Jenny Jones

Neo the... vegetarian?!?

Saturday, 30. May 2009, 22:26:32

Well, supposedly, yes, iguanas are vegetarians! Apart from earlier yesterday when Neo displayed some rather interesting behaviour

I had let her out for a wander round the house while I cleaned out her vivarium. After I had finished, I made her food and put it in ready for her. I went upstairs to see what she was up to, and she was wandering about the landing towards the bathroom. I sat down and just watched her for a while, as she looked like she was going somewhere with a purpose

Neo wandered into the bathroom, licked the floor a few times, came back out, down the landing and went into my brother's room. She proceeded to lick the end of a rug and tried to eat part of it - she does that when she's a little peckish, as to her, the patterns on it must look like tasty fruits or flowers... lol

Anyway, realising it wasn't edible, and that nothing was appearing in her mouth after multiple tongue-flicks onto the patterned rug, she wandered off again. This time, she came into my room. Resting at a slight angle against the wall, I have a pair of flip-flops, which have a pattern of small brown geckos in a sinuous line on them. Now to Neo, I don't know if she would have 'seen' these as lizards, or as rather large ants... But in any case, she eyed one up and tried to bite it!

She did this a couple of times, before again realising that she wasn't picking anything up. What was really interesting then, was that instead of giving up, as she had done with the patterned rug, she then shoved her head behind the flip-flops and began to dig at the floor where it meets the wall - as if she was attempting to excavate ants or termites from a nest, or perhaps even a (very slow moving!!) small lizard from a crevice or burrow. I was intrigued - obviously she was hungry, so trying to bite a smaller lizard, if she thought it was one, likely wasn't for territorial reasons. So I decided to do a little experiment...

. I got a plain piece of white A4 paper, and drew a sinuous line of large, black ant shapes on it, borrowing the pattern Neo had taken an interest in on my flip-flop. I waited until she was out of sight, then placed the paper down in the middle of the landing so she'd be bound to see it when she walked past next time. I waited on the stairs to see her reaction... and sure enough, she spotted it, eyed up the 'ant line', and tried to tongue-flick one into her mouth!

Hehe. She only did it once before realising it was some sort of trick...

As far as I know, she's never tried this with 'normal' ants here... maybe they aren't big enough to bother with?!

...Interesting though

2 Comments

Neo the rock star!!!

Saturday, 21. March 2009, 19:33:27

Firstly, apologies for extreme lack of posts!!!

Neo and myself have been quite busy with various things lately...!!

I guess I should reveal what we have been up to! Well, the most important news from Neo anyway... Neo, for some reason, decided that she wasn't satisfied just being an 'ordinary' iguana, and has adopted a part-time career... as a rock star!!!

LOL!

Here's a link to her first rock movie premiere...

http://vimeo.com/3223978

Ok, ok, she only appears for about 5 seconds, but hey! She's proud of herself, hehe

Here are some pics of Neo's little band buddy. He's called Plato, and he's a plated lizard

He was going to be in the video too, but unfortunately his nerves got the better of him on the night and he decided that he wanted to stay behind the scenes

He also does not like people too much

although he is beautiful to look at

He was kindly lent to us by his 'manager'. Plato is also a rescued reptile, so it's nice to see them showing people how lovely they are!!

I was very impressed with Neo when I took her out, as this was the first time I've taken her anywhere since I rescued her (more than two years ago!) I warned everyone that I couldn't guarantee her behaviour, let alone encourage her to do what they wanted to film! She took a while to relax enough to begin to explore, because she was in a room full of strangers (besides myself, and Rhys who she knows anyway). Before that though we had to ask everyone to leave who wasn't involved in the filming, as of course when people heard there were lizards making an appearance everyone wanted to see!!

It didn't help that we were filming in the back room of a pub and it was a rugby match day... hehe!

