Do not buy an Iguana, they make bad pets

Iggy, Our Cuban Rock Iguana, Taking a Peek Outside

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I hate to do this, but I have to (read the comments below).  I would like to preface this post for those who are going to go on and misinterpret this to mean that we are suggesting that people should not have iguanas as pets at all and are up in arms.  No – the gist of this post is that iguanas can be purchased on the cheap at pet stores (such as green iguanas), causing many to treat them as throwaway pets.  Their needs are not provided for and they suffer.  Seeing a small iguana at a pet store for cheap causes some to think that their care overall will be cheap and easy.  No; it is quite the opposite.  They are big animals that need a lot of space, that will get into things so your home will need to be iguana-proofed in some way, they need special food (dark leafy greens, etc), and they need an exotic vet specialist.  Their care is in no way cheap and easy.  Please keep this in mind before buying your kid an iguana as a birthday gift (or any lizard for that matter), before making impulse decisions related to iguanas and other lizards, before giving them as raffle prices, etc…Iguanas and other lizards deserve better.

We still have our iguana who is now 25 lbs with his own room.  We love him like our child.  We were in the position to understand fully what we were getting into and have the full capability to provide for him.  We have seen other iguanas not as fortunate because they are treated like throw-away pets in many cases.

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This is my Iggie. I know. I know. Not the most creative name out there for a Cuban Rock Iguana I’m sure. There may be many Iggies like him, but this one is mine…homage to FMJ!!!

 

Spider Igs, Spider Igs! Doing what a Spider Igs does. Can he fly, no he can’t!!!

Admittedly, our Igs is a cute little bastard. Only the thing is, he is not that little. The cage that you see him in is a custom built 7X3 foot cage.  Right now we are trying to figure out how to muster up an extra grand to put our Igs into a proper size as he grows into the 30lb adult giant that he will become in the next few years.

We say this as we are 3 years into living in and owning our very own starter home.  That said we have very normal things happening in our life right now that all requires money.  Getting married, honeymoon, new fridge to go with the granite counter top we just put in, new roof, new furnace etc…etc…

Add to that our Iggie who is a destructive force all on his own.  Iguanas truly do make bad pets, they are not for the average pet owner because the average pet owner will likely not be able to handle him or tolerate his wild animal behavior. *Iguanas cannot be tamed. They are one of God’s creatures and not meant to be domesticated.  They have millions of years of evolution built into them, and being tamed by humans was not part of the programming that God or nature put into this creature.

Case in point.  We have a Martha Stewart couch and loveseat combo.  I f*****ing hate it.  When we bought our house we sold off our motorcycles (a Suzuki GSXR 750 for Ash and a Kawasaki ZR7 for me) to pay for some extra upgrades to the house including this very expensive couch set that I absolutely hated. Ash loved it since it was highly fashionable, but with that said it is the most uncoomfortable couch to sit on as compared to one of those big fluffy microfiber couches that everyone else has.

So….snicker here is Ashes couch which she loves so dearly and for which we got into a huge shouting match in the middle of the Macy’s showroom making a spectacle of ourselves.  I wanted a fluffy comfy couch she wanted this angular high style monstrosity.

That said we have to keep the couch under cover 99% of the time because things like this happen…..

Bagel and a hazelnut smear?

What you are seeing is Iggie poop.  Ash is going to be horrified that I’m showing this. But alas, I have to do this to dissuade the average person from thinking that Iguanas are good pets. You see, Iguanas in all honestly are horrible pets. They take up tons of room. They poop mounds of poop that you swore came from your bulldog and they have razor-sharp talons. I know in general that an Iguana is usually an impulse purchase not much thought goes into getting one as they cost $25 at the petshop. That said I hope that someone reads this blog and stops to think, and then decides not to buy the Iguana that they initially thought was a great idea. They take considerable amount of time, space, effort and money to keep. Its not something that most people are willing to do day in and day out for the number of years that Iguanas live for which can be 20 years or more.

Our Igs since he is so big has to have a large cage. In our starter home that means that his cage is in the living room, it also means that we keep the door open so long as we are in the room so that our Iguana has the option to roam around and stretch his legs if he wants to. This also means that we can be in the middle of watching Glee and our Iguana will casually walk someplace random take a crap, drag his giant tail through it, but then out of curiosity use his talons to climb up the couch to see what we are doing smearing his poop EVERYWHERE en route to his destination.

