Associate
Read "The Green Iguana Manual" by Phillipe de Vosjoli. Iguanas are big, big powerful lizards. The amount of power they have is quite surprising. They can hurt you. It is very important for an iguana to trust it's human so it can be handled even if it's only for the ocassional exercise and to clean it's home, which, once you're dealing with a large adult iguana, can pretty much be the size of a large closet or even a tiny bedroom. These animals are expensive. Sure, it's just a few bucks to pick up a hatchling Iguana, but think about the amount of electric you will go through heating it and giving it powerful UV light, the amount of food (a lot. Seriously) you will be feeding it daily as an adult. Vitamins and mineral supplements. Trees (yes, you will be buying small trees or tree-like structures for your green iguana's bedroom eventually).
It's a lot of effort and money and learning required for an animal that will never love you. That's an important thing to understand with reptiles. They are dumber than a bag of rocks. cool? Yes. But dumb.
If you want something cool to look at and you are into the time and money investment, go for it. They really aren't that complex to care for if you do research first.
If you want a pet that will actually entertain you, love you, miss you when you're gone, get a dog or parrot from a reliable breeder.
Having said all that, you said you can't deal with bugs, but what about conveniently frozen mice/rats? Are you aware of how easy it is to care for a snake? How inexpensive and easy they are to house? That they only eat about once a week (less in some cases)?
You can still have something big and impressive, and the odds of it hurting you are much lower, as are the costs of feeding and maintenance, and general required knowledge level. A coastal carpet python is a nice medium-large snake that is easy to care for, looks freakin awesome, and you can even ditch it for seven days and go on vacation (make sure it has a human coming by to give it fresh water. This is a 10 second job every day.) and it'll be fine.
Consider this comparison:
Iguana: weekly-purchase obscene amount of fresh fruit and veg and what not for iguana
daily- prepare obscene amount of food for iguana from the food you brought, give your iguana water
Every six months- change out UV bulbs so they are always at peak spectrum $$$
Snake: yearly: buy 48 frozen rats
Weekly: let a rat thaw out and drop it in the snake's enclosure. Change water.
That's it. Snakes use heating pads which last 10 years or more usually.
Last edited:
