Iguana Temperament Question (Sorry!)...

Alright, so I do have one question before becoming an iguana owner...

People with experience: How would you define the temperament of an iguana?

I have gotten many mixed answers. I'd talked to my vet the last time I was there about this, and he said he'd seen one rather large male iguana that was completely smitten with his female owner, and open to meeting new people. But, he also said there were a few others (a mix between males and females) that were seemingly rather aggressive.

I've my heart set on a female. I've already met her, handled her, and talked about her personality with her current owner/handler, and she is fairly laid back. She is also very young (less than one year), however, and I've read and heard that personality can change drastically as they age.

What are my chances of getting a complete tyrant, or a some-what-easy-to-handle sweetie?

Sorry for making two posts so quickly! I just thought two seperate posts would make it easier for people wanting to answer what they are educated about, rather than have to skim a long post trying to find something they want to reply to. :) Thanks!

No worries about making posts! It's what we're here for! ;)


Other than meeting a number of individuals, I don't have any real experience with iggies. But I do know the sweet ones are really sweet! I spoke with a man who had taken in an adult iggy that had been abused and neglected and was not "people friendly" in the least. With a lot of patience, dedication, and work...he turned that iggy around into the sweetest one I've ever met and it goes with him to elementary schools for demonstrations and stuff. Total people lover!

Anyhow...I say all that to say this: I think, with something like an iggy (or even like the beardie I have) you get out of it what you put into it. They take a great deal of time and attention on a daily, consistent basis. If you're willing to put in the time and effort, I'm pretty sure you'll find yourself with an extremely rewarding pet.

But like I said...this is coming from an outsider's point of view. Iggy owners may say there are individuals that won't tame no matter how much time and energy is invested in them. But I haven't heard of such a case myself...yet. ;)

i have an iguana, when he was a baby it was almost impossible to handle him without him trying to escape, but after about a month or so he didnt mind getting picked up and chillin outside of his enclosure. they get used to you

iguanas are tricky. some are sweet as pie, others...not so much. i had a roommate one time who adopted an adult female iguana. supposedly she was very calm and settled at her previous home and my roommate even went there and handled her and checked her out before adopting her. when she came to live at our house...wow. she was SO mean. i think a lot of it was because she was afraid, but you couldn't even get near her without risk of being bitten or slapped with her giant tail (and boy does that sting when they get to slapping!) she had to be confined to my roommates room because when she came out into the rest of the house she was unmanageable--running, hissing, slapping, totally out of control. that experience drastically altered my perception of iguanas.

that said, i know there are iguanas out there that are calm and friendly and great pets. it's good that you have already had some experience with this iguana and that she seems friendly. realize that she may be nervous about a new environment and may act aggressively at first out of fear. i think that if my roommate had been more keen to her iguana's needs and less afraid of her she may have been able to work with her and calm her. surely this would have taken some time and would have been a challenge with a beast her size, but i think it may have been possible.

Thanks, everyone, for your responses!

I ended up not getting that female I got to interact with. :( I was way too busy all week long, and her handler tried contacting me twice because he had another person interested. Sigh, needless to say, I was unable to check my cellphone (house phone doesn't have an answering machine) and he sold her to the other person. The other person is also a snake/gecko breeder, and well-known for his knowledge on reptiles, so at least she went to someone with lots of experience. Right on. :cool:

He promised that when he gets another with such an excellent temperament, he'll be calling me first, right out of the gate. No worries. I am more than willing to wait for my new "soulmate."

JLC -
I definitely know what you mean about getting what you put into a lizard like an ig or beardie. My friend has a beardie that he'd handled everyday for the first five months. She was sweet as sugar and would love to just hang out on people's laps. He started working more hours, handling her alot less, and now you have to carefully take her out of her enclosure or she gets spooked extremely easily and will resort to trying to bite. If that doesn't work, she'll let you lift her, then she'll thrash and dart about, trying to escape your grasp.

I plan on handling at least once daily. I've seen those claws and teeth on the adult iggies, and the thickness and power of those tails...NOT something I want to mess with!

iggies are like people some are nice and gentle and calm and others are the spawn of satan and keep inmind that being a living breething animal it can and will have bad days (i had one that was nicest iggie you could hope for but about every 4-5weeks he would be a complete a$$ to everybody and anybody)

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Originally Posted by Rakshasi

I've seen those claws and teeth on the adult iggies, and the thickness and power of those tails...NOT something I want to mess with!

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My brother adopted an adult female several years ago...I STILL have a couple visible claw-scars on my arms. She bit, whipped and scratched...an all-around nightmare. She ended up going to live with my mom's friend, Holly... The "sweet" girl, wasn't so good with kids (we were aged 12-14 at the time) or anyone for that matter.