It’s why we keep our couch covered up.  Another thing, I’m going to ask Ash to take photos of her forearms. She’s got like the German/Irish white girl no melanin thing going on and people often ask her if she has a cat and why her arms are so cut up? And then they look at me, they look at me as if I beat Ash at home and if they don’t think that then they think that Ash is some Goth white trash Emo chick who likes to cut herself out of depression.

Here is a pic of one of my scars that came from our Iguana almost healed up which looks a lot better now than the bloody mess that it was when he first cut me.

Being tan it’s a lot harder to catch some of these images on my camera phone. The cuts and scratches will show up a lot better on Ashes skin especially since she thinks that its ok to try to cradle a Cuban Rock Iguana like a widdy baby…. But trust me his little claws are sharp.

These animals are wild.  Period. They should not be sold at big box pet stores. The same way that ferrets and chinchillas should not be sold at big box pet stores. These pets are the pet industries dirty untalked about secret.  The baby chinchillas are adorable, the tiny Iguanas are adorable and look easy to keep, the ferrets look adorable and thus the pet industry appeals to the average stupid American consumer who doesn’t think and just buys on impulse.

The pet industry doesn’t care about the animals they are a multi-billion dollar industry, they just want to make money.  Case in point are ferrets. If not another ferret was sold at a big box store and the ferret pet industry collapsed, ferrets would be better for it. These are animals that should only be sold by professional breeders.  Instead the majority of pet store ferrets comes from ABSOLUTE EVIL.  Marshall’s is the largest ferret breeder in the WORLD. They produce ferrets and de-sex them at so young of an age that their hormone regulating system doesn’t have time to develop.  The result is that up to half of all ferrets by the age of 5 develop adrenal disease.  The option then for the ferret owner is to let the ferret die a slow horrible death or invest in a treatment that costs $300 a month which involves a very expensive shot and a see through by the vet who will gouge you with a $100 checkup that he doesnt really have to do.  That’s over $3,600 a year for a ferret that costs $119 at the pet store.  This is not including the high protein food that ferrets have to eat and other supplies that Marshall’s also churns out.

Yet they keep producing them.  Because it’s a multi-billion dollar industry.  I’m no PETA person mind you. I would hunt and shoot and eat a deer in a heart beat if Ash wouldn’t make such a big deal about it. I would toss a a bunch of live lobster in boiling water to their demise if it meant that I could smother their tasty selves in some drawn butter.

I once… to my great amusement asked Ash to come with me to feed stale bread and crackers to the ducks over by the pond across the street from our house which is something that I’ve always enjoyed and that Ash appreciates as something that I like to do.

***Then later on, we went out to dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant where I ordered the crispy skinned duck fro dinner while Ash looked at me….confused, asking me if I was aware that I just fed a bunch of ducks not more than two hours ago and that I just now ordered duck for dinner.

And with that said I’m accepting of the fact that we as human beings are the alpha predators on this earth.  But also as we have a higher brain function….well at least some of us do we should also accept responsibility and take guardianship over industries involving creatures.  I’m okay with shooting a deer (even though Ash won’t let me) so long as I get to skin and eat that deer.  I’m not okay though with folks who buy Iguanas and then casually toss them when they get too big for their liking. The same goes with Burmese pythons. I see tons of ghetto people from NYC buying these huge animals as babies and then when they get too big usually around the 9 foot mark try to get rid of them in any way possible or try to trade them like playing cards.

I only say ghetto people in NYC because I’m from NYC and if you take issue with me outing a section of people who typically cannot afford to own an exotic pet you can go cry about it somewhere else.  These are the same people who I see using WIC cards and then taking their groceries and putting them in the trunk of their Cadillac Escalades for which they have the keys to.

And don’t get me wrong, you can be WASPY too and still be a piece of ghetto trash. I label the act of buying an animal and then tossing an animal when you get bored with said animal or your kid gets bored with some animal as being ghetto no different then ripping off tax payers and the system with a typical food stamp scheme while owning $70,000 SUVs with $4K chromed out 24″ rims. And no I’m not stereotyping because I have witnessed this multiple times.

Anyhow, in Bryan Christy’s awesome book “The Lizard King,”  http://thelizardkingbook.com/  You can read all about why the Iguana is so prolific in the pet trade.  And if you don’t want to read about it here’s a synopsis from a NYTimes book reviewer that will hopefully change your mind.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/books/07maslin.html  In short though, Americans have an infinitesimal affliction of having to HAVE to have something that their neighbor Joe doesn’t have and then showing off what they do have for the world to see, so that they can say hey I have something special that you don’t got….

