Another product is the so-called bottom heating pad, which is a self-adhesive thin pad used under the feeding box. This product is suitable for small lizards. Because of their size, these lizards don't need to change their feeding environment during their growth, but for green iguanas, it is meaningless to use this product. In addition, the heating pad is not easy to take off from the glass tank, and it is easy to cause danger if it is taken off and used in a new feeding box.
Choose a suitable substrate that is safe and easy to clean for green iguanas. Trimmed artificial grass, mats or carpets, paper wrapped in meat (or mahjong paper), or thick napkins will do. If you use artificial grass or carpet, please prepare more than two substitutes during cleaning. It must be completely dried before reuse. Be sure to trim too rough or rough parts and exposed threads. Don't use newspapers, because ink will adsorb on the skin, and the invisible poisonous gas will slowly affect your green iguana after evaporation. Do not use walnut or corn ears, cat litter, sawdust, gravel, sand, stones, bark, "lizard sand", "lizard skin" or any granular objects as the substrate. No matter how much time you spend taking care of your green iguanas (remember, you can't watch them all the time), they will eventually eat these substrates intentionally or unintentionally. These things will scratch the intestines when they pass through ~ if they pass through smoothly. Often these things get stuck in the intestine and cause contraction, so the green iguana stops eating and cannot defecate; Food residues accumulate in the digestive system, which makes food corrupt and leads to bacterial infection or intestinal gas. At this time, the green iguana will dehydrate because it tries to move a lot of debris in its body. If the blockage cannot be discharged in time, the green iguana will die. Animal doctors take out various substrates from the intestines of green iguanas, such as velvet edges of blankets, thumbtacks, coins, balloons, even condoms, silk underwear, or human, dog and cat hair. In short, it is repeatedly emphasized here that you should not use granular objects as the base, and you should not put things that you are worried about your child accidentally touching in the living environment of green iguanas. Green iguanas, like human children, are interested in the novelty they see, which can easily lead them to lick these things at last.
So why do pet dealers keep selling these goods that will cause harm to small animals? This is because most owners don't complain. I know that some owners of green iguanas will raise their pets to death or make them suffer severe torture, and finally they must seek surgical methods to remove foreign bodies from their intestines. Even if they complain a lot, no one wants to pick up a pen and paper and write a letter to a pet dealer or shop. Therefore, if you buy items or foods that claim to be helpful to your pet and use them according to the instructions, but find that your pet is injured or even killed, please be sure to write to the merchant. If you don't do this, it will only lead to more small animals dying in the future. The only safe granular matrix has its disadvantages. Pelleted alfalfa can be used as substrate because it is edible. But if you eat too much dry substrate in your stomach, it will also cause the accumulation of excrement and the damage of intestinal wall. In addition, the substrate wetted by food, water and urine is also prone to mildew or bacteria. If you choose this kind of substrate, please thoroughly clean the wet substrate and do a good job of disinfection to avoid polluting the substrate and hurting your pet.
My personal preference is to use substrates that are easy to clean and disinfect. When the environment is set, your green iguanas don't like crawling on the ground very much, because most of them will climb down to feed, drink or urinate (unless they point their cloacal mouths at the ground from above). In the glass feeding box, you can use thick napkins, flannel, linen or paper (or mahjong paper) for wrapping meat. Personally, I suggest adding a layer of linoleum to the bottom of the wooden feeding box first. You can buy self-adhesive tarpaulins with beautiful colors and reasonable prices in building materials or tile stores, or you can go to building materials stores or floor construction operators to get their remaining large tarpaulins at a cheap price. The advantage of using tarpaulin is that it can bend the right angle part of the edge, so that dirt is not easy to accumulate in the seam, which is convenient for your cleaning and disinfection work, and the splashed water will not be directly sucked into the wooden feeding box wall.
