Common Iguana Illnesses

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village I'm Nicole and I'm here to tell you about Iguanas. As far as illness with Iguanas the most prominent one would have to be parasites which would be mites or ticks. On Iguana it's very obvious if it's unlike with snakes where they can hide under scales, Iguanas scales are more fixated to their bodies. So they are unable to get underneath it. Mites are little black specks that you'll see attaching themselves to the Iguana usually between toes or arm pits between fold up skin. That is where you'll find mites and ticks. Ticks can be easily removed with teasers and treated with a treatment you can pick up from your pet store. They are all a little different you just have to read the directions on the one you choose. Mites are a little harder to get rid of you need to soak the Iguana in a lukewarm bath with some treatment in the water. Their cage is going to need to be completely sanitized and everything taken out and sanitized. All ticks removed from the area it's needs to be treated for about 3-5 days to effectively illuminate the mite or ticks. Another common disease in Iguanas is metabolic bone disease and this is a combination of several different symptoms. It doesn't require all of them to be metabolic bone disease but what it is, is a lack of calcium or vitamin D. Iguanas do require many supplements they need to either have access to natural sunlight which most Iguanas kept indoors do not have enough of. So their diet needs to be supplemented with a vitamin D3 in order to absorb calcium. The calcium is very important to Iguanas because they need it in order to be able to achieve mature size. Once an Iguana reaches 3 years of age then after that it's mainly weight gain that they get. They needed to be able to they need the calcium in order to gain that fatty tissue over around their muscles."