Americans are also about making a buck on the flip side. The Iguana industry as we know it was created by Mike Van Nostrand via his legitimate business Strictly Reptiles http://strictlyreptiles.tv/  which is a wholesale distributor of exotic reptiles.  Mike I would say after reading Christy’s book which is an excellent book created the demand for Iguanas single-handedly.  Mike would say publicly that out of all the exotic pets that he deals with Iguanas will always be his bread and butter animal.

This is a double-edged sword for me. I love exotic animals. I love having my pet Iggie. i’m one of those douche bag Americans who have a genuine affliction for wanting something that someone else “don’t got”. I grew up in the ghetto even though I’m Chinese and while being from Brooklyn, have no perceivable accent that could give away my ghetto roots. That said I’m only pseudo ghetto. I drive a Rav-4. Lol. And its like that rap song lyric…”What you think i f*** rap for?  To push a Rav4?” no balla actively wants to drive a Rav4. That said its an awesome utlitarian vehicle. But I digress….

My Cuban Rock Iguana, my Cyclura Nubila of which there are less than 60,000 left living wild in Cuba as told to me by the keeper at the Blue Iguana Recovery Program  during our visit to the Cayman Islands.  And the answer is yes ( me and Ash are both nerds we actually pick our vacation spots to include geeky herp related things such as visiting the Blue Iguana recovery program when planning vacations).   http://www.blueiguana.ky/  More information here – its a must go to if you ever visit the Cayman Islands.   That said, we’re professed reptile nuts!  However most people aren’t.

So people like Mike Van Nostrand and Petco are double-edged swords. Without these “evil” entities I would not have had the opportunity to afford to buy my Iguana. He would have costed thousands if an original stock of them weren’t imported (sometimes illegally) into the US and then bred for the purpose of the pet trade.  Instead I paid $250 for him and not thousands.  And Petco or Petsmart has supplies like antifungal cage cleaner that I need to clean out my iggie’s cage and supplying me with a whole host of other supplies like cage accessories for this purported wild and exotic animal.

At the same time, we see ads on Craigslist all the time of people dumping their animals. There are more Iguana, Burmese Python (those are the big ones), ferret and chinchilla ads on Craigslist than I care to count. Most of the ads say something to the effect of “need to get rid of this animal soon.” Blah blah blah….  The keyword here is rid…like its some type of worn out trash that the person is done with like that walkman that plays cassettes that you no longer want sitting around the attic in a box, tossed out with the evening trash.

Then there are the infinitesimal number of people who do not take the time to read caresheets and information online who buy a $25 reptile and not give it the care that it requires and it dies, sometimes a slow and painful death. So with that said I hope someone out there is looking to buy a pet Iguana and has taken the time to research pet ownership has just read my blog, looked at the giant sh** stain on my expensive couch and has said to themselves “yuck! no way!” and that I have affectively dissuaded them from buying an Iguana.

For me its a wonderful pet, they live a long time and have crazy antics that amuse me and I’m okay with them crapping in random places most of the time. I even take photos of them smearing their poop on our couch to show the world and I do it with more amusement than emotion.  However I can’t say that this is what most people would do and in fact they would be rather horrified to see iguana poop all over their house that they would have to clean up themselves.  So please if you are in the market for an exotic animal do as many searches as you can before actually diving in and buying that pet. You and the animal that you thought was a keeper will be the better for it.

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17 Pets and the Morning Rush

A lot of the tree huggers out there often wonder and admittedly look at us and wonder if we are animal abusers since we have so many pets. A lot of regular folk out there wonder the same thing.  I’d like to say that maintaining the health and happiness of all these animals in captivity and in one’s own personal home I may add is a daunting task.

The short answer is we take fantastic care of our animals. I have not tallied our annual vet bill, but it does run in the thousands. Our animals get regular visits to the vet and not just when we think they are sick.  Besides this, Ash for whatever reason has a sickness radar and has been correct 9.5 out of 10 times whenever she thinks one of our pets may be sick and needed to go to the vet.

The other 0.5 time just makes me mad as it usually $150 dollars on average of money wasted. Still with those types of stats in her favor, one can’t fault her. She’s suspected and caught everything from parasites to yellow fungus and tapeworms and an oft never heard of hyper extended back in one of our psychotic chinchillas who had no reservations whatsoever in flinging himself off a dining room table in thinking that he could jump Superman style (that is to say prostrate with legs splayed out) across the air to a futon 5 feet away and landing flat on his stomach on the floor after.

That said here is my normal routine Monday – Friday. We take turns in caring for our pets. I have the morning shift while Ash has the evenings shift. Maybe Ash will find some time to share what she does when she gets home.

