Multiple Igs

[maccha]

Hey Everyone, Just wondering what kind of experiences people here have had with housing multiple igs together? Good, bad, posturing, attacks, did the attacks include bites? (if so were there injuries) Any interesting stories? Etc. In my personal experience the only attacks have been on me, LOL. I had one adult male, a couple of adult females and a few juveniles. This was in a large room size enclosure. If I entered and immediately payed attention to the male everything was fine. If I touched any of the other Igs first the male would attack me, and yes with injuries, didnt take long to figure this out. One real good bite(usually to the face) and then was as tame and friendly as could be, like nothing ever happened. would also do the same if i did not see them( I should say him) for a day.

[prism_wolf]

Hmmm...I hate seeing these posts when I don't have time to answer right away. I have had two separate experiences - one bad, one good. I'll relate them as soon as I have the time. Right now it's off to feed the beasts and head to work.

[prism_wolf]

Good story - I had 4 igs come in at once. Guido - sole male with his harem of Big Momma, Tic & Tac (affectionately called the Psycho Sisters - and for good reason). They all 4 lived fine in the spare bedroom. Pleanty of room to run from each other if it got to hairy..each had their own basking area. Guido and Big Momma got adopted within 6 months. The Psycho Sisters were with me a year. Someone had donated a wonderful Cages by Design enclosure I placed them in. 6'x8'x4'. As long as they were both supplied with their own basking area the two lived peacefully together and by the time they went to a sanctuary they and lived peacefully for almost 4 yrs...a year of that being with me. The separate basking areas is crucial for multiple igs - and the added space.

Bad Story - My own Zair was enamoured with a rescue I had brought in once. She was sick, dehydrated, MBD, etc. While she was rehabbing he stayed on close by. I allowed him to climb on top and lay there after a couple of months. He stayed there so long I ended up placing his lights so he could have his UVB and heat while there. He was crazy wanting out of his own enclosure to get to her otherwise. While he was on her cage - he never left. I even fed him there. They were introduced after several months by placing her in his enclosure where they lived for over 1 1/2 yrs. Then one breeding season things got ugly. There was a young male I had taken in...Z couldn't see this other male, but it brought out the beast. He stripped the flesh from Icecube's tail one day trying to catch her for mating. From there she lived in the spare tub with her lights while healing before she went to a new home.

There are dozens of stories where igs have dominated other igs - whether physically - or more subtly. Then there are those that require supervision during exercise time outside of their individual enclosures...and some get along famously. Sometimes you just can't be there if something were to happen.

Making sure there is plenty of room for that "get-away" and individual basking areas complete with UVB and heat is the best way to ensure they each feel no need to dominate the "sweet spot". Even then things can go wrong...so it's just always suggested that keeping them together is not the safest for either. One could easily come up hurt - or both - or dead.

[maccha]

Sounds like Zair was in love, LOL ( I know it dosnt work that way for Igs) and yes they males will go nuts sometimes without even seeing another but just having in the proximity. I can picture he wanted to make sure his seed was planted before another male had the chance.

Just a side note, I definitely know it is not always a good idea to keep more than one together and may have severe consequences and would not recommend doing so for most people. Do, you have enough space, time, money, experience, are a few things that come to mind to think about. I am curious about other peoples experiences, types of problems, solutions to problems, benefits etc.

[prism_wolf]

Jennifer (jfogle) and Sean (Iguana King) have had their experiences, too. Maybe the two of them will offer some experience.

[IguanaKing]

I have both a good story and bad story about multiple igs, and they both involve the same male iguana.

I started with raising iguanas in about the mid-90's. I bought a beautiful little iggy that I named Mercury, and being new to iguanas I ended up losing her one day when I had her out handling her (I didn't know her gender at the time though...too tiny). She was missing for about 3 weeks, and I had actually given up hope of her ever coming back, so I ended up getting another baby ig that I named Sheena. This iguana had such a sweet personality that I wrongly assumed it was female, but he ended up growing up to be a very manly 5'8" STL 16-pound ig. So his name was changed to Hercules as soon as I realized he was a male (left a little "surprise" in my hand one morning which told me he was undeniably a male). A day or two after bringing Hercules home, guess who I find laying on the flourescent lights that I left on in hopes that Mercury would come home? It was Mercury. So I scrambled to get things set up to care for two of them.

