KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR IGUANAS WEIGHT

I find keeping track of their weight to be a very helpful and interesting. When kept track of regularly these numbers can show you many different things.

This can be the most helpful during your iguana's first couple of years while they are still small.
I keep my numbers in grams, that way I can see slight changes. Certain things to look for are drastic changes in weight and what they relate to. For example if you move your iguana to a new enclosure or a new spot in the house you could see how this affects him physically by looking at his behaviours, how much he is eating and his weight change. If for what ever reason your iguana becomes sick, you can calculate how much weight he or she is loosing and how fast.
A good example of this is when I first got Pip he had worms. Now at first I didn't know he had them as I couldn't see them in his feces and he was eating lots of food but not getting bigger at all. This was then proven by the weight I was tracking of him. I could easily look back and pinpoint when he started loosing weight and how soon after treatment he started to gain it. Sadly I was given the wrong worm medication for him so it slowed them down but didn't get rid of them right away, which is why part of the reason why he is so much smaller than Molly, that and the fact Molly is an abnormally fast grower.

These numbers are a great resource for your vet to look at also. Even if you just take your ig for a check up your vet can have a look at the numbers also, it never hurts.


This year I will be paying a lot of attention to the breeding season of both Pip and Billy (both my males) as males loose a lot of weight during this time as they stop eating mostly or completely. I am really interested in what percentage of their body weight they loose.

I will also be focusing on my females. Before breeding season females tend to eat a lot more and bulk up to prepaid themselves for the coming months of being gravid. I will be documenting how much weight they gain during this time and how much they weigh after they lay their eggs to get a percentage.

I just use a small digital food scale that can change the unit it measures in, if you have an iguana that won't sit still or is aggressive (a male in breeding season) simple weigh them in a small grate then minus the weight of the crate.

The following are all the weights I have been keeping track of since the day I got Molly and Pip back in April of 2013. My main focus was the weight of Molly and Pip and recently I haven't been on the ball as much due to the basement renovation. However that will change soon :)

 

 

Thank you for reading

Robin Small