Green iguanas like climbing, so it is suggested to provide one or more branches, ropes or towels for them to climb or receive warm sources. Please make sure to repair these things in case your green iguana falls. There is no way to install shelves or fix climbing branches, which is also the main disadvantage of glass culture boxes.
Green iguanas like to rest their heads on other things when they sleep. In the wild, it's probably another kind of green iguana. In the environment of artificial breeding, it is a softer item. Many owners of green iguanas find that their pets like to sleep with pillows on socks rolled into balls or towels rolled or folded. Free-range green iguanas will look for comfortable sofa cushions or pillows as cushions in their beds.
If your branches are obtained from the wild, you must do some treatment first to ensure that some uninvited guests will not be brought into your breeding environment. Branches are easy to hide small animals such as insects, wood borers and spiders, and you don't want these things to hatch in your feeding box. If the branches are not big enough to be stuffed into the oven, clean the dirt and loose bark on the surface, bake them at 200-250 F (94- 120 C) for 2-3 hours, and then let them cool naturally. If the oven is not big enough, soak the branches in bleaching water solution (the concentration is [1/2 cups] bleaching water per gallon118 ml] for 24 hours. Then carefully remove the bucket of water and soak it in clear water for another day. Please expose yourself to the sun for 2-3 days before using it again.
Green iguanas, especially those from infancy to maturity, feel particularly safe when they are high. You can expect green iguanas to spend most of their time in the highest place and make sure it is a truly safe and warm place.
sunlight
In order to provide the benefits of sunlight, some special lighting equipment is necessary. For example, Vita-LiteR from Duro -Test, Iguana LightR from ZooMed or Repti-LightR from Repti, or other products. No matter what the product is, it must provide ultraviolet UVB (wavelength in the range of 290-320 nm) and have a color rendering index (CRI) of at least 90.
Please note: the product marked "full spectrum" does not mean that the product can provide enough UVB, and it may even be impossible to manufacture UVB at all! UVB fluorescent lamp has a subtle positive effect on the behavior of green iguana. UVB must be combined with vitamin D3 to have an effect, and vitamin D3 itself contributes to calcium metabolism. Fluorescent lamps of ornamental fish or landscape tanks will not emit the wavelength required by reptiles. White light bulbs, including lamps containing neodymium and other reptiles, will not generate enough ultraviolet rays when heated or heated, and should only be used to provide heat sources. In the pet industry, there is no so-called legal provision to regulate the authenticity of advertising content. Therefore, this industry is full of fraud, which indirectly leads to endless crawler transactions in the long run.
In order to be effective, these lights should not be more than 18 inch from the green iguana, and the distance between 12- 15 inch is better. Please make sure that the lamp group is firmly fixed above the feeding place, and don't let the green iguana climb up. A one-year-old green iguana is enough to destroy the lamp tube, or it may fall down and let the glass fragments fall everywhere. You can cut a piece of net cotton or something (? Where to? Inches) to plug the edge of the lamp. If your green iguana keeps drilling into the lamp, then your ambient temperature may be too low.
UVB lights should be kept on 12 hours and off 12 hours throughout the year. You can make everything simple by installing a timer. It can be opened from 6: 00 a.m. to 6: 00 p.m. If you want to get along with your pet when it is in better spirits, you can adjust the time back to 7: 30 to match your commuting time. The exposure period in winter is the same, so as to ensure that the green iguana can get enough ultraviolet rays to match the absorption of D3. If your green iguana can get regular sunlight at other times, the illumination time in winter can be reduced to nine to ten hours.
It is not that the UVB tube can still be lit, but that it will produce effective UVB rays. On the contrary, the ability to produce UVB was lost long before the lamp was completely damaged. Therefore, when there are signs of blackening on both sides of the lamp, or after nine to twelve months of use, the lamp should be replaced. Some very cautious car owners will change the lights regularly every six months, but there is no actual data to prove the necessity of doing so.
