these are some of Ig-gy's favourite thingssss

some of you out there are probably (still) struggling with your green iguana and making friends. honestly... you find that some days are better than others. sometimes you wake up to a happy, well adjusted, interactive ig, only to come home from work late that very same day and find that your ig suddenly 'hates' your guts(!), and will absolutely not come out of its cage unless you drag it out hissing, head-bobbing and scratching.

sound familiar??! well then, welcome to the world of co-habitation with the green ig. extremely sensitive to your varying moods and your stress levels, often emulating the vibes they pick up. temperamental, wild, all teeth claws and razor sharp tail. yet tame, loving, social, soliciting play time. 'Jekyll and Hyde' and all shades in between on the very same day.

well, here are some key tips that may be getting YOU back to basics, and i thought 3 simple things would help us re-focus on the need to see our world, the way our igs do. so to put ourselves in their paws, so to speak.
the list is endless really on what you can do to make your ig trust you just a little bit more, but let's stick to these 3 topics for now: the art of socialization; getting your ig to eat healthy, and shower time.
btw, i have put some neat easy to read references at the end of this post so you can check them all out yourself, and maybe do more than what i do :)
also i thought while i was at it, i would put it all in the context of the Top 3 things that HRH IggySingh loves (that are good for her well-being too).

so, do sit back and start 'projecting' ahead fellow ig-keepers of the world and visualize all that you can look forward to (yes, this too shall pass! so hang in there, your ig doesn't really hate you)... get a feel of what is super critical in making your ig happier and better adjusted to life in captivity... learn about the joys of bonding with your ig and get it to trust you to the point you can maintain your alpha ig status without resorting to intimidation or brute force (NEVER RECOMMENDED btw) other than the initial not backing down/getting bullied phase (hah! and that's yet another story)!

so let's get started...

manja time: numero uno favourite of IggySingh
(manja = 'being affectionate')

Iggy absolutely loves to manja. Hah! the qualifier here being when HRH is in the mood. and that's really the clue here. your ig is allowed to not to want to play with you, or to not want to bond with you. think of them simplistically as being quite akin to the nature of the common house cat i.e. has a mind of its own and hence only when it wants to, will do. comprendo?

but should you pick you ig up and it tail whips you, does the infamous crocodile roll, or take a chunk of flesh out of your arms/wrists with its claws (not retractable i'm afraid), then you have to keep hanging on to it, firmly but gently enough so you do not injure its delicate organs with too much squeezing/grabbing and without dropping it (yes, it's an absolute art) and only put it down when it had calmed down so it doesn't learn to associate its aggression with you letting it go, eureka!

so back to IggySingh. she is now 4 years and 3 months, and very socialized, and also independent to exercise her selective hearing or her lizard choice of not wanting to bond. i can easily gauge her mood from her readiness to come to me when i call her, versus her vehement head-bobbing to say 'stay away'. so when i get home after work and call out my greeting to her - "Iggy come downstairs; Iggy manja-manja", and if she wants to manja, she will actively start climbing off the top of her cage.
[aside - Iggy understands a vocab of about 50+ words that she reacts to, in exactly the way the words are meant. this is very possible with any green iguana you love and nurture. the trick here is to say it exactly in the same context every time you mean to say the word, so your ig soon relates the word to the context of what is about to happen, or is happening.]

so, what does manja entail? well, lots of head rubbing, petting behind her ears, maybe a gentle rock from side-to-side as Iggy sits with her face against my shoulder and i hold her like you would carrying a child. Iggy has also reached the stage now where she may actively solicit a cuddle even if i haven't called out to her. she initiates this by climbing off her cage to look for me, or by coming over to sit very close to me.

she especially loves when i gently rub her 3rd eye (her parietal or pineal eye) and will then close both her (regular) eyes, getting into almost a trance like state, as she slides lower and lower into the couch. a word of warning, when an ig gets into this trance like state, any sudden movement may cause them to loose their balance, so don't suddenly remove your hand if it's the hand you're using to support your ig(!)

socialization is, to every responsible keeper, a key methodology in keeping your ig healthy, happy and well balanced, as igs are very prone to stress related diseases.

eating her sawi time!
(sawi = mustard/collard greens)

IggySingh gets fresh food e-v-e-r-y-d-a-y. i typically shop twice a week for her veggies from either Isetan, the Cold Storage, or Lotus on Jalan Gasing, depending on what i need to pick up.
i totally disbelieve the school of thought that says an adult ig should be fed only once in 2 days. rather i completely support the POV that an ig should be fed daily, and that all food already put in the ig's bowl should be thrown out at the end of the day and never recycled. the utmost care has to be given to the selection of what your ig eats, plus the cleanliness of all the dishes your ig is fed from.

all green iguanas are herbivores (and play that again Sam!) and therefore should never be fed any form of animal protein.