5:50AM – The alarm sounds and I mope around and rub my feet until I have enough circulation going in my creaky 35 year old body to start my day.

6:05 AM – In the shower I go

6:20 AM – I am dried and half dressed in my boxer shorts and white undershirt, where I proceed to head to the kitchen downstairs

6:25 AM – I grind some whole coffee beans, usually Starbucks though it’s hardly my favorite. 4 tablespoons for four cups of coffee and into the coffee maker it goes with 4 cups of water set to on “brew strong”

6:30 AM – I stick my face into the refrigerator and grab the collard greens which is our go to mainstay green vege and a supplement like turnip greens or dandelions greens, cactus pads which we get from the Latin supermarket near our house, carrots or squash and sometimes a fruit such as cactus pears, or berries. We chop everything up in an 80/20 mix of dark leafy green to other type of vegetable/fruit proportion usually. Although I do cheat often and sometimes add a little more squash as that is a favored treat for one of the bearded dragons that we have.  Read more about how I make the lizard salads on my post What We Feed Our Lizards – 7 Days A Week/365 Days Per Year.

The entire mix then gets put into a tupperware container, sometimes I make enough for two days but 8 out of 10 times I make it the day of in the AM. I grab the coffee and stick it into a to go thermos for Ash. She drives to work and to be honest isn’t always awake until she has coffee in her system. I worry about that so I usually always brew her coffee in the AM. I also bring her up a small cup of Joe as well as she will be getting out of the shower by this time. Her wake up is around 6:15 AM and she usually needs about an hour to get ready.

I check to see if the cats have food in their bowls and if they need their litter boxes cleaned.  I clean the litter at least once every 2 days. We have 5 cats and 5 litter boxes. They eat a mix of dry and wet food. The wet food they only get every two days though except for our oldest cat magic who has hyperthyroid issues. She gets wet food everyday. Anyhoo this sometimes changes my schedule by 5 or 10 minutes depending on if I have done this task the night before or not. With so many cats I save myself aggravation by making sure I always change the litter at least every two days, otherwise the bad things happen. Like walking on my carpet and suddenly squishing a cat turd between my toes. Which means that we have to break out the power steamer to get the stain out at some point.

6:40 AM – I walk the mixture over to the dining room where we have our Cuban Rock Iguana Iggie. I turn on his UVB flourescent light  tube as well as his heat source/ mercury vapor bulb. I open the top of his open air cage and grab his old plate with any leftover food that he did not eat and clean and throw out the old stuff. I grab a measured handful of the fresh greens and fruit and place it back onto his plate with a small dousing of Calcium without D3.  I put the bowl back in his cage and change his water for fresh in case he has fouled it. He doesn’t function too well in the AM so I give him a scruff on his dewlap to wake him up and then proceed to close his cage. Iggie then wakes up and walks to his heat and UVB spot where he basks for a spell. I close his cage and move on.

I usually never see him eat as I am off to tend to the others by this time.

6:43 AM – I grab Ashes cup of coffee and the mixed greens and walk everything upstairs. Ash is sometimes in the shower or not at this time and I place her coffee down.

I proceed to the spare bedroom where we have our Chuckwallas’s Boamaster cage. Its a 4′ X 4′ X 2′ cage.  We got it used for $100 (read more about our reptile caging at Reptile Caging Options: Still Waiting for Perfection). I shut off his night heat lamp and put on his mercury vapor bulbs.

***Side note: The bulbs are $40 bucks unless we order them from R&T Pet Supply. Russ is a really great guy and we recommend everyone to shop here. Just call him rather than look at his website. He will make a list and get you whatever you need, most times his prices are at or nearly just above cost. He and his wife have a giant heart and they also run a dog shelter, they save a lot of pit bulls amongst other breeds from being put down at overcrowded shelters.   http://www.randtpetsupply.com/

Russ also exhibits at the White Plains Reptile Show regularly. The other vendors hate him because in this recession he dropped his prices in order for those who would otherwise not be able to take care of their reptiles. The other vendors were then forced to drop their prices. Just call and ask for Russ or email them with a list of what you need. In some cases he can’t go down in price for some products because his costs are fixed. But in areas where he can drop his prices you will save 30% as compared to going to a Petco or something. His store is in Queens, NY should you want to physically pick up your merchandise.  Just tell him that Chris and Ash sent you.

I feed Chuck his portion and then go to the “animal room.” I turn out the night lights for the two bearded dragons and our Argentinian Blue Tegu which is really a Black and White Tegu. They’re still trying to figure out how to class a Blue Tegu though. We’ll talk more about him at a later time.

