Hydration +Humidity | natural-iguana

How I maintain my own iguanas.

Spraying for humidity and direct oral drinks.

I spray my tropical lizards (iguanas) with warm water once to three times a day depending on the time of year and enclosure design. 2L spray bottle filled twice totalling 4L of water will enter in my really large enclosures daily. (The reason I use warm water to spray is because tropical rain water can be quite tepid. I fill my spray bottle up with ¾ hot water and ¼ cool, as by the time the air pressure has worked on the water it comes out quite cool. (at least on the first spray) I make the second spray down a little cooler) as the second spray is more for the animal to drink from. (see videos)

I soak everything down, the substrate (bark and soil), the logs and branches, the fake plants,
(the more cage decor there is) the more water volume will be retained and be able to enter the air creating a nice relative humidity. Also sprayed are shelves, the backing on the walls, the ceiling while I am being careful to not touch any electrics with the water (away from the bulbs!) and of course the iguanas themselves who appear to appreciate it!.(using warm water also means you are not going to shock the nerves after they have been basking or interfere much with a too cool drop in air temperature. This is how the humidity will be managed, although some owners prefer misting systems. I prefer to have more control but misting systems can work very well all the same. The humidity on the hygrometer gauge will accelerate to 80-90% after a heavy spray down. + before dropping throughout the day to a more moderate 50-60% reading.

What you need!

Spray bottle.

Digital Hygrometer.

I also prefer using substrates because it aids in evotranspiration, that just means the sum of evaporation and surface transpiration from the surface to the atmosphere. Evaporation accounts for the movement of water to the air from sources such as the soil, canopy interception, and water bodies. when my iguanas shed the skin lifts off. (please see subsection (choosing a substrate)

How a well hydrated iguana is supposed to shed.

It is important to also make sure that there is adequate air flow going through the enclosure too. This is to prevent too much mold and fungi building up from stagnant air. However you don't want the enclosure to be too ventilated as humidity will become more problematic to maintain.

Soaking food.

I will soak the food before feeding it in water (sometimes overnight) and sometimes just spray if I haven't had much time.
Dense foliage in there natural habitats will collect small pools of water, or droplets from the regular rainfall. I Also observed I could stimulate my iguanas to drink and eat some more in the big outdoor enclosure on warm summer days by spraying with the hose pipe onto the live plants outdoors.

Oral drinking from the spray bottle.

You can also entice them to drink water directly from the spray bottle, they are much more interested in moving water.
It may take some time for an iguana to get used to it, but what I often find is if you spray water directly, at there mouth.
They will drink right from the moving water source. (please see videos) When spraying for drinking make sure the water is "cooler" tha the sprays of the enclosures. Spray bottle drinking can also be used as a "tool" during the "taming and conditioning process if routined and becomes another way of interacting with our scaley companions.

Iguanas i the wild will drink water droplets which have collected on vegetation and drink from rivlets as they run down tree branches. Spray bottle drinkig and spraying can "mock" "mimic" this.

Always provide a pan of fresh clean drinking water even if they do ot appear to drink from it.

All animals in my opinion should have fresh clean drinking water. Many iguanas will use there water containers as a toilet so water should be changed regularly. The container should be big enough for the iguana to fully submerge in. At current my biggest iguanaswater container is the bottom of a gunie pigs cage. For smaller specimens containers such as cat litter trays or large deep rubs can serve the purpose.

Shaun my iguana never drinks from the water container?

I have never seen my iguanas drink from standing water either which I find an interesting concept.
It may be that due to the way there vision being tetachromats (capable of seeing 99 million more colors than we can from the blue end of the UV spectrum)
UVA and the like, that there vision is just so sensitive our captive lighting isn't stimulating the same visible light frequency they have evolved to use.
If you think about it, light is everywhere in the wild.
Puddles and pools will ripple from breezes and other wild life acitivity while the water reflects the surroundings.
It makes sense this would stimulate wild animals to drink.

I once seen a video I beleive on youtube that explained this. I can not recall what it was called but it was a user called mr Binty
(wonderful iguana rescuer and rehabber) and gave an idea of what iguanas might be seeing indoors. It was scary.
This is one reason I am looking forward to seeing how my big boy will respond to the water feature system I have planned for his enclosure with a pond.
If the water is moving, I beleive it will stimulate more "in choice drinking activity"
However I have not seen this yet.
Maybe try a little experiment with a small water pump? I noticed my young iguanas became more active around the moving water source when I had them.

Fogger to assist humidity.

When my iguanas fall into a shed period which is evidenced (when they begin to look a little duller)
I spray them down heavily as normal, provide the oral drinks but I will also switch the fogger on after the spray so that the atmospheric humidity, will not drop for a period. can sit in the denser humidity for longer. Naturally I suspect they will go to the lower levels of dense foilage during these times to maintain osmosis, blood chemistry, regulating temps, UV and micro climate humidity while hiding from potential predators. (camouflage) when irritable and vulnerible from predators (birds etc) so you may find a more defensive behavior from your iguana at this time. Therefore I advise when shedding to give additional attention to humidity. I allow the humidity to sit around 80%for an hour or two daily.

Bathing and showers.

Baths aren't a bad idea either, nor are showers (my iguanas seem prefer the shower), However this is not a reliable form of hydration aloe like some suggest. Please see below in dehydration. They can be used as "tools" to assist with over-all hydration maintenance but they should not be used as the sole source of it.

I seen this footage of a wild iguana swimming the other day (amazing)
https://www.facebook.com/underwaterv...5390722538099/
It isn't just using one or two methods, it is using a combination of everything to come together to yeild a better and more complete hydratio result.

DEHYDRATION! IS A LEADING KILLER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a very difficult one for me to write up as it brought back so many bad memories with some of the rescues I have had , Though I am putting it out there in the hopes explanations may help prevent even just one more suffering this way.

Why is dehydration still a common issue despite the information so freely available around today? weask.

Everyone can agree that life needs water? So let's at least begin there.

No living organism has ever proven otherwise to date that it can live without water.

The two things are usually prevalent in poorly reptiles submitted to vet clinic are.

Dehydration.
Malnourishment.

In my rescue experience it is a guarantee to be one of the things I have consistently had to try and help iguanas/water dragons/ basilisks and a few other tropical animals with so I am hoping this helps clarify some of the common misconceptions, and to help owners understand why all of the above are required.

What causes dehydration?

(H2o) water is vital to all life on Earth.? Water acts as both a solvent and a delivery mechanism, dissolving essential vitamins and nutrients from food and delivering them to cells. Quite simply dehydration occurs when the body looses more fluid than is taken in. In humans water makes up around 2/3 of the body, the same principle is true for just about most other life forms on the planet. .

It is critically important to understand what the animal is we are keeping (in this instance Green Iguanas), what there natural habitat is like, and how it exploits that environment to make use of liquid water.

75-90% of your animal is water in weight, just like we are.

A tropical animal like the green iguana lives in a variety of forest land habitats, but all such habitats are capable of maintaining humidity, they naturally live along the tropical rain belt, and for half of the year will be subject to heavy rainfall, this is known as the wet season and for the other half (dry season) In the wet season there habitat can be overwhelmingly humid, so humid it can be very uncomfortable to humans. the dry season humidity usually sits around a moderate reading, which is still relatively high, but not as high as the other half of the year.

When applying humidity to the captive environment It is important to have a good quality digital hygrometer to be able to monitor what the humidity levels are inside of the enclosure. Without a hygrometer you are just guessing. Try and avoid the dial manufactured types, as I understand it the readings are not altogether reliable.

What are the problems?
Humidity is important to maintain for a few reasons, the main reason being however is that what-ever fluids go into your iguana, it also needs to be able to maintain those hydration levels. If they are in a dry atmosphere the risk of dehydration is greater.

This is one reason I would strongly discourage owners from taking the easy and convenient way out and letting them free roam around the home instead of a purpose built enclosure design where there requirements can be better controlled and maintained.

It is also one reason I am not a huge fan (personally) of mesh types enclosure.

Free roam
Iguanas as a rule are not the easiest animals to accommodate and I suspect this is where the idea stemmed from further perpetuation with the stigma they make great shoulder pets "my mate barry used to have one who loved his chin tickles and pizza while laying on the back of the sofa, seems easy enough! (FORGET THAT IMMEDIATELY! have no doubt that SOME free-roamers, may work for some owners, however it isn't going to work for the majority of individuals unfortunately. Reptiles require an environment that can support there physiological and biological requirements. This isn't your home.

