How to Set Up Lighting for an Iguana

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village I'm Nicole and I'm here to tell you about Iguanas. Iguanas do require supplemental heating and through lighting. I have his lighting set over here this one is on right now and this is his basking light this provides a tight beam area where he can crawl onto this log. That is right inside of his cage and he'll absorb that heat so he can digest and just keep his body warm. They obviously don't produce their own body heat so they need the supplemental heating. I do have these lights on timers so around 7:30 at night this one clicks off and this one clicks on. What's in this one is a inferred bulb they do not see the right lighting so it doesn't disturb their night pattern but it does provide adequate heat so that the temperatures don't drop to low over night in his cage. Now he also has to have natural sunlight and if you don't provide natural sunlight you can always use it to provide it in a form of a strip light. Something that provides UVB rays this is a very important cause UVB rays allow the Iguana to produce vitamin D and vitamin D is how they absorb their calcium into their bones. Especially an Iguana calcium is very important because they need it to be a matured size. So the temperature I keep the temperature around 85 or 90 degrees during the afternoon hours. During the evening it can get as low as 70 or so in this area. This area down here has no supplemental lighting so even if he wanted to cool down below 70 degrees he can climb down here and cool off. I keep it on this side so that it allows thermo regulation and he can come over here if he's cold and he can bask in the light or he can move down to the cooler area during the day if he wants to cool off a little bit. After I put the Iguana back in his cage he did go right over there to the light he's hanging on the side there. He's absorbing some of that heat from that bulb and he's seems to be calming down quiet a bit. He's not using his log which is what I provided it for he weights there quiet a bit and absorbs the light. He actually doesn't feel the heat on his belly I believe he is still hanging there because he's a little bit frightened still. But at the same time he's cold so he is trying to get to the light. What he doesn't realize is that Iguanas can't sense the heat from their under bellies is which why you don't want to provide your Iguana with any sort of heat rock. As a main source of heat because they can actually burn themselves if they sit on a heat rock to long. Because they are unable to sense the heat."