Couple of years ago I ended up rescuing a 4 1/2 year old male, he was very small for his age due to improper carehowever there was nothing small about is attitude.

One of the meanest iguanas I have ever seen, I tried to work with him but nothing worked, I cannot count how many times I have been clawed, tail wipped and bitten, thanks god I was wearing long glove most of the time. He was so mean he would even attack me when I would place the food in his enclosure.

There are a lot of green iguanas in rescue centers due to the fact that many owners realise (when too late) that the cute little affordable Iguanas they bought as baby can be very difficult and with razor sharp teeth and claws, not really the ideal reptile they were hoping for, some rescue center do not even want to take them anymore because they are so hard to re-home.

Now is it possible to have one that is "puppy tamed"? Yes it is but it take times and effort from day one, and remember that if you cannot devote the time, offer proper husbandry (which is very expensive) and if you are not able to deal with the agressivity then this animal is not for you.

We had an Iguana for several years. He grew head to tail approx 6ft and weighed 35 lbs. He was such a monster, but puppy dog tame and smart. We didn't keep him in a cage, instead he had a table he sat on with a heat lamp hanging over it. He was potty trained, in which he had a litter box underneath his table. If he needed to go he would climb down and do his thing and then climb right back up onto his table. He never got down to roam the house either. During the warmer and summer days he would get down and scratch at the sliding glass door and we would let him out. He would spend the day outside grazing on the grass and weeds. Then when it started getting dark he would scratch at the door again when he wanted in. We would let him in and he would walk to his table and climb up.
Unfortunatly something happened one day. He SNAPPED! He was outside with my wife while she was watering the plants and he jumped up on her leg and bit a huge chunk out of her thigh. It was Horrendous what this sweet little iguana did. The iguana ran back into the house and just went crazy. We could'nt even catch him and he ended up chasing us out of the house. We had to call Animal Control for assistance. They came and they took him to there facility where he was monitored for several days. We even tried to calm him down and nothiing worked. This guy just became totally wild and straight ass mean.
Because of the circumstances we felt that it would'nt be wise to even turn him into a rescue because of his temperment and what he did to my wife. We decided to put him down(sorry for those who disagree). It was very hard and sad for us to do this, but it was for the best.
Since this incident my views on Iguanas are so different as when we got him. I will never own another one and advise anyone who gets one to really think about it and do extensive research.
It took several months for my wifes wound to heal and still she has an awful scar from the bite. Who would of thought an iguana that was considered puppy dog tame would do such a thing. Make the phrase "puppy dog tame" a whole new meaning.

both of my iggys are very sweet and tame one that I used to have was mean as hell i took a tail to the leg about 7 years ago and it left a nice deep scar but he was a rescue and even more mean when I first got him

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Originally Posted by itzazoo

We had an Iguana for several years. He grew head to tail approx 6ft and weighed 35 lbs. He was such a monster, but puppy dog tame and smart. We didn't keep him in a cage, instead he had a table he sat on with a heat lamp hanging over it. He was potty trained, in which he had a litter box underneath his table. If he needed to go he would climb down and do his thing and then climb right back up onto his table. He never got down to roam the house either. During the warmer and summer days he would get down and scratch at the sliding glass door and we would let him out. He would spend the day outside grazing on the grass and weeds. Then when it started getting dark he would scratch at the door again when he wanted in. We would let him in and he would walk to his table and climb up.
Unfortunatly something happened one day. He SNAPPED! He was outside with my wife while she was watering the plants and he jumped up on her leg and bit a huge chunk out of her thigh. It was Horrendous what this sweet little iguana did. The iguana ran back into the house and just went crazy. We could'nt even catch him and he ended up chasing us out of the house. We had to call Animal Control for assistance. They came and they took him to there facility where he was monitored for several days. We even tried to calm him down and nothiing worked. This guy just became totally wild and straight ass mean.
Because of the circumstances we felt that it would'nt be wise to even turn him into a rescue because of his temperment and what he did to my wife. We decided to put him down(sorry for those who disagree). It was very hard and sad for us to do this, but it was for the best.
Since this incident my views on Iguanas are so different as when we got him. I will never own another one and advise anyone who gets one to really think about it and do extensive research.
It took several months for my wifes wound to heal and still she has an awful scar from the bite. Who would of thought an iguana that was considered puppy dog tame would do such a thing. Make the phrase "puppy dog tame" a whole new meaning.

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Wow, what a story! Iguanas are the reason I have ball pythons now! LOL

Karl had purchased a baby without doing any research and when I started researching them and their temperment and potential size, I was not happy. Even as a baby, this little guy was MEAN! No matter how much I tried to handle him to get him used to handling he'd tail whip as soon as we walked in the room.