These systems are to include high tropical temperatures not just basking zones, but suitable ambient temperatures. High levels of UVB , across a gradient.If a thriving flourishing iguana with long lifeis the aim we must provide them a proper living space. I suspect another reason the appeal ofa free roaming iguanas is appealing to some owners also because we as humans tend to apply abstract thoughts to their behaviors with our big human brains which causes us to presume them to be almost mammal like in nature (untrue) Anathromophizing) but in order to achieve there requirements, serious adjustments to your living spaces would need to be made also and for the majority of owners it just isn't going to be reasonable or comfortable. It would cost more time effort, and damage to do this to our homes than it would for a box type sealed enclosure to maintain this requirement. If your comfortable with that then it's your call but do it properly! There are of course other down-falls to free roaming iguanas on the assumption all of this is provided, adult males for example may eventually begin to see that living space as there own and thus can begin to make life difficult for you. It would cost a lot more money to maintain this kind of environment/ possibly your safety and a lot of patience and dedication than it would be to have a safe/secure, environment that the animal can call its own. It also puts your pets health in great jeopardy.

Open ventelated enclosures

Iguanas being housed long term in what can only be described as “bird cages” is not suitable housing regardless of what the pet store has told you, they fall short of the ability to control suitable ambient temperatures (unless you live in a warm climate), they generally do fall short of size for the majority of iguanas also for long term housing, and the most crucial point being that you can not provide correct levels of humidity in them, I have yet to see one sufficiently surfaced or decored either. even if you do live in there native environments, there are many things in nature that animals will select by choice, and intercept through micro climates that will be extremely difficult to replicate in these settings and in my experience this kind of husbandry altogether leads to dehydration factors in the end too. Mesh enclosures are only useful for outdoor sunning IMO.

Why do they need humidity Can you explain?

When iguanas drink orally from other sources in the wild, whether this be shallow puddles or pools, there food or rivlets running down branches during heavy rainfall. (most often all three) they are taking in sufficient hydration. However, they require the humid air to maintain those hydration levels. If they are hydrated, but otherwise exposed to a drier atmosphere for long periods of time, as they breathe, they exhail, (water molecules will leave there body) and as they inhail, they are not taking any water molecules back in. The best example of this is to think of your breath on a cold winter morning. You exhail, and you see your breath, within 10-20 minutes you are thirsty, are you dehydrated? Visually no, and the same principle is true for iguannas. However, long term exposure (sometimes over the period of years) can have effects on these animals. This is called long term low level hydration. The only difference from individual to individual is what is effected and when.

The fact so many of these animals are struggling to shed IMO should be took as an early warning sign owners should ivestigate. None of my iguanas shed in dribs and drabs.

But I bath him/her?

My vet advised me to bath him as they drink through there vents?

The lower, or external sphincter, is a voluntary muscle group, while the upper sphincter is involuntary. Wastes are passed into the cloaca, where some water will be reabsorbed based on the hydration levels of the lizard. The rest will be excreted as uric acid and other wastes.
This is a fairly clever adaptation for conserving water, and a carefully balanced one based on colloidal osmotic action. This is a careful balance of salts and plasma proteins which draw water back into the body through osmosis so that none is wasted.
Beyond this, there is the lack of evidence to support that any water is taken into the cloaca and absorbed from a bath anyway. The absorption of water from the wastes is a slow process. In those lizards studied, absorption rates from wastes were about 7-8 ml per kg of animal per hour If you take into consideration that say a green iguana weighs between 4-6kg the average bath lasts 1/4 of an hour or so, youre talking generously about 8-10 of a ml, or roughly eighteen to twenty drops of water for a green iguana.
However, this is for absorption by natural means within this careful system of osmotic pressure, which requires balanced salts and proteins. Now the question becomes does any water actually make it into the cloaca via a bath?

The answer seems to be no.

Lets be clear about this. There is no evidence at all to suggest iguanas can drink through there vents or there skin that I have seen. there is some conjecture even among vets in my own experience. I have herd differing views on this matter and seems to differ from vet to vet. Thosein support of it have usually fallen short to provide any quantifiable proof. How-ever when you dig down into it the information is generally assmed and taken and to be the same as in some species of chelonia (turtles and tortoises), there is little evidence supporting this with the green iguana but plenty of evidence to suggest the opposite in lizard species in general. In-fact back in 2016 the reptile doc on facebook posted an experiment with a bearded dragon where he tested whether any fluids would be absorbed through the vent with blue dye, and then he monitored the situation, there was no evidence for such. Similar experiment has been done on other species of lizard by a great guy named Dr Wade Sherbrooke. by dying water and dousing or bathing the various areas of their bodies. He was then able to determine if any water was taken in and via which ways. He found that no water was taken in through the cloaca and entered into the bloodstream, regardless of hydration levels in the lizard (Sherbrooke, 1990: Jrnl of Herp, 24:3. 302-308 ). He basically found that if water gets in, it gets in through the mouth (and sometimes in the strangest of ways). Shoemaker and Nagy (1977, Ann Rev of Phys, 39:449-471) found the same thing.