What Neo had to do was to walk across a table and knock down some toy soldiers. At first she didn't move, even after encouragement from a rustling bag of yummy watercress and rocket salad, and me asking her if she wanted food! (I knew she did as we had to skip her breakfast to try and tempt her somehow...) So I tried something else to see what would happen, as the offer of food wasn't working... I asked her, 'Neo, do you want to go home?' I repeated the word 'home' a couple more times, and to my amazement she began walking towards me across the table!

Now, I don't know if that was a coincidence or not, but I do talk to her a lot at home, particularly saying the words 'food' when feeding her, and 'home' when I'm about to lift her back into her vivarium. I think it's possible that an iguana could learn to recognice some words, as I know for sure she knows what a rustling bag of food sounds like!!

As Neo seemed fine with the situation after a few hours, we invited the people that wanted to see her back into the room. She let people touch her and take her photograph quite happily! She'd even let some kids dob some toy soldiers and planes right next to her during the filming. The only thing she didn't like was being much lower than everyone else, as I could see her looking up and trying to figure out how to get to a higher vantage point... easily sorted by letting her climb up onto my shoulder. She stayed up there for the rest of the time until it was time to go home!

I think the thing Neo found the most scary was the actual car journey! But that's fair enough - the last time she was bundled up in a towel and placed in a dark crate was probably when she was just rescued, and that was a very scary time for her. Myself and both lizards went to pick up Rhys first, and we had an hour to kill so let Neo out for a wander and to relax a bit. She was bright scared colours when I first let her out, but she recovered in a while once she realised she was ok and were people she knew still around. After that initial journey, she was fine. After arriving at the pub, we got her out and she hadn't even changed colours

I think the people at the pub were more apprehensive than her in the end, as the only thing they could see when I carried her in was a reptilian eye peering out at them from a darkened crate, and three claws hooked out of one of the air holes!!! lol. (Neo hated the towel over her which was supposed to calm her, so she insisted on digging herself out of it every time so she could see where she was out of the container!)

Here's a more recent pic of Neo, enjoying her rock star life. She's relaxing on the 'pillow' I made for her

(a sock filled with rice!)

(She probably is annoyed at having her peace and quiet disturbed by yet another large camera being pointed in her direction...!

Other Neo news:
She's been fascinated by all the snow we had! I took her to her favourite upstairs window where she likes to bask in the sunshine and observe the world down there... But this day, everything was a little strange... for some reason, everything has turned white!!

3 Comments

...EGGS!!!!!

Sunday, 9. November 2008, 23:09:58

Oh, guess what?!? Neo finally laid eggs, after all that!!!!!

There was a bit of a problem initially though - I discovered one egg in Neo's digging-box, the same day I had to leave to travel up to Yorkshire... Plans had already been made, and I was expected to be there!!

I reluctantly had to leave my parents with instructions, my friend (and herp expert) Rhys on standby, and vet's details written down just incase the worst should happen... I was surprised to see just one egg, and was worried that she didn't seem to be trying to lay anymore. I read that it isn't good if iguanas don't finish laying their eggs over a period of about 48 hours, as sometimes infertile, mis-shapen ones can become stuck and in a worst case scenario will require immediate veterinary attention to remove them or the iguana can die as a result

Usually, the eggs would be taken out, and to prevent further problems from occurring, the womb and ovaries are taken out too. It's quite important that the ovaries are not left in, as I have heard horror stories where 'spayed' female iguanas have gone on to produce eggs because their ovaries were still left intact, and have died as a result of the eggs having nowhere to go once they had been produced

I left poor Neo in a constant orange colour, probably due to her discomfort and stress, but also wandering about, digging at her vivarium, which was a good sign. She hadn't given up yet!

I had given her a nice, gentle warm bath earlier to try and help her along, and she appeared to appreciate the warm water swirling about her belly

I quickly made an 'iguana-smoothie' - blended together a mixture of water, butternut squash, watercress and rocket with a bit of calcium and vitamin powder, and then pipetted drops of it into her mouth. She lapped at it quite happily. When she'd obviously had enough of that for her liking, I popped her back into her vivarium and left her to it, knowing that she should have enough fluid and nutrients in her to help her through for the time that I was away...

