Post by jurrassicgirl on Aug 13, 2015 18:10:56 GMT -8
Hey everyone,
My husband and I recently adopted an iguana who broke his back when he was a baby. It has healed completely, no pain but he is deformed now. Occasionally he will flip onto his back and need assistance getting on his stomach. He has a basking rock under his heat light and a few other small accessories in his cage but we are looking to expand his enclosure and add some new fixtures for him to keep him happy. I know they prefer to climb and be high up but I'm worried he may not be able to climb like normal and am afraid if we include perches and such he may injure himself further. Any advice or thoughts?
My husband and I recently adopted an iguana who broke his back when he was a baby. It has healed completely, no pain but he is deformed now. Occasionally he will flip onto his back and need assistance getting on his stomach. He has a basking rock under his heat light and a few other small accessories in his cage but we are looking to expand his enclosure and add some new fixtures for him to keep him happy. I know they prefer to climb and be high up but I'm worried he may not be able to climb like normal and am afraid if we include perches and such he may injure himself further. Any advice or thoughts?
A lot of people shy away from animals with deformities simply because they are not as aesthetically nice to look at. That is a really good question about the perches! My iguana, Gwendolyn, as she has been getting older, does not have the best sense of footing when she is around ledges. I have put up some rope along the edges where she has fallen before so she has a guard rail. I don't have any branches for her to climb on; just shelving with a pillow under her basking lamp and towels at the bottom of her ramps. She has pretty bad arthritis so I try to make it comfy for her and easy to move around. I don't know how active your iguana is but if he's not too active and not the best climber, like Gwen who mainly just goes between her 3 favorite spots, I might recommend a main shelf with a few perching shelves that aren't too high from the main shelf. I have a 6ft tall 5.3ft long and 3.5ft deep enclosure for Gwen but she rarely goes to the bottom of her enclosure. The only time she really does go down there is when she is on her way out of her enclosure to go lay on my bed. If I redesigned her enclosure I would have used a large portion of the lower half of her enclosure for storage space, created one full main floor and then build ramps and shelves over that main level that wouldn't be too high so even if she fell it wouldn't be far. Falls for younger iguanas are no big deal but for older or disabled iguanas it can be quite dangerous. With any shelving you put in I would recommend some sort of rail to dissuade him from falling off. Also, quick question: is that basking rock a heat rock, and is it turned on, or just an unheated rock?