Green Iguana, The Best Pet Lizard?

Hi there, I'm here today with Jade who is a green iguana and We want to talk a little bit about the green iguana Jade comes from a local reptile rescue My buddy Rick Voss runs a rescue and he's got Jade. Jade is a green iguana though Her color is actually blue. That's just a mutation She's a morph. It's called Exantic or blue phase green iguana, but she's the same species iguana iguana now This is green iguana the best pet lizard. So is the green iguana the best pet lizard? Goodness, no Nope, but is it the best pet iguana? Yeah, also not that not even close to that. Uh, is it the best large iguana? I mean, you know, cuz Nope No, it's not and none of them are good. This is possibly the worst of the big iguanas. They're just horrible pets a while back We did a video on Savannah monitors. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out right here and in that video I was very much trying to communicate In fact, I told you they're a bad pet lizard and a lot of people have commented that they were thinking about getting a Savannah monitor And after watching our video they decided to go a different route and that's made me really happy But there are some people who have said after watching that video They want a Savannah monitor more than before. So obviously I need to be a little bit more clear about this stuff Savannah monitors Are bad pets because they're very difficult to really care for appropriately If you really take care of one, right? it's gonna need a good chunk of your house and it's gonna need a huge part of your salary and then It's not that bad. It's it may or may not ever be a very nice lizard, but they're very food motivated You can work with one you can get it to be somewhat reasonable Not a good pet lizard But better than this because of these things the Savannah monitor is not right for most people But I'm gonna go ahead and say that the green iguana is not right for anybody They're really bad and the problem with them isn't care. It's really not very hard to keep an iguana alive The problem with green iguanas is their personality they are Not nice, they're not nice lizards and they're full of weapons. I Am going to go ahead and say this right now. I do not recommend green iguanas to anybody The only people who I think should have green iguanas are rescues who have taken them off the hands of people who made a horrible decision Those are the only people who should have green iguanas. Do not buy an iguana, but Just in case you're one of the people who is considering opening up a reptile rescue I'm gonna give you a little preview into one of the most common rescue reptiles. You're gonna run into We give the green iguana overall a score of two point six out of five and that will come down to our five categories which are handle ability care Hardiness availability and upfront costs. So let's start with handle ability Shall we we give the green iguana a score of one out of five for handle ability? this one here is about as good as they come and she's a kind of a handful any iguana May be good sometimes but There are almost certainly going to be times in their life Especially when they hit maturity Might just depend on the time of year or how they're feeling that day when suddenly they won't be nice at all And they may never be nice again Most of them are not good most of the time some of them deserve a zero for handle ability because they won't let you anywhere within ten feet of them without Charging at you and Trying to harm you and they're very good at harming you they can drop that tail It's probably not something they're gonna do on their own But if it got pulled or crushed they can definitely drop that tail and they'll regenerate it But it's not quite the same but honestly and you know, this means a lot coming from me Dropping their tail is not the worst thing they do with that tail That tail is gonna be their first line of defense Generally speaking and they're gonna rear up and they're gonna whip you with it And it's like a razor whip and it can cut you open and send you from stitches So it's an exciting little whip there that they've got on the backside moving forward They've got razor-sharp claws that they can tear you open with and potentially you can need stitches for that That's probably not something they're gonna do defensively But if you pick one up wrong and if its nails happen to be pretty sharp That can be pretty nasty. The mouth is actually the business in that. I'm the most concerned about Because they do bite especially mature adult males They'll come and they'll bite and they will death roll and they will shake and rip you apart and I have seen some massive Iguana bites on faces and arms and legs a lot of people who've lost fingers to iguanas That's why I'm keeping a pretty good eye on this one She seems to be pretty good as iguanas go, but I don't like her looking at me like that Keep a little eye on her big mature males are very very territorial and so females are gonna be better than males, but Not always and when they're not good, it's horrible. Just the same there are exceptions But even in an exception, even if you have an iguana that right now has always been great Seems mellow all the time. They can change just Spontaneously you won't see it coming and tell it's latched onto your face and That's sub ideal when it comes to care We give the green iguana a score of three out of five care is really not all that bad for a giant lizard They they need an absolutely enormous enclosure. It needs to be tall long and wide It needs to have areas for them to climb It can be very difficult to clean this enclosure if you've got an iguana that won't allow you anywhere within 10 feet of it So that's something to keep in mind that sometimes You're not gonna be allowed in there And when you do go in it means you're gonna have to wrestle that iguana probably throw a big blanket on it Cover it up drag it out of there. It's gonna be quite the ordeal I guess just sort of like having a small angry ninja that lives in a room in your house and doesn't clean up after himself You are gonna need to keep humidity up in that enclosure and they're gonna need to have access to water Also, they're gonna need proper lighting. They're gonna need quite a bit of heat in a very large area So that's gonna be a lot of lights Or a lot of money to heat a room. So keep that in mind They also need UVB lighting which doesn't travel all that far So you're gonna need probably a lot of it in various different locations in the enclosure They also are going to eat a lot as adults Mostly greens as juveniles are gonna eat some insects But as adults they're gonna be eating almost purely greens fruits and and greens like mustard greens collard greens Kale in moderation, but you don't want too much of that because it can bind calcium These sorts of things you're gonna need to be buying a lot of they're also gonna need calcium and vitamin supplements Like most lizards when it comes to hardiness We actually give the green iguana a score of four out of five almost all imports Which is gonna be the vast majority of iguanas that you're gonna see they're gonna be farm raised Babies, they are gonna probably have some parasites to them. They're gonna be a little bit Emaciated and starved from the