Green Iguana — Fact Sheet

Iguana iguana · Green Iguana

Full care guide and sources

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

A single adult needs a custom room-sized arboreal enclosure; use about 300 x 150 x 180 cm as a practical minimum, and larger is better.

The enclosure should include:

• a hot basking area and cooler retreat zones
• multiple hides or sheltered routes
• secure branches, cork, rocks, or platforms suited to the species
• fresh water that cannot be tipped easily
• strong ventilation without losing the needed humidity
• front access so maintenance does not become a chase

Keep animals singly unless there is a controlled breeding plan and space to separate them immediately. Cohabitation can cause stress, injuries, food competition, and repeated breeding pressure.

The enclosure must be built like a small animal room rather than a display tank. It needs horizontal and vertical branches thick enough for the whole body, basking shelves, shaded retreats, and doors that allow cleaning without wrestling the animal. All shelves and branches must support adult body weight and tail strikes.

Daily maintenance matters: remove feces, replace soiled water, check humidity equipment, and inspect the animal’s toes, tail, mouth, and skin. Adult males can become territorial, especially seasonally, so handling plans should be based on training and predictable routines rather than force.

🪨 Substrate and furnishings

The enclosure should let the animal move through cover instead of being exposed in an empty box. Use stable decor; heavy items must be supported from the floor or fixed securely before substrate is added.

Useful materials include:

• cork tubes, bark slabs, branches, and roots
• soil-based substrate appropriate to humidity needs
• live or artificial plants for cover
• elevated basking platforms for arboreal species
• tight hides where the animal can feel body contact

Quarantine new animals on simple substrate until feeding, shedding, droppings, and parasite status are understood.

Use non-toxic branches, washable shelves, sturdy live or artificial plants, and visual barriers. Any live plant must be safe if eaten. Do not rely on loose house access as the main enclosure; rooms contain electrical cords, toxic plants, cold floors, open windows, and objects the animal may swallow or knock down.

💡 Lighting

Provide a consistent 10-12 hour day length with bright visible light. Use a quality linear UVB lamp over part of the enclosure, leaving shaded retreats so the animal can self-regulate.

For UV planning, treat this species as Ferguson Zone 3-4, about UVI 3-5 at the upper basking branches. Measure with a Solarmeter 6.5 when possible because mesh, reflector, distance, and lamp age change the real exposure.

🌡️ Temperature

Use overhead heat from halogen or other suitable reptile heating equipment controlled safely by thermostat or dimming control. Do not heat the whole enclosure evenly.

Useful targets:

• Basking surface: 45-50 °C
• Daytime air: 24-31 °C
• Cool-side air: 24-27 °C
• Night air: 23-28 °C

Measure basking surfaces with an infrared thermometer and ambient zones with digital probes. The animal must be able to leave the basking zone completely.

Large-bodied lizards need a basking area big enough to heat the whole torso, not a tiny hot spot under one lamp. Use multiple lamps or a broad basking bank, guard fixtures safely, and measure the branch or shelf where the iguana actually rests. Cold iguanas digest poorly and become prone to appetite, gut, and immune problems.

Measure the basking surface with an infrared thermometer and air at the animal’s resting height with digital probes. A surface target is not an air temperature or a thermostat setting. Keep heat sources guarded and controlled, and provide a cooler shaded retreat.

💧 Humidity and water

Air humidity: 60–80%. Practical air-humidity range, not a physiological limit. Measure at animal height, away from wet surfaces and direct heat. Daytime air; moister refuges and higher night readings are separate. Provide a stable basin large enough for soaking, with easy entry and exit. Replace fouled water and scrub the basin promptly.

Maintain humidity around 60–80%, with local variation inside the enclosure. A single number is less useful than a stable gradient with dry resting places, humid retreats where needed, and good airflow.

Many iguanas drink from bowls, moving water, or droplets, and many defecate in water. A soak tub or large basin is useful only if it can be cleaned thoroughly. High humidity should come with strong airflow; stagnant damp air encourages skin and respiratory issues.

🪳 Feeding

This species is herbivorous. Suitable foods include dark leafy greens, edible weeds, hibiscus and mulberry leaves, squash, green beans, okra, flowers, and small amounts of fruit.

Feed juveniles smaller meals more often and adults less often according to body condition. Use calcium and multivitamin supplements deliberately; do not use supplements to compensate for missing UVB, poor diet, or low temperatures.

Avoid obesity. Large monitors and iguanas are especially prone to long-term damage when fed too much rich food or kept in enclosures that do not allow exercise.

Feed a chopped salad daily, built mostly around calcium-rich leafy greens and edible weeds. Fruit should stay a small minority of the diet. Avoid animal protein, dog food, cat food, and frequent high-oxalate or goitrogen-heavy staples. Hydration and fiber are as important as calories.

A healthy iguana should look muscular, not swollen with fat. Juveniles grow quickly and need reliable food every day; adults still eat daily but the mix should emphasize leaves, weeds, flowers, and vegetables rather than sweet fruit.

🩺 Health — warning signs

Common captive problems include burns, dehydration, retained shed, parasite loads in wild-caught animals, mouth injuries, obesity, poor appetite from low basking temperatures, and stress from cramped or exposed housing.

Warning signs include weight loss, swelling, wheezing, repeated nose rubbing, weak grip, tremors, retained shed on toes or tail tip, abnormal droppings, wounds, and long refusal to feed. Check temperatures, UVB, humidity, diet, and hiding security first, but serious or persistent signs need an experienced reptile veterinarian.

Iguanas commonly suffer from metabolic bone disease, thermal burns, tail and toe injuries, abscesses, mouth trauma, dehydration, kidney problems, reproductive disease in females, and aggression injuries after unsafe handling. Most are husbandry-linked, so veterinary treatment and enclosure correction usually have to happen together.