In the majority of situations, because vets see dehydration so commonly, and because most often they can not see how your keeping your animal in person (Only getting an overview of what your explaining) It makes sense that a medical pro would suggest bathing as a means to encourage hydration to help your scaley companion to recover. However, the iguana would have to drink the water orally, and then be placed into a humid living space. While bathing some specimens can stimulate some to do so, I would not call it a reliable or effective way of maintaining hydration. I would have to question the hygienic side of it too.

I am not a vet myself but I have yet to converse with a vet who will disagree a more properly controlled living space is a better and a far less risk! (happy to stand corrected however)

WARNING SIGNS!

Problem shedding Green iguanas like all reptiles shed there skins, sometimes though owners often report there iguanas are struggling to shed, there are varying methods in how to tackle these issues and they can be valuable tools in helping the owner rectify these issues (bath, shower, shed aid, a various skin oil based ointment) while these things are absolutely great "quick fix solutions" if the problem is consistent questions should be raised and husbandry investigated. It is my opinion only that problem sheds could be early signs hydration levels are low.

My hunch is the reason for this is because the fluids required to separate the old skin from the new are not present. Just because they visibly look “hydrated” doesn't always mean they are like with people. There is some misconception that a dehydrated animal is only a “wrinkled one” problem sheds in my experience are an early warning sign there hydration levels are not being maintained correctly.

In my environments my iguanas shed perfectly fine, sometimes there full bodies sheds just come away at once, I get full rows of spikes inter joined, our good friend Frankie Hutchings also gets similar shedding in his live, substrate enriched semi natural enclosures and never any problem shedding, I have never had to assist any of my iguanas after getting them better and putting them into the correct environments over a period of time. If you are sure your iguana is as hydrated as it should be, and your still hitting problems, please speak to a reptile specialist vet as another symptom of problem sheds is hyperthyroidism (goiter) and infact is one of the diagnostic factors in diagnosing it. It is another common occurrence in iguanas and a thyroid function test should be performed for your own peace of mind.

Rescue .

This was my current male iguana's spikes (thick retained) I had to use a knife to loosen these up to get them off there was a lot of shed on them that built up due to lack of adequate humidity over a long period of time.

This was a toe that fell off one of my rescues, the skin was so hard, it took me a week to loosen up all of the thick layers of unshed, as I was loosening these up with repeated baths and high humidity the toes themselves were just dropping off when I got to the bottom layers.

Photo 4 This was an emaciated dehydrated water dragon.

Photo This is a build up of unshed skin in a boa constrictor due to not providing suitable humidity or humid hide I soaked the snake for 24 hours, then placed into a moist box with moss for a further 12 hours then began helping peel off layer after layer (though this article is iguana based I felt it important to include that not only these animals suffer these problems. Common boas share the same habitat as green iguanas in the wild. I have rescued a few snakes in similar situations.

Photo 7 Iguana being syringed fluids direct in a humid enviroment with soaked food trying to entice it to eat. (note the sunken in eyes)

Owners I converse with surprisingly don't always understand the difference between hydration, and maintaining hydration which is frustratingly sad but it also isn't surprising sometimes either however what we do has very real effects on our animals and we as there owners have that responsibility to provide.

Photo 8 This is a photo of my current male Albus having kidney function test done soon after he arrived and soon after we pumped him with fluids and removed his retained shed he droped a solid orange urtate which concerned me regarding the status of his kidneys. The blood test came back explaining there was high uric acid, low calcium levels, high phosphorus counts and otherwise had minute renal damage, this is suspected to be the case due to inadequate diet and enviroment and importantly over-all hydration.

Acknowledgements. and thanks to Frankie Hutchings and Windel. For 2 photos.

And Joshua Richolt for his wonderful article regarding vent drinkig.