The conclusion is that many owners will eventually agree that UVB light source is indeed one of the most complicated and difficult parts of raising green iguanas, and it is also the subject that is most likely to get negative information or be misled except diet. Please take a moment to go to the sunshine section of my green iguana breeding website to get more information.
hot
The growth rate of green iguanas depends on the following three factors: temperature, activity and food. The higher the temperature (of course, it is too high if it exceeds 95 F/35 C), the more vigorous their activities are. In addition, the metabolism in the body will also operate normally, which will help the normal digestion of food. This situation is like other wild relatives, eating every day (with few exceptions). Green iguanas will eat less and move less when the temperature is lower than the appropriate temperature, and they will be stressed because of improper external environment, which may be the root cause of disease or nutritional imbalance. All reptiles have a suitable temperature range for their growth. This range refers to the maximum low temperature and maximum high temperature that reptiles can tolerate in order to maintain normal body function. In some cases, you may temporarily let the ambient temperature exceed or fall below this range, but long-term improper temperature management will eventually lead to serious health problems. Because most reptiles can still move normally for a period of time in an unsuitable environment, many people don't believe that their feeding methods are harmful to green iguanas, and these adverse side effects take a long time to show. It is worth reminding that the owner must provide an independent environment for the green iguana. Regardless of the ambient temperature or outdoor temperature, this independent environment should maintain a temperature range suitable for green iguanas for many years, and there should also be a relative temperature difference between day and night.
Although green iguanas are tropical animals, they are often kept in captivity at below-average temperatures, or even below 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26-27 degrees Celsius). In order to effectively stimulate appetite and digestion, green iguanas must spend 12 hours a day receiving 88-95 F (31-35 C) of thermal radiation. Other parts of the feeding box must have the function of temperature difference, that is, there are hot and cold areas. For green iguanas, the high and low temperature area in the daytime can be from 76-88 F (24-31C), and the heat accumulation area at night can be reduced to 84 F (28.8 C). Adult green iguanas (18 months old, with a snout length of at least 9 inches) can tolerate the low temperature of 70 F (22 C) at night, while young green iguanas cannot be lower than 73 F (23 C). If the temperature is right at night, young green iguanas will get up in the middle of the night, eat more and then go back to sleep. This not only provides more exercise opportunities, but also increases the food intake of green iguanas. In this way, the extra heat can also make up for the heat consumption caused by the inadaptability to the new environment and tension.
Equipment that should be avoided
In the wild, green iguanas rely on sunlight to keep warm: tropical sunlight warms the air. When green iguanas rest among branches, they keep warm under the heat source that can be seen everywhere in the environment. They will feel warmer when they expose their bodies to the sun. And when they move to the shadow, the body will cool down. This activity is called temperature regulation, which means that all reptiles regulate their internal and external temperatures.
Although the advertisement says that green iguanas like to use heated stones or "branches" to keep warm, these products are not suitable for your green iguanas. Whether their products are really suitable for green iguanas or not, manufacturers of heating stones always put the green iguanas logo in the advertisements of their products in order to catch up with the green iguanas craze. The heating stone only generates heat source for its body and objects close to the heating stone, and has no heating effect on adjacent objects. It often happens that its internal temperature regulator is damaged, which leads to serious burns and even death of green iguanas. This includes all the "new products" and "improved products" that constantly appear in the market. My question is: If the previous products were all "brand-new and improved", why is there a new version of "brand-new and improved" design every year? )
Many owners of green iguanas insist that their pets "like" heated stones. In fact, the temperature of the rest of the green iguana breeding environment is only about 80 F (26.6 C), which is several degrees lower than the temperature that the green iguana needs to digest, but the owner did not notice this, and most people listened to the pet shop owner. Of course, pet shops and manufacturers like it very much, because once you buy their products and use them, you can't return them. Even in fact, reptilians and general literature have emphasized it for several years, warning owners not to use heating stones (Mattison, 1987, Frye, 199 1, de Vosjoli, 1992) on green iguanas or any animals whose body temperature is obtained by thermal radiation.