IggySingh's diet is a mix of leafy greens, vegetables and a variety of fruit. i read somewhere once where it was suggested that your ig gets a variation of up to 5-7 different types of food daily(!) so i try. also Melissa Kaplan in her published Iguanas for Dummies, recommends that 40-45% of your ig's diet should consist of leafy greens; the other 40-45% to be vegetables; and the rest fruits (fruits should comprise the lowest portion as they do not contribute to general nutrition too much. they are good for flavor - when you ig gets bored with the healthy stuff or daily fare, fruits can re-energize the palette; and they provide additional hydration).

a day's feed for HRH IggySingh will usually encompass: in the leafy green category - sawi, big leafed Cameron Highland ones, or the smaller darker green leaves with the yellow flowers; sometimes a mix of kale or broccoli or alfalfa etc. sometimes salad leaves - like romaine as a topping to the healthy stuff, but Iggy rarely eats her salad and will move it away.

in the vegetable category - green beans either french, or long beans, snap peas or snap beans, grated pumpkin or squash (i know botanically they're regarded as fruit, but for culinary purposes they are often referred to as vegetables.. so thought i would park them in this segment). grated sweet potatoes, yams, turnips.

in the fruit category - fresh figs (very occasionally), peaches, plums, berries, melons, papayas, and bananas (occasionally; these constipate, and now almost never as Iggy doesn't touch the stuff, and in our humidity they turn black within 30 minutes of being in the bowl).

her food is prepared daily in the mornings and great strategic planning goes into the presentation of the various colors and clusters, so she gets visually appeased and is more likely to dig right in.

all food is chucked out at the end of the day, and her water and food bowls sterilized with boiling water and then washed thoroughly with normal dish-washing liquid. the sink is then further sterilized with boiling water before any people dishes are put in. i also syringe feed IggySingh 20-30mls of filtered water daily; sometimes mixed with hydrating salts.

shower time!

excellent method for keeping your ig 'potty-trained' btw and does wonders for its sheds (say what??).

well, IggySingh gets 2 showers a day; hence the opportunity for accidents as she free roams or is in her cage, is negated, and cohabiting with my parents (who visit once a month for about 10 days on average, one in her late 60s and one in his early 70s and falling in the more susceptible category) prevents the nasty potential of salmonella. also shower-pooping keeps Iggy's cage clean and free from nasty accidents in her food or water bowls, or her inadvertently dragging her tail through her poop and then through all her fake plants. IggySingh is also a princess, and will not eat if she has had an accidental poop in her cage (happens only very rarely when she is in season and is re-absorbing her eggs) so if not showered, and "forced" to then poop in her cage, she won't eat, no matter how hungry she gets, even if the poop is miles away and has dropped down to the tray underneath. Iggy is also now in the habit of waiting until you shower her so she can poop.

newbies and non-ig keepers may find all this extremely gross; but actually poop is the number 1 topic in any ig-keepers get together conversations (the texture, the different compositions, etc; and poop is the preferred terminology) but we will skip all minor poop details as the key focus is shower time. i personally find pooping IggySingh in the shower cleaner than in the tub, as she is trained to go down the 'man-hole' and no poop gets spread around the shower floor/stall. and boiling water is immediately poured down the manhole and around the shower after IggySingh is safely rinsed off, patted dry, and let go on her free-roaming adventures.

igs need plenty humidity to keep themselves moist enough to shed properly. and they shed at least once a month, and in parts (unlike a snake that sheds its entire skin in the one go). in the wild, igs have lots of trees etc to rub against to loosen shed, and lots of streams to soak and swim in. hence showers fulfill this vital role of providing the soak. and the fact is the more showers/baths your ig gets, the cleaner and healthier both ig and its environment gets, and more regular in its poops the ig gets.

IggySingh loves her showers and takes them in two distinct 'styles'. sometimes she stands up throughout, closing her eyes and just standing very still as i shower her down, moving the hose over different parts of her anatomy. sometimes she drops down onto her belly and keeps her eyes open, trapping the water around her limbs and watching the water swill around her armpits. but without fail, every time she is about to poop (often associated to me whistling at her) she stands straight up, shakes her booty around like she is trying to shake off an irritating wasp, and just goes for it. she then may wait patiently (most times she does this) for me to flush water straight down the man-hole, close it, rinse her off twice, allowing me to wash under every digit and paw, and she even lets me lift her tail up to wash off her vent. sometimes, as soon as she gets rinsed down once, she immediately gets on her back legs and climbs right up my leg to indicate "shower time is over slave, let's get going"...

here are the references for you; have fun:
for socialization/handling/taming
http://www.greenigsociety.org/handlingigs.htm
http://www.greenigsociety.org/taming.htm
http://www.triciaswaterdragon.com/igtaming.htm
http://www.triciaswaterdragon.com/taming.htm#begin

for food/feeding
http://www.greenigsociety.org/foodchart.htm
http://www.greenigsociety.org/feedingigs.htm
http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/igdiet.html
http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/pickyeaters.html

for showers/baths
http://iguanaden.org/care/bath.htm
http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/swimming.html
http://www.greenigsociety.org/cleaning.htm
http://www.greenigsociety.org/bathing.htm