Jenny Jones

Darwin update

Sunday, 15. November 2009, 16:14:25

Darwin has not hand fed from me for a while. However, today, I took him out of his vivarium to get him used to handling a little bit more. He does seem to run less when I open the vivarium's doors now. After a few whips and dashes for freedom up a log or two, he generally settles down, 'freezes' and allows me to pet him. Or pick him up. Today, I had him out sitting on my hand. I gave him about five minutes to settle, and then offered him a leaf of rocket to eat... and... he took it!

Not only that, but he ate another five or six leaves that I offered him after that. Yay!! Hopefully this is a sign that he isn't petrified of me, or I guess he wouldn't eat whilst I had hold of him. Maybe he is just being defensive, rather than very scared. Or perhaps a little bit of both

He does seem to be able to climb just about anything though. This isn't always a good thing, and can be extremely dangerous!

Darwin is far too close to his heat lamp in the picture above (don't worry, it is turned off!

) If it was on, he could have had serious burns to his stomach and could even have killed himself. I decided to keep it off for a week or so after I initially set up his vivarium to check he couldn't get up to it. Turns out he can, and did, as I came home from work a few times to find him sitting in a 'hammock' of wires that are taped up to the roof of his vivarium!!

One weekend, I sat and watched him to see how he was getting up there. Turns out he managed to climb up wires that were taped to the inside of his vivarium wall - now I knew he was doing this, I've had to supervise his basking under this light so he doesn't climb up to the danger zone. To stop him from doing it again, now I've seen how he's doing it

I've had to put duct tape over every single wire that leads out of his vivarium. Not only that, I discovered after again that he could still hook his tiny claws and climb duct tape

so then I had to put thinner sticky tape over the edges of all the duct tape. Phew!!

I am almost scared to leave him alone with that light on for more than about ten minutes, after I saw him manage to climb this yesterday:

Gecko-iguana!!!

And no, just incase you think the above pic is him sat on the floor:

He really is spider-iguana! Lol

He managed somehow to get his little hook-claws to attach onto an old sticky-thermometer that is on the wall of his vivarium. There is hardly anywhere to hang off that at all!!

Neo meanwhile is busy trashing my room. Well, quite unintentionally, of course

Still no eggs... and she's still eating all her food!

3 comments

Still no eggs from Neo!

Saturday, 7. November 2009, 18:17:21

Sid

Neo has now passed both previous years' egg-laying dates

and there's still no sign of her stopping eating, or laying eggs!

She's still frequently digging out her egg-laying chamber though, and coming out as often as possible when she wants to for baths and a wander around. I guess we will just have to wait! Perhaps it's because temperatures this year are only just starting to get chilly outside

Darwin is coming along very well - he's now allowing me (sometimes!!) to reach in and stroke him under his chin without much fuss. He will still freeze and 'allow' me to touch him, although very warily watch exactly what I am doing

Sometimes he will give my hand a warning tail whip, but he freaks out a lot less that he used to. He has also put one of his front legs onto my hand once, and allowed me to touch just beneath his neck and on his upper chest. He still does not like me touching him on his back yet though. Next step will be to let him become comfortable with sitting on my hand, within his vivarium!

4 comments

Latest iguana updates

Sunday, 25. October 2009, 22:45:27

Sid

Darwin has hand fed from me!

Strangely, he wouldn't take the food if I approached him from the side by sliding opening the right glass door of his vivarium, but he would take it if I opened the left side of his vivarium and held it directly in front of him! How strange. Maybe that was less threatening for him because he could see less of me, I'm not sure!

I can now also gently stroke him under his chin without him running away whilst in his vivarium now

although, he is still a little jumpy of this and is probably still getting used to the feeling of a human touching him

Neo is becoming increasingly agitated and is asking to come out of her vivarium more often. I can tell she is looking for potential places to lay her eggs

so a few days ago I put her egg-laying chamber back into her vivarium like last year. She's already dug the entire thing out twice!

Still, at least she knows it's there now for her, and that she's using it

At the moment she's still eating her food, so I doubt there'll be any eggs for a couple of weeks yet

2 comments

Iguana update!

Monday, 12. October 2009, 20:49:46

Sid

Darwin is becoming more relaxed in human presence, gradually. He will now eat without appearing too cautious of who is near him:

and he even shows signs of wanting to come out if his vivarium at times:

...even though, most times, as soon as I put my hand up to the glass he scarpers

I have decided he is (and understandably so!

) scared of large gardening gloves coming towards him, so at the moment I am using skin-coloured woolly gloves to handle him. This gives him something to grip on to, and results in less scratches on my hands for me!

He is still very nervous, particularly when getting him out of his vivarium, but he appears to calm down once he is out of his territory. I seem to remember Neo was the same when she got her new larger vivarium - she felt she had to defend it and wasn't too happy about me (or anyone else!) invading her space. After about three months or so, she calmed down and today she doesn't care if I reach in and pick her up off her favourite spot. (Although, sometimes she will 'iguana-swear' at me to let me know she wasn't too happy about being removed from her comfortable basking spot, but she tolerates it, bless her!

