire room or a large closet to their iguana! The biggest pointer I can give anyone looking to build a large iguana enclosure is to make sure the space is usable. A commonly made mistake is people will build a large enclosure such as 4x4x6 and put a few flat shelves around the outside. If there are no branches through the center the iguana can’t use or access all that space, a large enclosure is only good if the space is usable by the animal. The enclosure layout plays an important role in keeping your iguana healthy and active. They are built to climb and need to utilize their muscles to stay strong, if you fill their space with flat shelves and easy climb ramps the iguana can become weak and out of shape. It is extremely important for females as they need to be in great shape when it comes time to lay their eggs to make sure they have the strength to get through the process. 

To summarize, iguanas are a tough species to keep successfully. Each gender has its pros and cons, they require a large enclosure and can be difficult to work with. For the right owner, they can be amazing companions and definitely a conversation starter with friends and family but they are not for everyone. If you have the passion for the species, the drive to put in the work and money into keeping them happy and healthy, there are many iguanas out there looking for a good home.