Once their daytime lights are on, they each have a mercury vapor bulb, I usually open the Tegu’s door. We let him free roam at will since we trust him. More often than not he holds in his pee or poop until we let him out where he then proceeds to walk to the tiled bathroom floor to do his business. We don’t  like that he holds it in so more often than not we just leave the door open.  You can see more about Lucky being potty trained at our post “Some Lizards Are Pretty Darn Bright“.

I then proceed to feed the beards their portion of greens. The remainder if there is any either goes back to the fridge or is fed to our two containers of giant Dubia roaches. At the same time I make sure the Dubias either have dry cat food, carrots or water crystals so that they don’t croak. The Dubias are our feeder insects and you can read more about them on our post “Feeder Roaches Debunked/Demystified“.

Once the beards have their greens in their greens bowls, I them grab the superworm container and give each beard anywhere from 6-20 worms depending on what time of year it is. They tend to eat less in the winter.

Once this is done I check on the ferret and three chinchillas to make sure they have water, food pellets and timothy hay. We get all of our pellets from Oxbow and we buy the stuff in bulk 50LB bags believe it or not. Their food is of very high quality.

7:00 AM – I start to get dressed for work. I say hello to Ash as she is brushing her teeth or doing her makeup and then I bolt for the door.

7:23 AM –  I am on the train to Newark sleeping away, where I then proceed to get on the train into NYC, and then yet another train to midtown. I hit my office around 8:45 AM but not before getting some coffee myself or an oatmeal.

This is my morning Monday through Fridays.

Meet the “Kids” – Our Animal Family: Reptiles and Mammals

Hi all,

Welcome to our new blog “Chris and Ash Plus 17.”  The purpose of this blog is to share with readers what it is like living in the suburbs with 17 animals.  We haven’t always had 17 animals, however.  We started with a cat and some chinchillas.  One day I had this overwhelming urge to get a pet lizard and picked out a bearded dragon as my first reptile.  This likely stemmed from the fact that as a child I was deprived of having any type of pet other than cats.  My fascination with “exotic” species was stifled, limited only to my experiences at zoos.  My father always used to say, “When you turn 18 and move out you can have anything you want.  -but until then, I don’t want any snakes in my house!”  After several years of living on my own and eventually moving in with Chris, I had this sudden epiphany that I had to get a lizard, and I had to get one that day!

After that everything was history.  Enthusiasm turned to passion, passion now borders on obsession.  There is a time when you have to tell yourself, enough is enough.  My house is only so big!!  My worst fear would be to let the situation get to the point where we are the subject of the next episode of Animal Hoarders!

However, having all of these animals has been an enriching experience.  It has increased my awareness of their status in the wild.  Additionally, I have become more interested in researching other species of animals, understanding their biology, etc.  I read many magazines, articles, and books related to these subjects as a result.  It has enhanced my knowledge of the world and that is a good thing for anyone.

Having all these animals to feed, take to the vet, provide the proper enclosures, etc. has been time consuming and expensive.  Yet, we do it.  We would never deny any of our animals what they need and deserve as we knew what we were getting ourselves into and that it would be unethical to neglect these animals.  As such, we have established great bonds with all of our animals and they are like our kids.  They are often a 24/7 job just like having children.  They are high maintenance, just like children.  They seem to have the capacity to love, as well, and that makes them very easy to bond with.

So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to our kids:

Iggy – Cuban Rock Iguana (Cyclura nubila)

Lucky – Argentinian Blue Tegu (Tupanambis Merinae)

 

Kwayze (aka “Beardie”) – Bearded Dragon (Pogona Vitticeps)

 

Sloan – Bearded Dragon (Pogona Vitticeps)

 

Chuck – Chuckwalla (Sauromalus obesus)

Bella – Jungle Carpet Python x Irian Jaya (Morelia Spilotta)

 

Weaver – California King Snake (Lampropelitis Getula Californae)

King Rat Snake -still unnamed- (Elaphe Carinata)

 

Buttons – White Sided Rat Snake (Elaphe Obsoleta Obsoleta)

 

Mr.Chinchilla – Chinchilla (Chinchilla Lanigera)

 

Mr. Pikachu – Chinchilla (Chinchilla Lanigera)

Picture to come –> check back

Mr. Pogo – Chinchilla (Chinchilla Lanigera)

Picture to come –> check back

Kuma – Ferret

 

Titan

 

Magic

 

OC (top), Cali (right), Zephyr (left)

 

 

Note: Chris and I will both be posting randomly on this blog so make sure to check who wrote it at the bottom of the post!