I received a text message from my mum the following evening to say that Neo had gone and laid 19 eggs!!

What a relief. For Neo and myself!!!

Needless to say I returned home as quickly as possible, feeling extremely guilty that I had now infact missed both years Neo had laid!

Apparently she chose a time when everyone was out of the house anyway, so I'm glad she had some time to herself if that is what she wanted. I find it strange that, both years, she laid very soon after I started to force-feed her liquids after noticing that she was beginning to look dehydrated and that her stools (or what little she was producing of them) were much drier than normal. I don't know if that is just coincidental timing, that she even stops drinking and then lays, or that the final influx of water and nutrients is what she needs to give her an extra boost to lay. Anyway, I found that quite interesting...

I had a quick feel of her abdomen this evening, and I can't feel any eggs left inside at all, which is excellent news

She immediately wolfed down loads of food, and had seconds of her favourite green leaves, which is also very pleasing to see after over a month of strange eating habits!!

I also found one more egg as I was clearing out all the soil that she had dug everywhere, so that was 21 eggs that she'd laid in total... that's 4 more than last year!

She is looking awfully thin, but that is normal for an iguana that has just laid. As my mum put it in that text she sent me, she 'looks like a deflated balloon!' Poor Neo. I'll put a picture on here of her soon, but she won't thank me for it!

Perhaps in a couple of days. She greeted me by tring to bite me again earlier, and she raises her back up if she thinks you are going to touch her. I think she still must be a bit sore!

Obviously... and tired as well. I gave her a snack this evening incase she wanted it, she started eating it so I left her to it. I walked past her vivarium a bit later, glanced in and the poor girl was fast asleep... with her face in her food bowl!!!

I felt incredibly sorry for her so picked her up out of it, cleaned the food off her upper jaw and front right foot (which was also in the bowl, and she thankfully seemed too tired to attempt to bite me!) and replaced the dish with a nice soft towel for her

She adjusted herself onto it and fell back to sleep

Awww...

7 Comments

Still no eggs!

Saturday, 1. November 2008, 20:51:30

Typical unpredictable Neo!! Still no sign of eggs... I even replaced her digging 'box' with a digging 'tunnel', to try and encourage her to lay and try to simulate more natural conditions for her. It allowed her to excavate a tunnel, about a foot and a half long, but she still didn't want to lay. She ended up digging out the entire contents and spreading it about the floor, so the nice earth 'tunnel' is now just an empty bin on its side

I will re-fill it with the earth tomorrow and see if she digs it out again. Here it is before she dug in it:

(I will add this pic later as Opera seems to be having trouble with uploading atm!!!

)

After taking this pic, I then put up covers across the glass front here to give her some privacy. I even tried turning off the downstairs vivarium light for her so the digging tunnel was in a darker area...

To be honest, I am beginning to think that she has reabsorbed (or 'resorbed') her eggs, as her stomach has become much less bloated. However, it might be just because she has stopped eating again... although, thankfully she is still drinking, especially when she is put in the bath. Also she is still digging. This evening she spent a while digging at my bedclothes and making a tunnel, only to reappear at the other end of the bed with a surprised look on her face. I felt sorry for her, picked her up and she shut her eyes and dozed sleepily while I watched t.v. When I put her back in her vivarium, she began digging again, before settling back to sleep. I am hoping she is not egg-bound, but I will watch out for any signs of straining if she tries to lay. She has passed her date of laying of last year, the 20th October. If she continues like this, it may be worth taking her to the vet for an X-ray, to see if she actually has eggs insider her or not. Iguanas have been known to exhibit 'phantom pregnancies', and even spayed females can go through all the moodiness and digging behaviour of a gravid female, so it can be very hard to tell what on earth is going on!

6 Comments

Munchies

Thursday, 25. September 2008, 21:44:18

Neo has started eating again! I just looked back at her blog, and it is practically the same time as last year!

and at least we know what is happening this time!!!

She managed to eat four bowls of food today!!