Let's just say when he died six months later, I was not heartbroken and started researching ball pythons, because I did not want Karl getting another impulse buy to put in the vacant 20 gallon aquarium (which today houses a crestie).

A dear friend of mine does iggy rescue and well put it this way....I'll handle a biting, striking adult ball python, I'll wrangle a big old 6 foot plus boa...but when her big female iggy's come over and give me the "you lady are in MY freakin chair" glare...I move my butt to another seat LOL.

I have all the respect in the world for my friend and her work with iguana's in need but personally those big lizards scare the beejeesus outta me.

I have seven igs and most are rescued from abusive owners. From my experience if you hold, tame, hand feed for trusting, and let other hold or pet your ig they become rather tame pets. On the otherhand if you takin a mistreated one it will take you about six months to get the trust back and another six months to tame and handle the iguana.

Let me know if you have any questions!

My friend that has the iggy's had the oddest situation with one of her just matured females. This female iggy took a strong dislike to anything red in color that my friend wore. Do iggy's see color? Didn't matter if it was a red t-shirt, sweatshirt or sweater...if Sherrie wore red the female iggy got aggressive. If Sherrie changed her top, the iggy calmed down to her usual rather nice self.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

My friend that has the iggy's had the oddest situation with one of her just matured females. This female iggy took a strong dislike to anything red in color that my friend wore. Do iggy's see color? Didn't matter if it was a red t-shirt, sweatshirt or sweater...if Sherrie wore red the female iggy got aggressive. If Sherrie changed her top, the iggy calmed down to her usual rather nice self.

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Yes iguanas see a wide variety of colors. They are pretty capable of seeing red, orange, green, yellow, and blue(not so well), but red is the most common color that can aggrevate an iguana especially around breeding season. Just stay away from that color for a good three months and slowly introduce it back in.

You know I was wondering if the red was triggering some sort of strong reaction associated with breeding. I had read somewhere that male iggy's fire up a sort of red/orange on the front end so my friend and I figured that maybe her female iggy was reacting to that (she was sexually maturing just around the time of the red clothes incident). Glad to have our suspicions confirmed though. At first Sherrie and I figured we were nuts and it was just coincidental but everytime she wore red, the iggy got very upset.

On the upside this female iggy really is amazing. She loves having a bath. She'll smack her enclosure to indicate she wants out, trundle off very determined straight to the bathroom and crawl into the tub all by herself, then do that iggy glare at you until you get busy with the nice tepid water for her to mess about in. It's really quite amazing how she's got her humans trained LOL.

I have had 3 Iguanas. Even though I did my research I still learned a lot along the way.

When it comes to temperment, it depends on how it is raised, handled, and the individual personality. I recommend getting a female if it's your first. Females are a lot less tempermental and they don't do personality 180's in the breeding season. My male lived the longest and got up to about 6ft.

Here's some pointers.

1) Don't order an Iguana online, go to a local pet store or breeder if there is one. Handle the iguanas there. You cna usually tell right away which are more friendly. My male, Spike, licked my hand and climbed on me right out of the pet shop tank. All the others ran to the back in fear of me.

2) Don't build an enclosure or allow your iguana to climb to a spot higher than your neck. They establish territory and dominance by altitude: Whoever sits on the highest branch is king. And they will fight tooth and nail if you challenge them. I learned this the hard way when I built a room sized enclosure and put a basking shelf at my eye level.

3) Never keep a large iguana with a smaller one. It is safe to keep a male with multiple females as long as they are similar is size and have enough space.

4) Never stop handling them. There's no such thing as once tame always tame. Make you presense felt daily.

Iguanas are high maintenance animals but can be amazing when brought up right.

Well I would say after having 2 Iguanas, a 6 and a half foot long male and a 5 foot female, (both fixed rescues) Females are by far more complyent with human handleing after some time. Males can be quite a hand full when they are intact and have bad mood swings once a year. Yoshi and Hurcule were really well behaved for rescues.

But also know that each Iguana, male or female will be different. some males are sweethearts where as some females are not so nice. Just depends on the Igg.
Iguanas are a joy to have once they start to "bond" with you. I use the word "bond" because I feel that is really what they do. not in the "my lizard loves me" way but they can have a favorite person in the family that they will only alow near them or to handle them.
Yoshi would only let me touch her, mess with her or handle her. She hated every one elso with a passion. Hurc could have given a rats butt about what was going on around him and who picked him up.

(Yoshi and me)
http://www.hexibase.com/~jessica/c55b.jpg

hope that helps a bit