journey, but if you get them past that point They're probably gonna be pretty solid for you As long as you give them the proper enclosure proper heat and humidity access to water food They're gonna do just fine when I say that they're farm raised What this really means is that somebody has a big pen in their backyard basically probably down in Mexico or somewhere warm where they're just outside running around basically kept like wild iguanas They might be flinging out a little bit of food for them every now and then and they're breeding back there And so periodically they gather up all the babies stuff them into boxes and ship them to wherever you are They are in some ways better than wild-caught really only because you're not Decimating any wild populations if you get one that's captive bred, which would be better. I still wouldn't recommend it better You're not gonna have to worry about that initial point where you could very easily lose your lizard when it comes to availability We give these a score of three out of five Of course, you know that it's fairly easy to get an imported baby, but a captive bred Individual is harder to find you probably gonna need to go straight to a breeder or online But they are they are out there. This one for example is a blue possibly exanthic morph Probably captive bred though Some of these are also farm raised The reason not very many people breed them is because you can buy them for $20 as imports And so who's gonna put the money and time and effort into having a huge group of giant angry cranky monster lizards To produce babies if they're having to compete with $25 lizards Not very many people are interested in breeding green iguanas and that's probably a good thing If you are gonna breed iguanas You're probably going to keep some of the more expensive slightly better pet iguanas like the Cuban rock iguana or rhinoceros iguanas Which are better pets, but that doesn't mean that they won't bite you on the face one day If you are very interested in keeping iguanas, I would definitely recommend Camp Kennan His channel is actually pretty good. He keeps his iguanas outside, which is definitely the best scenario for keeping an iguana Not an option for everybody, but if you happen to live in Florida great option Just don't let them go because they do just fine in Florida on their own. They don't really need you. They're like cats I don't want to discourage those of you who have iguanas from bringing them to a reptile rescue You're asking a lot of somebody but do not release them into the wild We actually have a whole video about what you should do if you have Obtained an animal like an iguana and later on decided this was a bad choice. If you have the heart to rescue an iguana There are so many of them that need rescued. It's gonna be a horrible pet for you. So this is just a total sacrifice but That's probably the only scenario in which I would recommend getting one at all and make sure that's really what you want for yourself because If that is a sacrifice that is not you getting something cool. That is you getting a new awful responsibility But doing a lizard and an irresponsible keeper a favor when it comes to upfront costs We give the green iguana a score of two out of five Even if you buy a cheap import the cost of the iguana is not what's expensive It's gonna be that enormous enclosure with all the fancy lighting. That's what's gonna be very very expensive Like I said, if you can do it outdoors, it'll be considerably cheaper But if this is gonna be an indoor enclosure, it's gonna cost you a lot of money You're probably and almost certainly going to have to build this yourself. So hopefully you've got access to power tools You are gonna need a big water dish large enough for them to soak in it because if you can't provide a place for them to soak that means you're gonna need to pull that lizard out and soak it and Sometimes they won't put up with that When you think about it a water dish big enough for a six plus foot male green iguana to soak in It's a serious water dish Overall we give the green iguana a score of 2.6 out of 5 really that's a fantastic score for such a horrible pet lizard In most ways there really are great captives. It's just that personality. It's horrible. It's a horrible personality Almost with every single individual and like I said, even if you got a good one It could just snap on you one day and that makes them horrible horrible pet reptiles What you want is a big lizard that is amazing to look at Expensive to keep that hates your guts and might spontaneously attack you and bite off your fingers or your nose Loaded with weapons like a little room ninja Green iguanas are for you. If you don't like grievous injuries and trips to the emergency room Then I can list literally just dozens and dozens of better pet lizards than this I'm gonna do that Please check out the lists of great pet lizards and other reptiles that we've already compiled We're gonna be releasing more of those. There are so many great pet reptiles out there There's just absolutely no reason at all to have a green iguana Make sure that you go ahead and and subscribe to our channel click the little bell so you can get the updates whenever we come Out with another lizard that is so much better than a green iguana to keep as a pet every Saturday we're gonna come out with a new video and Basically all of them are going to be about animals better than green iguanas to keep so just Just don't don't get a green iguana I did I didn't say it clearly enough with the Savannah monitor and honestly I didn't mean it as emphatically with the Savannah monitor, but I mean it now do not get a green iguana under any circumstances unless you're a rescue and You're willing to set take on that big sacrifice as always Like and subscribe and we hope to see you real soon It's not like that's hard to eat. You want that and not my fingers? You want that and not my fingers? You want that? Okay That little cow. And she's about as good as an iguana can be and I don't think she's a very good pet anyway Goodbye, Jason. He just likes you Goodbye, Rorrel. He's kind of a ladies man. I think it's the beard. I don't think Jason's ever been concerned about one before. Oh, I mean The preface of this thing is the worst thing ever Didn't exactly help bad choice. Yep When my life is in peril Is that a good strawberry They're also going to need a substrate that allows them to keep You're gonna need okay fingers People have literally lost fingers. Yes, indeed to a green iguana. Uh-huh. Do they have like so a male's head is like this big Thanks, and they will grab and shake and death roll just And I mean, I've seen just ends of fingers. So a lot of times I mean, they'll just snap it right mid bone But also like whole fingers just and I have I have seriously like when you go when you see people asking about iguanas You get more people being like, oh, yeah I used to have an iguana took these two fingers you see that more often than you see people who are like my one is great Right when people say they have a great iguana what they mean is they've got a one-year-old iguana That's this long and it's fine. It's the same people that say keeping six reticulated pythons is easy It's because they've had a reticulated python for a year and it's four feet long