I felt bad watching her finish each bowl and look for more... so just kept replacing food in it for her! It is said you can't overfeed an iguana, as they'll stop eating when they've had enough. Tonight I wasn't so sure... but I guess if she feels like eating that much, it must be for a reason!

I really don't know why she does this - stop eating for a few weeks, then start again, then stop right before laying - as the iguana info says they tend to stop eating a few weeks before laying because the eggs take up so much room in the body that they squash the stomach and there is physically hardly any room for food in the stomach!

If I had to guess though, I'd say she was attempting to build up a little extra final strength before she lays. It sort of makes sense...

Last year she laid on the 20th of October... so we will see how close she is to that this time. I guessed that she will be sooner as it is colder this year, but it may be that day length is still long enough to hold off egg-laying until a bit later. Anyhow, we should have some eggs soon!

All the patterns are similar to last year's, so at least that is quite reassuring

3 Comments

Painful!

Sunday, 21. September 2008, 13:14:37

Poor Neo was in a lot of pain yesterday

I came down to see her in the morning, and she was lying with her eyes half closed, even though her lights were on (she is usually very time-aware, being fully awake in the daytime, and fast asleep all through the night). She had even turned orange (her stress colours), so I guess she was very uncomfortable!

Nothing had been upsetting her from outside her vivarium, so it must have been due to the pain. She was lying with her front arms flipped back along her sides, her back legs splayed out sideways at right angles to her body like she was doing the splits, and her chin resting on the floor. She was lying sort of to one side, so she wasn't lying on top of her eggs inside her, but at an angle so they were bulging out to the side of her. (I would have taken a picture, but I didn't want to disturb her!) She had obviously found a position, strange as she may have looked, that resulted in the least amount of pain for her. She wasn't interested in anything: not looking at anyone walking past, ignoring food, water... until after lunchtime, as she hadn't been eating much anyway, I decided to intervene by spraying some water onto the sides of her mouth with one of those plant-misting bottles (never had anything but fresh water in it, of course!!

) to try and get her to drink a bit. It worked

and she started lapping at it like a dog would lick at someone's hand if it had some sort of sweet taste on it! It only lasted for a few seconds though, before she decided she'd had enough and retreated to her log. She stayed there for most of the rest of the day, after shuffling herself to find a new position that resulted in the least amount of pain for her.

Her orange colour gradually faded back to her usual calm browns, and although she still seemed to be in pain, she allowed me to give her a gentle belly-rub to see if it helped her at all. A few minutes after that, she retreated to her bedroom/digging area, turned around a few times, and... nothing!!!

...I thought that would have been too good to be true!!

Neo lay on the soil in her egging-area for about ten minutes, before coming back out to rest again in her basking spot.

Perhaps another day!!!

Today, Neo has reached her 'I don't want to be touched!' stage, and keeps flicking my hand away if I lean out to go near her. She has also stopped asking to come out and wander around, and doesn't even want to come out when I leave the door open for her. Although, she is still eating a few mouthfuls of rocket leaves every now and again. I think if all goes well, we should see some eggs in the next week or two!!

2 Comments

Just let me swim!

Sunday, 14. September 2008, 19:40:39

Neo has reached the 'I really, really want to swim!' stage. Exactly the same as last year!

She has been heading straight for the bath as soon as she is let out of her vivarium - and climbs in by herself, even when there's no water in there for her yet!

Then she waits patiently for me to go and run her a nice bath. Oh sorry, I mean simulate a 'river' for her to swim down

In the wild, if a female iguana cannot find a suitable egg-laying site where they are, they will swim miles up or down a river to search for a 'good' site. (And yes, I have given her a digging box, etc, etc, she's dug in it, sprayed the contents everywhere (multiple times.. i.e. at least once a day!!

) but she's decided she wants to look further afield, just incase there is something better on the banks of the, err, River 'Bath'

)

Here she is enjoying a long soak. Notice how round her little belly is looking!

Isn't she cute?!? Hehe!

