How to Buy an Iguana Terrarium

Series Summary

Owning a pet can be an extremely satisfying endeavor, and so it is no wonder that millions of people around the world keep companion animals in their lives. The most common pets are by far, cats and dogs, however, the rising popularity of exotic pets has led to an increase of people owning snakes, lizards, rats, mice, and hamsters. Fish are also a popular pet for people who do not want too much responsibility. Studies have shown that owning a pet is actually beneficial to both the mental and physical health of the owner. In fact, there are now medically backed studies showing that therapy animals can significantly improve the well being of many patients. In this free video series, learn how to care for pet lizards. Our expert, Tim Cole, gives some simple advice on how to keep lizards. Learn about different kinds of lizards: Chinese water dragon lizard, armadillo lizard, bearded lizards and more. Curious about what to feed lizards? Cole demonstrates how to feed captive lizards. Also, get tips for breeding a lizard as well. So, interested in owning a pet lizard? Learn how to take care of lizards today!

Video Transcript

"Hi. My name is Tim Cole. I'm with the Austin Reptile Service. I've been keeping reptiles and amphibians for over forty years, and we're here to talk about buying iguana enclosures. First off, I want to state iguanas are difficult lizards to keep for pets mainly because of their size, and as they become sexually mature a lot of them have some severe attitudes and you may want to reconsider getting something different than an iguana. Iguanas are one of the most common animals that are dumped in the rescue trade for reptiles. So I would discourage you from getting an iguana, but if for some reason you end up with one if it's a small one, something under three foot, you could start them off in an aquarium and something that could hold humidity pretty well. You want to give them vertical space because they're climbers. They're arborial so you need to put branches in their cages for them to climb. You need to set up a heat source so they can get warm, but not get burned. So you want to set up a heat lamp on the outside of the cage or cover it with some kind of shroud so they can't get too close to it because they will burn themselves if they can get too close to a heat lamp. They need full spectrum UV light and you need to duplicate that. Building an outdoor enclosure is probably the best way to go because the sunlight will provide natural heat and UV light. Their colors will get bolder if they're outside getting natural light and cost wise it's probably cheaper to build your own cage than it would be to buy one. They obviously don't make commercial cages large enough to house an adult iguana. An adult iguana averages 5-6 feet long which is a pretty good sized lizard and you would need at least 100 sq ft cage to house these animals. It probably wouldn't hurt to have a double door system like an atrium because they can run pretty quick. If you open that cage door and he gets out he could get away. So you want to pay attention to that. That's probably all I can recommend for caging, but if you live in an area where it's warm outside - like we're in Austin, Texas right now - nine months out of the year that iguana will be perfectly happy outside."