Green Iguana advice on behaviour.

[surfdue]

I have a green iguana her name is Zazu and we rescued her from a flea market, we have UVB and UVA lighting and a very high tank for her to climb branches and get close (within 12 inches) of her light to bask. She is about 1.5-2 feet long and probably no more then a few months old. She will sit on her branch and bask and ill open the top of her tank which I know can seem aggresive since most predators attack from the top, and she will just look at me and tilt her head. If i go to pet her on her back she will just sit there for a second then if i continue she will throw her hands behind her back as if to try to woo me away or to stop, if i continue she will use both hands but keep her feet and body laying on the branch. Throughout this time she will look at me with not quite "the eye" but a why are you bothering me kind of look. If i pet her neck or under her chin she will rapidly shake her head at me. She won't flair her flap or anything. If we take her out she will lay on us perfectly fine and she will cuddle and we can pet her, but why does she do this or is this not normal. I have never heard of an iguana using there hands like this she seems very smart for an iguana. She even cleans up after herself, we have two food dish, one with good food, and the other empty. If a leaf is brown or on the floor she will move it to the other dish and not touch it, she also won't poop in the cage, we have to hold her above a toilet for her too poop she is too small to climb onto the toiler alone. I don't know if the previous owner tought her this stuff but she didnt do it when we first got her.

Any advice?

[Kendalle]

Baby iguana's will freeze up when scared, which could be the illusion of calmness when taking her out.

unless you have had dna testing you can't know an iguana's sex for about a year or so more.

If annoyed they will use their feet to scratch you off of them. Trust me when full grown it works.

i doubt if she likes her face messed with much. I would probably back off on that, most iguana's hate their face (top of the head where the 3rd eye is especially!!) and their tail messed with.


A good idea is to tub train your iguana, when soaking they will poo, or you can get a litter pan with water in it to poo in, most iguanas catch on quickly and will go in the water to poop naturally.

What is your set up? Iguana's don't work well in a tank for long, and by the sound of it your iguana is already to big for a vertical tank.

what are you feeding?
What are the temps?
what is the substrate?

Just to save time...

The best diet is mostly made up of dark leafy greens -collard, turnip, mustard, dandelion (Not spinach, broccoli, brusslesprouts (binds calcium), not cabbage (gasy) and definently not lettuce (iceburg is 99% water 1% nothing.) romaine is questionable, i wouldn't use it as a staple green but once and a while its not going to hurt anything.

then add some veggies, fruits, and they like white bread (treat) Mine however, has no fascination with bread, but i have heard iguana's chasing down owners with a sandwich.

Don't feed animal protein it hurts the kidneys and they die sooner.

basking temps should be 88-95 to be able to process food, and the temp should vary all the way down to about 75 degrees or so in the cool area, and can drop to about 70 at night.

They need a lot of humidity so soaking in the tub as much as possible is great, and frequent mistings are good

Don't be fooled by the calm baby iguana.. it won't last... iguana's in my experience are working to fool us 80% of the time... things like "no ma, i'm not going to run.." JUMP "ahahhahahahah" and "sshh i'm sleeping" JUMP GRABS ORANGE "mahahahaha"

They go in spirts, when young iguana's freeze up, then they get to the teen years and spaz then love you then bite you to spite you, then they mellow out, then breeding season hits and no one knows what mood they will be in. But we love them anyway.

[surfdue]

Everything you say seems to be what she has its about 3 feet tallx18inches wide and 2 feet in front. With two large branches going both ways, we constantly mist her and i gave her a 30 min soak yesterday i try to every other day. She still will not poop in the tub she will in the toilet though. For some reason she will like try to run and keeps slipping in the tub yet she dosnt normally want to get out i think she likes the temp. When i get ready to scoop her hout she comes with no problem and I dry her with a towel. She isnt frozen when we hold her she runs around and tends to sleep alot with the one eye open on her opposide side facing you..
thanks!

[Kendalle]

closing the eye closest to you is ignoring you, its not sleeping... its their annoyed look... you'll find.