Pet an iguana will be thing that still rare in our society. Not every people love reptile to being pet at home. But some people try something new which is uniquely different from mostly people. If you are beginner who pet an iguana for the first time, you may feel confuse how to take care them especially when they come to marriage period, right?
Before we talk about the eggs, we better talk about their marriage period first. Iguana usually entered their marriage period in August. They are just marriage for once per a year. After that one or two months later the female will lay eggs. The hatching will be lately in January. Once hatching, the female iguana able to produce 25 – 40 eggs with life expectancy up to 80%.
Every hatching, the female iguana will produce 1-2 the most quality baby which green pastel or light green colored and the lips looks like using a lipstick while if we sell it in trade market, the price will be 3 times higher. In their life cycle, the female just married once per year, but the male will married for twice or three times.
The one thing that gives impact to their egg is also by their food. The food is also support the fertile process inside their body. So it is matter for you to give them best food to makes the produce high-quality baby. When they have beautiful baby, you are also feel happy, right?
And so, after marriage and your iguana pregnant what will you do? How to take their eggs until it wrecks up perfectly? What’s something that i better do to help my iguana? So here is for you 2 steps to take care of iguana eggs.
The step
Basically there is two way to take care of iguana eggs, the conventional ways and modern. If you want to use modern ways, you need to buy the machine to lay eggs out. This is so pricey and usually used by iguana farmer. The iguana farmer usually take care of 2-3 time more egg because once iguana married period, he put one male and three female iguana. If a female iguana can produce 25-40 eggs, how about make it 3 times more? So much eggs, right? So using incubator machine will be more effective because he cares much of eggs. If you don’t have any purpose to have iguana livestock, you can use the conventional. Besides the price is lower, the way is also easy and you can do it by yourself. Here we go:
- Make some hiding boxes under their cage
When female iguana pregnant, there is no symptom that appeared clearly. All you know that the female is getting bigger time by time. You just know that she is pregnant while you touch her tummy or the side under her body. After make sure that she is really pregnant, make some hiding box or hiding area. So this is the advantage while you give your iguana the really big cage. Beside they are using it as movement area some point in their cage is used for hiding or placing their egg. In their wild life, iguana will hide their egg in a hole. Because female iguana can produce for 25-40 eggs, she shares it in some place in the cage.
You can put a box under their cage and adding some sand on it. It used by iguana to buries her egg. If their base cage is already full of poop and pee tank, you can put it somewhere in the cage as long as it is inside the cage. You need to introduce this box over iguana in order to make her want to put her eggs on it. So you better directly make this box after you know that your iguana is pregnant. It will help iguana mom trust and want to place the eggs. If you found your iguana can’t walk or moves during pregnancy time, put her to vets to some injection.
- Incubator
After iguana mom put her egg in hiding box, move it into incubator. During egg movement, don’t forget to use latex gloves to keep you hand clean because the eggs are so sensitive with bacteria however you wash your hands for thousand times. When you take their eggs, you must be careful because iguana mom will turning into more aggressive when see something threat her eggs. This process may cause little stress for her so be careful. You can use the back of spoon to lift it. After that, put the eggs into incubator in the same position. To make low budget incubator, put a plastic box which covered by plastic too. The cover functions to manage the humidity inside the tank.
You better open the cover for around 3 minutes a day to reduce the humidity. Add some vermiculite mixed with water in the same volume. The vermiculite must be saturated and dry. Add some warm water and don’t forget to add warmer water. Keep the temperature stay on 86-87 F. Because you need to make sure the temperature is stable, don’t forget to always put thermometer in the place which easy to seen. The incubation period will take for 90 days. During this time, don’t forget to monitor the eggs every day. Normally, some of 25-40 eggs that produced by iguana mom, not 100% crack out perfectly. Some eggs will be moldy and died. But every surprise come with make a sign, if you want to keep them up, just move it into different incubator. Don’t forget to always use new latex glove in every new movement.
Some tips
- Don’t need to hurry separate male and female iguana after they are married.
The sides who incubate those eggs are iguana papa. Even you have your own incubator, separate them after you know the mama is hatching is not right to do. In their wild life, male iguana will incubate the egg naturally using their body warmth. Incubate time will takes 90 days, it is not a problem to let her father incubate their child for 1-2 days before takes them into artificial incubator, right? Don’t forget to make their life is same as their wild life.
- Using commercial incubator
As long as it is warm which needed by the eggs, you can go ahead with it. Some ways above for people who don’t have any budget or place to put incubator at home. Usually commercial incubator which sells and easy to meet is for poultry and bird. If you decided to use this tool, well it is not far while using your own incubator.
- Keep your hands
Some people may unconsciously touch the eggs while didn’t wear gloves. That’s not right thing and don’t try to repeat it after you read this. Those eggs are weak especially with bacteria. However you wash your hand that’s not clean enough to touch the eggs. So be careful with hygiene.