Iguana heaven:

...Or perhaps helps if she has a bit of belly-ache??

'Are you photographing me in the bath? How dare you!'

When Neo is in the bath, she seems to be doing this: swim, rest, swim, rest, swim, rest... repeated over and over until I fish her out, and then she continues to 'swim' in mid-air for a bit!

Even when she is plonked on a towel, dried off and let go, she sometimes continues to 'swim' on the bathroom floor for a second or two, until she realises she is no longer in the water, and raises her belly back off the floor to walk properly, finding out that was the reason why she wasn't getting very far! It is quite amusing to watch

Here she is having a splash about:

...and doing some 'proper' swimming!

Although the bath isn't really big enough for her to get a good momentum up (err, probably a good thing

) she does do a few occasional bursts of swimming like this. I'd love to have a bigger, circular bath for her to have a good swim about in! Hmm, someday perhaps...

I have no idea how long she would spend in the bath during her gravid days, but the other day I sat with her for about an hour at a guess, with her climbing in and out of the bath, swimming, resting, swimming, resting, climbing out, sliding back in, repeating this... until the water began to get cooler and so I let the water out. I didn't want her to get too cold. As the water level began to drop, accidentally or not, I don't know, but Neo went over to the plughole and stuck her rear foot in the hole!!!

It stopped the water going out as fast... then when only about an inch of water remained in the bathtub, she appeared to give up and removed her foot, moving back over to the other end of the bath. She still wouldn't climb out by herself though!! She looked up at me as if to say 'Why did you do that? You ruined my perfectly good pool

' before I scooped her up in a towel. Aww. Sorry Neo, you can do it again tomorrow!

...And what better way to end a day of the iguana-swimming-Olympics?? Find a nice, soft, warm, dry place to curl up for the night... and what is better than... Jenny's dressing-gown!!!

(Yeah, she is in there... see the iguana-shaped lump?!? She's still in there now as I'm writing this!!

)

8 Comments

Still in preparation...

Sunday, 7. September 2008, 22:27:13

Neo is still getting ready to lay her eggs. The other day, I was about to leave for work, when she decided that she really wanted to come out to have a wander around, as I opened the door to put her food in. I let her out for a minute, to have a quick explore of the hall. As I went to pick her up to put her back in, once I had placed her food inside her vivarium, she decided that no way was she going to go back inside THAT soon... so she made a dash for the stairs, ran up them, and positioned herself on the landing on full display: standing up as tall as she could get on all four tip toes, puffed up, dewlap extended and tail swept backwards ready to whip

I think she is used to doing pretty much what SHE likes (within reason, of course!!

) and normally, she is allowed to wander about if she wants to. Although, today, she did not understand that I was getting a little bit late for work...

I did feel sorry for her - I'd love to have let her have some freedom that morning, but unfortuately nobody else was around to supervise her... so she definitely could not stay out, even if she wanted to!

She flipped my wrist with her tail twice in succession as I stuck my hand out towards her in a peace offering. She is surprisingly accurate with her 'whip'... I should have called her 'Indiana'!!!

Naughty little iguana girl... I sat down next to her, she lowered herself back to 'normal' standing level, even though her dewlap was still extended. She stopped trying to whip me, and I placed my hand firmly, but gently, on top of her head, and pushed her head slowly down to ground level, holding it there for about three seconds. I took my hand away. She raised her head up again slowly, though not as high this time, and showed her submission by chomping her mouth a little bit, and tongue-flicking her surroundings and my hand. Competition won, I scooped her up without even so much as a struggle, and carried her on my shoulder back down to her vivarium, and placed her on her log. Poor Neo... but she has to learn who is 'top iguana' around here! Alpha iguanas can be dangerous...

When I got home from work, Neo could come out and wander around properly! She enjoyed every second of it

She puts herself back 'home' when she's had enough... well, usually anyway... A couple of evenings later, she decided it would be more comfortable to 'hide' away and sleep in my sister's bed, rather than her own!

No Neo, it's not working... I can still see your tail!