Mercury and Hercules got along famously. They only had a few minor spats after reaching adulthood, which never resulted in anything more than a minor cut or scratch. One thing I noticed about their interaction was that Mercury was never shy about letting Hercules know that she wasn't in the mood. He seemed to respect her boundaries and wouldn't continue to pursue her if he got the "back off!" signal. On the other hand, when she was receptive, she'd still sorta play "hard to get", so he would pursue her, usually into a corner. Then he'd gently grab one of her back legs and drag her out of the corner and mate with her. Again, never causing anything more than a minor scratch. They lived peacefully together for almost 8 years until disaster struck. One night in late 2003, I was awakened by a loud thud from the iguana room, so I went in to see what was happening. Mercury had fallen from her perch while she slept and had hit her head on a branch on the way down. She was laying on the floor on her back, in convulsions. I rushed her to the vet, the vet worked all day to save her, but she died of her head injury. I was devastated by that, she was such a good little iggy...but it seems Hercules ALSO missed her. He went into what I can only describe as a depression. He'd just lie around in the same spot and rarely ate for several weeks, only coming down to drink water. So, that ends the chapter of the good multiple ig experience. I'll write about the bad one next time I have time to do so...gotta get back to work.

[Jen]

About a month and a half ago, Angus (male) was basking minding his own and I had gone to another room just for a moment. I was horrified when I came back, Iggy (my young female) was latched onto Angus leg with her whole body hanging off the side of the cage, just hanging on with her mouth from his leg!!!!! At first glance I thought she had him by the throat!!!!!! Iggy is very dominant, and Angus is a bit timid. They havent crossed paths with our adult Venus yet, Im afraid she would swallow Ig or Angus whole! LOL

[maccha]

Sean (If I may) Im Mark by the way. Thank you for sharing that one, Im sorry for the loss of your Mercury. Igs falling and from heights has always been one of my bigger fears. Momo has made a few leaps that have flat out scared the hell out of me, I leave the nasal salts on the glass now.

[IguanaKing]

maccha said:

Sean (If I may) Im Mark by the way. Thank you for sharing that one, Im sorry for the loss of your Mercury. Igs falling and from heights has always been one of my bigger fears. Momo has made a few leaps that have flat out scared the hell out of me, I leave the nasal salts on the glass now.

Thanks Mark. Its OK to use real names here as long as the other person is comfortable with that in our public forum, and I'm fine with it. ;D

Now for the bad story.

After a great deal of thought, I decided to adopt another female iguana. I went on-line to the Colorado Reptile Humane Society's web-site to have a look at their iguana profiles...heh, it was kinda like a myspace or singles page, but with reptile photos and personality profiles, LOL. I found a photo on there of a 3-year-old female named Audrey that immediately grabbed my attention. She had these great big eyes that were full of wonder, and even seemed to be smiling for the photo. After several weeks of the application, processing, and scheduling process, I went to their shelter to meet Audrey and interact with her. She was a little nervous, since she had never seen me before, but we pretty much clicked. So, I paid the adoption fee, completed the adoption paperwork, and brought her home with me in early 2004. Taking the advice of AE, the CoRHS director, I introduced her and Hercules in an open area where Audrey would be able to get away if she had to. The meeting was tense, with Hercules and Audrey frantically tongue-flicking at each other. Hercules then started head-bobbing, but it was a greeting head-bob, so I just continued to observe while sitting next to them. I'm not sure what signal Audrey received, because she suddenly bolted. This was all the provocation that Hercules needed, and he ran after her, snapping at any part of her that he could get his teeth on. They both ran so fast I couldn't catch them and finally was able to rescue Audrey in my bedroom. She was standing on her tail trying to run up the wall when I got there. I made Hercules go away, and he went and hung out under my bed while I picked Audrey up. My mom had come with me to get Audrey, so she was at my apartment also, and she told me that Audrey was bleeding. I looked down to where she was pointing and Hercules had skinned an area of her tail which was about 1.25" in diameter, but it was just through the skin and the muscle tissue was fine. So, I cleaned her wound and put the hanging chuck of skin back in place. It ended up healing pretty well over the next couple of months, it looks a bit weird, but the skin actually fused back together. So, I ended up setting up heat and light for Audrey in my bedroom (which is ig proof, since Hercules was able to come out of his bedroom to roam my apartment any time he chose), and she stayed there for several months while she healed. In the mean time, I printed a photo that I took of Audrey sitting on the iguana habitat basking platform, and taped it to the habitat wall. I knew that iguanas are very visual creatures, so I figured that would help him get used to her presence...and it did. It also helped that I'd swap the igs between the enclosure and my bedroom for a couple hours every day, so their scents could mix. After more carefully supervised interaction, they eventually got along well enough to share the habitat...or so I thought.

They never had an issue INSIDE the habitat after that, but outside it was a different story. One night, they were both out roaming, with me right in the other room. Well, it was breeding season and Hercules was in the mood for love, but Audrey wasn't. The problem was, that Audrey was still very shy about standing up for herself, so she'd just run anytime he tried to mate with her and she wasn't into it. This time, he had a really good hold of her left arm in his mouth, and she just continued to struggle until she pulled her arm out of his mouth. I ran into the room after hearing the racket, and got there just in time to see Audrey come limping out from behind the habitat, dragging her left arm. She stopped a couple of feet later and plopped down on the floor. A pool of blood immediately started spreading out from underneath her...yeah, she was hurt pretty badly. I tried to pick her up and she ran away from me into the closet in the bedroom, smearing blood all over everything. I finally got a hold of her to take care of her wounds, and she proceeded to smear and spatter blood all over me. I was totally unprepared for this, since I had run out of gauze and surgical tape. So, after I finally stopped the bleeding by applying pressure, and then closed the wound using a couple drops of super glue, I went to the supermarket to get gauze and tape. Heh...talk about horrified looks from people...YIKES. I didn't have time to change clothes, so I walked into the store covered in blood.

OK...time to wrap this up because I have to get back to work again.

I took her to the vet the next day to have her checked out, including an xray of her left arm. My vet and I were just SURE her arm had to be broken after that. Turns out her bones were all still intact. The vet complimented me on the closure job and elected not to mess with it, since it would open up in a day or two, and he wanted to leave it open so it could drain and not get infected. So, he wrapped her arm in a medicated bandage that I had to have changed every week, or more often if it got dirty. I also had to give her daily injections of Baytrill. In the end, that few seconds of horror cost me a little over $500.00, and Audrey took almost a year to fully recover to where she could use her arm again.

[maccha]

Sean, since you have had time with Hercules with and without a companion and then with again, Was there any difference in his personality? Like tamer when he was by himself or more difficult. Seem more comfortable ore more on guard maybe?

[IguanaKing]

Mark, he's fine most of the time either way. However, with a female around, he HAS had a few more psychotic episodes than without. The year he stayed in season for almost the whole year, he made a run at my face, but by then I was a seasoned veteran of iguanas and I saw it in his eyes before he made his move. I rolled clear of his charge. It definitely would have been bad for me to have an ig his size manage to connect a territorial bite.

Him and Audrey are fine together now, BTW...lots more separation time and LOTS more supervised visits. The difference came in when Audrey started standing up for herself. She actually has Hercules pretty "hen-pecked" at the moment. I've walked in a few times to find her sitting on his back, gaping and hissing at him. Audrey is back to living in my room again though, not because of anything Hercules did, but due to a spinal injury she's recovering from. She fell while climbing the basking platform and her body landed pretty much across one of the cross-members at the bottom. She didn't break any bones, but tweaked her spinal cord pretty good. She's FINALLY starting to walk again.

[maccha]

Yeah I know what you mean, Ive been on the other end of that charge before and ended up with a nose looking like the pics in the bites thread and once with a 17 lb Ig earing and a dozen stitches to put the ear back together. Both from the same ig that I talked about at the start of the thread. Ig bites can be far worse than most would think. I still hate the scratches more though LOL.

[IguanaKing]

Ah, the battle scars. I've got a few of those myself, all from my own lapses of attention. I have a skin graft on my chest from a test bite, a jagged scar across my chin from having my lower lip all but torn off, and I had to get the tip of my right index finger regloved after calling Mercury's "bluff" when she was angry at me and gaping. Heh...turns out she wasn't bluffing. Audrey has bitten me twice, one was accidental because I had my fingers in her mouth removing a food item that was too big for her. The second time, she was on my shoulder and mistook my ear for a french fry...both quick nips though, no stitches required in those two incidents.