)

Neo is busy wolfing down a giant dish of food every day. I wonder how many eggs she'll lay this year?

Soon I will put her egg-laying box in her vivarium for her to dig around in it, for when she feels like it. At the moment, she just seems to want to rest a lot, eat a lot and bask a lot

Sometimes she wants to come out for a wander around, and a little bask on my windowsill too

3 comments

The meeting

Saturday, 26. September 2009, 13:49:27

Sid

Neo wandered into my room and onto my bed. There, she spied an intruder!

She eyed him for a moment, before flattening herself down on my bed, trying to make herself appear smaller. Aww, poor Neo!

I lifted her onto my windowsill, where she wanted to be to bask in the sunlight. From there, Neo stared at Sid(/Darwin!):

And he stared right back at her:

This went on for hours!

But this is good for them to be able to observe one another from a distance like this, as they will become (hopefully) used to each others' presence this way. I am doing much the same with Darwin to get him used to my presence: just sitting with him in my room, letting him watch me go about various tasks such as typing on the computer, reading, watching t.v., listening to music, etc. I've even woke up one morning with him watching me sleeping!

A little disconcerting, but if he's interested then fair enough. It's a good sign that he's fascinated by all human behaviours! Hopefully he'll realise I am not a threat to him and he'll begin to trust me more as time goes on.

9 comments

A bit more relaxed

Friday, 25. September 2009, 20:31:56

Sid

Sid/Darwin is definitely more relaxed today. Well, after his bath that is, which he didn't seem to enjoy too much!

He looks so small in there compared to Neo!

Flicking the front legs back as well as the rear ones is always a good sign an iguana is feeling relaxed and not intimidated by any of his surroundings... including me and the camera!)

The first night that Sid/Darwin was here, I made a wood pile for him at the back of his vivarium incase he wanted to hide somewhere. That night, he crawled into this to sleep. Now, he feels confident enough sleep with his nose almost touching the front of the vivarium glass!

I've even caught him sleeping on the highest branch in there, so he appears to feel secure in his habitat, which is always a good sign

2 comments

Little newcomer!

Monday, 21. September 2009, 22:12:13

Sid

We have recently had a little addition to the family: a baby red iguana!

He's another rescue. He's about nine months old, and his name is Sid Vicious! (However, recently he has been also know as Darwin - my mum seems to have taken a liking to that name lol

)

I picked him up on the 19.9.09 off Laura-Jayne, a very kind person who originally rescued Sid from a pet shop that was keeping him with larger iguanas. One or more of these bigger iguanas attacked Sid and bit his hind leg, which then became swollen. He has lost three toes on his right hind leg because the shop did not help him with retained shed skin, so as he grew, with each shed that did not come off properly it constricted around his toes more and more until they fell off

His remaning longest toe on his left hind foot has also seemingly been broken during his previous punishment, as it has healed at an angle. Poor little Sid also had a skin infection which has cleared up very well, thanks to Laura-Jayne helping him. We need more people out there who care for reptiles as much as this!

Unfortunately, Laura-Jayne wasn't able to keep Sid as her other iguana did not get along well with him at all. So, I offered to give Sid a new home.

Here he is on arrival, looking pretty shocked, poor little guy

Thankfully I was able to buy Sid's stuff off Laura-Jayne the same day. I thought this would be good for Sid as he'd be in a place with surroundings that appeared familiar to him

I spent the whole afternoon constructing it!

But nevertheless I was very pleased with the results

Darwin (or Sid, whoever he is!) seemed to like it too. Although, still a bit nervous, but it's to be expected

3 comments

Neo's making eggs...

Thursday, 17. September 2009, 20:03:28

According to my calendar, Neo is probably in her third week of egg-making

There should be another five(ish!) weeks to go before she is ready to lay them though. Before then, I'll have to put her egg-laying box in her vivarium for her to get used to it again.

In the meantime, she likes to come out for a wander, but less frequently (for the moment!) The problem with this colder weather is that she will get cold quickly if she's out too long! So, I decided to implement some 'cold weather basking' for her, lol

She does like that hot water bottle, hehe.

Neo is also noticeably more hungry, and is finishing two large bowls of food a day!

She is also noticeable more grumpy about being handled, so I'm leaving it up to her to let me know if she wants to come out for a bath, or a wander around. The other day she wanted to come out, but refused to climb up my arm to exit her vivarium as she normally does. Instead, she stared at me until I went away, then climbed down the chair that is next to her vivarium by herself. Then she roamed around the hall for a bit, and I went to get her some more food. As I went to set the bowl down for her in the hallway, she thought I had got too close and tried to tail-whip me! lol

So, I slid the bowl over to her instead, and she ate from it. Then, when she was ready, she climbed up my leg and back into the vivarium

As usual, Neo likes her sleep. Especially with her nice soft toy as a pillow

4 comments

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!!