Before anyone in my circle gets an iguana, they always ask me, “how much attention do iguanas need?” Some pets require a lot of attention to give proper care, if not, they will suffer a lot. After taking care of many iguanas in my life, here is the answer.
Iguanas require at least 30 minutes of attention daily. Ideally, you would want to spend at least 1 hour with your iguana every day.
Iguanas are not easy to take care of and they need quite a lot of attention from you. Without giving the attention it needs, your iguana might get very sick or develop serious aggression towards you.
Importance of Giving Attention to Iguanas
As I’ve mentioned, it is vital to give your iguana at least 30 minutes of your attention daily. There are several reasons why that is.
Bonding & Taming
Forming some sort of bond with your iguana is very important if you plan to tame it. Without forming any bond, it can be extremely difficult to start the taming process.
When there is a bond between you and your iguana, it will be a lot less aggressive towards you. Hence, this makes it much easier for you to tame your iguana.
Moreover, when your iguana has bonded with you and it’s tamed, you will have a lot of memorable moments with your iguana. In fact, your iguana will start to become more responsive and friendlier towards you.
This will make it very easy for you to handle your iguana. Other than that, the chances of an injury inflicted by your iguana will also be much lower.
Preparing Food For Your Iguana
Iguanas diets are not the most straightforward. There are many things you need to consider when preparing your iguana’s meals. It can take quite a lot of time to plan everything out, chop everything up, and put it nicely on your iguana’s bowl.
Without proper nutrition, iguanas can get very sick. You should expect to spend at least 10 minutes a day preparing meals for your iguana unless you already prepacked them.
Observing The Wellbeing of Your Iguana
It is important that you spend at least 5 to 10 minutes every day to check on your iguana. If you spot anything unusual on your iguana, you should pay closer attention since your iguana might be sick.
When you pay at least 5 to 10 minutes of attention every day just looking at your iguana, you will easily notice when something doesn’t seem right. It is much better to fix the problem early on than later.
An example of a problem your iguana might face is that it’s turning black. When Iguanas turn black, the reasons could be that it’s stressed or not getting enough heat. This is just one of the many possible scenarios.
Most changes are very obvious but if you don’t observe your iguana daily, you might miss it or think it’s normal when it’s not. In many situations, immediate action needs to be taken.
If you are not sure what to think of the change, do some research online and if needed, bring it to the vet ASAP.
6 Ways to Give Attention to Iguanas
Giving attention to your iguana is actually not hard if you know what to do. Daily attention is important if you don’t want your iguana to develop serious aggression towards you. Here are 6 ways to give attention to your iguana.
1. Hand Feeding Food
Most iguana owners just put the food in their iguana’s bowl and chuck it into the cage but that’s not a good practice.
Even though iguanas will eat without you feeding it to them, hand feeding is a fantastic way to give your iguana some needed attention. In fact, this is one of the best ways to bond with your iguana.
I know it can take 10 to 15 minutes to feed a whole bowl of salad to your iguana but trust me, it will be worth it in the long term.
If you really can’t spend so much time feeding all the vegetables by hand, just do it for the first few pieces. It is still better than just chucking the bowl into the cage without giving your iguana any attention.
Iguanas love food and when you constantly feed your iguana by hand, it will start to associate the thing (food) it likes with you. This will give you a huge advantage when it comes to taming.
2. Treat Your Iguana
You should treat your iguana every once in a while with food that you don’t usually give. Treats can include things such as fruits and flowers.
When letting your iguana free roam around the house, you can hold up some of these treats and feed it to your iguana. You can mix these with your iguana’s meal but I like to separate them. This way, I can feed them to my iguana when it’s free-roaming.
The new food or flavor will keep your iguana interested in eating. Moreover, your iguana will also get excited whenever you come near because there is a chance of a treat that it likes.
3. Talk To Your Iguana
Another great way to give attention to your iguana is to talk to it. Unlike dogs, iguanas might not understand what you are saying to them but it will get them to notice your voice.
Iguanas are especially fond of the things that are used to rather than something new. If you keep talking to your iguana, it will slowly recognize and grow fond of your voice.
I personally spend at least 15 minutes every day talking to my iguana and it works very well when it comes to forming a bond.
4. Give Your Iguana A Name
You should also give your iguana a name. Believe it or not, iguanas actually know their names. When you are talking to your iguana every day, try to call its name over and over every time you say something.
Once your iguana knows its name, it will come over to you when you call it. This will form a very strong bond between the two of you and every time you call it, your iguana will know that you want to give it some attention. They will grow to love it.
5. Touch Your Iguana
Letting your iguana get used to your touch is very important when it comes to taming and showing that you are giving it your attention. Touching your iguana constantly will get it used to have contact with you.
At first, it can be hard to touch some iguanas because of their aggression, so start slow. If it’s a new iguana, try to put your hand near it and see how it reacts.
Once your iguana is comfortable with your touch, you can have your iguana sitting next to you while petting it. You can do this while watching TV or simply just relaxing. This will make it much easier to spend time and give attention to your iguana without much work.
6. Do Some Activities with Your Iguana
One of my favorite ways to give attention and spend time with my iguana is to do some activities with it. Even though iguanas are lazy animals, there are some activities that they absolutely love.
These activities include going out for a walk in the park or going for a swim. However, there is one catch to this… if your iguana is not tamed, it can be very hard to bring it outside as it won’t allow you to put a leash on.
If your iggy is tamed and allows for a leash around it, then this is a fantastic way to give attention to your iguana.
Do Iguanas Like Attention?
Every iguana is different and some will like attention more than others. Moreover, it also depends on how much bond you have with it.
At first, most iguanas don’t really care about the attention it gets since it doesn’t know who you are. However, when the bond between you and your iguana gets stronger, they will start to love the attention and can even get jealous easily.
Iguanas showing jealousy is especially obvious if you have another pet in your household. By showing any sort of love to your other pet, there is a chance your iguana might attack it if both of them are free-roaming.
Do not try this because iguanas can be very dangerous. Iguanas are quite powerful animals and can cause some serious injuries when they are angry or jealous.
Conclusion
To conclude, iguanas need at least 30 minutes of daily attention, ideally at least an hour a day. Giving attention to your iguana is important if you want to bond with it or see it grow up healthily.
Without giving your iguana proper attention, it can develop some serious aggression towards you. There are many ways you can give your iguana attention, just pick a few from above that you like and go with them.
Lastly, most iguanas that have some sort of bond with their owners will love and crave their attention.