Nope, really... I can still see you!

Neo saying: 'Oh really... well, then just go away. I don't care if you can see me or not!'

I think her attempting to hide like this has something to do with her egg-laying time. She tends to try and 'hide' more at this time of year, I find. She has turned up in the most ridiculous of places... Last year she managed to squeeze under a bed... open a partially closed wardrobe door and climb up the clothes inside (it was mine - and happened while I was away for three weeks in Canada!!

) and crept into my bed under the duvet. This year so far, she has climbed right up to the top of the curtains in the lounge and wedged herself between them and the frill at the top! (To be fair, mum had walked into the room just before that and shouted 'Where has that iguana gone?' so I think poor Neo got a little bit scared by that... mum not being her most favourite person and all...

...plus she had not seen Neo already half way up the curtains at that point!!

) You really have to keep a very close eye on Neo during these times. Either that, or be extremely good at playing hide-and-seek. (And leaving windows and doors open is definately not an option!!!

)

Neo will find a place to hide when it begins to get dark outside as well though, at any time of year, but particularly if she is not in her vivarium. Usually, the first step is to climb up anything that is vertical...

Tonight, she decided that the best place to sleep was wrapped around my neck and shoulders

She hasn't done that in a long time! She was wandering around the lounge, and had a choice of climbing on: the back of the sofa, walking around the corner to her vivarium, or me... Awww, I am flattered

She stayed there for about two hours, whilst I watched t.v. and chatted to my sister on the phone. I had to put her back in her viv because I couldn't finish cooking my dinner whilst she was there... and when I did so, she clung on to her towel that is in her viv, with a rather shocked look about her, as if saying 'What happened? Where am I now? How did I get here?!?' ...before quickly falling back to sleep, still gripping tightly onto her towel

I often wonder if she would sleep on me all night if I let her!

4 Comments

It's that time again!!

Sunday, 3. August 2008, 18:02:59

I think that Neo is beginning to search out potential areas in readiness for her egg-laying quest again...

...apologies for really bad lighting on this pic!!!

She wasn't in a staying-still-for-very-long mood, hehe!

She certainly seems more restless than usual, and is asking to come out and wander around more. She is still eating normally though, so I don't think she'll lay anytime within the next few weeks. She's also not going upstairs and getting into the bath by herself yet!!

It is also a bit of a shame, but I've noticed that as she grows, her bones are not growing completely straight. I've kept an eye out for this, as obviously she was a rescue and her jaw deformity hints at her not having enough calcium and/or UVB light when she was younger. This can lead to a condition called metabolic bone disease (MBD) and results in poorly forming bones, weaker than usual, and therefore having a tendancy to bend. I'm sure that if we took an X-ray of her, her backbone would look like a snake!

There's not much we can do for her besides keep up her calcium and UV levels and hope that her bones are strong enough to carry on growing as normally as possible. Her movement is definately not restricted by this, and she seems happy enough

The main areas I've noticed not to be growing perhaps as straight as they should be are in her forearm wrists - I'll try to get some close up pictures when she's up for that... lol

4 Comments

Winter, summer... then winter again??

Sunday, 13. July 2008, 15:37:48

Hmm, apparently I spoke too soon!!

Seems more like autumn than summer now!

As a consequence, I think perhaps Neo *may* lay her eggs earlier this year. It's the colder weather as well as shortened day length that trigger it, so we will see what happens. She already seems a bit moody lately, and is spending a lot of time relaxing on her heat mat

(Excuse the iguana-'snalted' glass!! ...I think she must have sneezed on it and it showed up wonderfully on the photo... but not so much in real life

)

I've been told that iguanas sometimes lay only every other year, but I'm not too sure about Neo. It also depends on food availability, and she seems to have been munching quite a lot recently... but we'll know for sure if/when she stops eating as much.

For now, she's not *quite* grumpy enough to be laying anytime soon... here she is enjoying a moment of human interaction, which is rare for her, - having a chin massage!

Or, rather, allowing herself to have one!