As far as I know, there are few records of burning caused by heating branches, but because it has no warming effect on the overall environment, it cannot provide the environment needed by green iguanas. On the other hand, this product is usually not cheap, and green iguanas will soon make the product insufficient under proper feeding.
Another product is the so-called bottom heating pad, which is a self-adhesive thin pad used under the feeding box. This product is suitable for small lizards. Because of their size, these lizards don't need to change their feeding environment during their growth, but for green iguanas, it is meaningless to use this product. In addition, the heating pad is not easy to take off from the glass tank, and it is easy to cause danger if it is taken off and used in a new feeding box.
Effective heat source
Green iguanas live in warm to hot climates and have good adaptability to warm mats specially designed for human beings. Put a warm pad to cover half of the bottom of a small food box, or put it under the hot zone of a large food box. In warm summer, this may be enough for your green iguana. Of course, a thermometer is still necessary.
Daytime heating
Sometimes the temperature is not very warm. In these cold times, you can use ordinary white light bulbs or ceramic radiators to raise the temperature during the day. Now there are more and more daytime heating lamps used by reptiles on the market, but they are far less than ordinary incandescent light bulbs. Some reptiles' light bulbs are coated with paint to reduce the production of visible light. Although they change the visual effect of reptiles on the appearance of the environment, compared with ordinary light bulbs, these light bulbs will not bring additional benefits to the health of your reptiles. Since there are so many irreplaceable equipment and supplies (such as UVB lamps), why spend money on some irreplaceable products?
UVB tube doesn't generate much heat, so don't expect it to provide an effective heat source for your green iguana.
Night heating
You can also use incandescent bulbs to heat up at night, but please don't use white light sources. If you use white light all day, all animals will feel stressed, including your green iguana. Long-term stress can lead to illness and reduce appetite and activity. So what do you want to use? The simplest one is colored light bulbs, which can be bought in any hardware store, building materials store or lighting store. Blue and dark green lamps are most suitable, because they can generate the same wattage heat source and only emit weak light. Another option is to use special night light bulbs for reptiles. The blue light they emit will not disturb reptiles that walk in the daytime or not, nor will it affect humans who walk in the daytime ~ if you are in a room with your pet.
Ceramic radiator
Ceramic radiator uses infrared radiation to generate heat source, but does not generate visible light (so it is not easy to see whether the power supply is on or off by light). They are very useful for small feeding environments, because the reflection of infrared rays will eventually raise the temperature of the feeding box, resulting in a temperature difference effect. In a large-scale feeding environment, they are only suitable for providing hot spot temperatures. They can also be used in hot spots in outdoor breeding environments.
The temperature of ceramic radiator is so high that it can melt the plastic lamp cap commonly used in incandescent bulbs. If you want to use a ceramic radiator, please remember to use a ceramic lamp holder.
temperature regulation
If the temperature is too high, a lamp or radiator can be connected in series to the photometer. The luminosity adjuster can be used to adjust the required luminosity, and then control the heat.
In winter, indoor heaters with safe heating range can be used to control the temperature (the model with automatic closing device is recommended). For example, there is a closed oil stove, which is very safe, economical and stable. It looks like a radiator. You can adjust the output power to 600- 1500 watts, so it will run slowly and will not overheat easily. In a closed space, these devices can easily adjust the temperature to 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very convenient for you who want to provide a suitable temperature for green iguanas.
Three-dimensional thinking
One key factor is often overlooked by owners: green iguanas live in three-dimensional space, so the temperature difference provided should also be three-dimensional. One is that the left and right, front and back temperature distribution is two-dimensional, and the other is the temperature difference adjustment from top to bottom. Because green iguanas like to keep warm at high places, the heat gathering area should be set at the top of the warm area in the breeding box. The heat source will gradually decay in the process of downward scattering. In order to prevent the ground in warm areas from getting too cold, you can add a bottom heater or additional lamps and ceramic radiators.