Meet Stumpy!

Lisa B · Aug 5, 2009

So, by now you may have met Rozz! Now meet Stumpy!!

Here he is:

Stumpy is obviously an Iguana! I have had him for a ferw weeks now! I came across him at a YARD SALE! Of all the most rediculous places to come across an Iguana, I didn't expect it there!!

Anyway! His owner just didn't want him anymore because he was too busy to look after him! I actually think he didn't look after him at all!! He has a half a toe missing, his tail end is missing where it either got chewed by something or grabbed by something/someone! His skin is in disrepair on his face where its all dry and white looking and he was very lacklustre and in need of some feeding!!

I got the cage, which is HUGE, all the lighting, all the accessories, bowls, baths, lamps, lights, pools, heated rocks, greenery, sticks, sprays, branches, food, EVERYTHING! for $20!

I just could not leave him there so we bought him, got him home, have been applying neosporin to his tail, feeding him up, paying him lots of attention, spraying him often, letting him roam around when he wants to come out and he's been wonderful and is starting to get some good colour back in him, his tail is healing, he is eating a lot, he is generally very chilled out and alert at the same time! We put him in a place where there is a lot of human traffic during the day so he's not bored and he's just 100 times better than when i found him at the yard sale! Best $20 i ever spent!

Here are some more pics:

c.cloudwalker · Aug 5, 2009

Nice of you to rescue that fellow. I get so tired of how people treat their pets. Not into lizards much here but we've had a bunch of birds that people "couldn't take care of anymore." :grumpy:

Lisa B · Aug 5, 2009

Yeh, we're reptile people in our house, my husbands snake jut had FORTY babies though on Saturday night FFS!! Its a tad crazy in our house at the moment!!

Antarctican · Aug 5, 2009

Lisa B said:
my husbands snake jut had FORTY babies

:shock:

Stumpy is so lucky you came along to rescue him and give him a loving home. Good on ya!

c.cloudwalker · Aug 5, 2009

Lisa B said:
Its a tad crazy in our house at the moment!!

My first thought is that, yes, it must be but then, I wonder what it is you have to do with baby snakes...

I like snakes. Had a Ball Python once but I would not get another one. The interaction is pretty limited. :lol:

Dagwood56 · Aug 5, 2009

I'm posting this working on the assumption that you may not be familiar with iguanas and their diet needs etc. Just trying to help

Glad you rescued this poor iguana. From the looks of his coloring he was definatly not getting the right diet [high calcium is very important] but he appears from the photos to be alert and his eyes look bright which is good! Taz, my 11 year old, 6 foot long iguana, is fed only collard greens, dandelion greens, turnip greens and mustard greens. I will give him some ocassional carrot shreds, banana or diced orange mixed into those. An iguana's lighting is extremely important also -basking bulb from above for heat to digest food,[no heat rocks! NEVER use heat rocks for iguanas] and a UV bulb [I use zoo med repti-sun] -through wire, not glass as glass filters out the vitamins they need.

The flaky skin you described on his face probably just means he is shedding and thats a good thing, it will happen every so often and is normal, but its important to keep him misted to help aid the skin in coming off -don't peel it off if you feel any resistance in it or you will hurt him, but if its loose and peels easily [like sunburn] then its okay to help off.

Iguana's tails will break off if someone grabs them by the tail. Sometimes they will grow back, but they are never the same. Oh yes -the lighting, he should have at least 8 hours of darkness a day, that is important in their health also. So if he is in a busy area, try to give him his quiet and at least semi darkness time at night.

I think its great that you rescued him and its nice that you have put him in an area where he will get attention and see people -they love attention and will even learn their name. They are very intelligent creatures, and make quite a unique pet when cared for properly and will live to be about 15 years old.

Diet note: If you can't find the greens listed above,[most Redners and WalMart carry them thoug] L&M pet products [available at Pet Supplies Plus in Shillington] makes a calcium powder which can be sprinkled on his food as a supplement. Avoid -lettuce, kale and spinach in his diet as they are anti-oxidents and will deplete the calcium he needs. The lettuce is just very low in all nutrition for an iguana so he'd starve if thats all he was fed.

I wish you luck with him -enjoy, you are a great person for rescuing him.

Edit:You mentioned getting his food when you got him at the yard sale - canned\bottled\pre processed type iguana food, is really not a good source [alone] of nutrition for these animals -they need fresh greens because they are vegetarian and that is what they live on in the wild.

ocular · Aug 5, 2009

What type of birdies eat calcium ?

Lisa B · Aug 5, 2009

Dagwood56 said:
I'm posting this working on the assumption that you may not be familiar with iguanas and their diet needs etc. Just trying to help

Glad you rescued this poor iguana. From the looks of his coloring he was definatly not getting the right diet [high calcium is very important] but he appears from the photos to be alert and his eyes look bright which is good! Taz, my 11 year old, 6 foot long iguana, is fed only collard greens, dandelion greens, turnip greens and mustard greens. I will give him some ocassional carrot shreds, banana or diced orange mixed into those. An iguana's lighting is extremely important also -basking bulb from above for heat to digest food,[no heat rocks! NEVER use heat rocks for iguanas] and a UV bulb [I use zoo med repti-sun] -through wire, not glass as glass filters out the vitamins they need.

The flaky skin you described on his face probably just means he is shedding and thats a good thing, it will happen every so often and is normal, but its important to keep him misted to help aid the skin in coming off -don't peel it off if you feel any resistance in it or you will hurt him, but if its loose and peels easily [like sunburn] then its okay to help off.

Iguana's tails will break off if someone grabs them by the tail. Sometimes they will grow back, but they are never the same. Oh yes -the lighting, he should have at least 8 hours of darkness a day, that is important in their health also. So if he is in a busy area, try to give him his quiet and at least semi darkness time at night.

I think its great that you rescued him and its nice that you have put him in an area where he will get attention and see people -they love attention and will even learn their name. They are very intelligent creatures, and make quite a unique pet when cared for properly and will live to be about 15 years old.

Diet note: If you can't find the greens listed above,[most Redners and WalMart carry them thoug] L&M pet products [available at Pet Supplies Plus in Shillington] makes a calcium powder which can be sprinkled on his food as a supplement. Avoid -lettuce, kale and spinach in his diet as they are anti-oxidents and will deplete the calcium he needs. The lettuce is just very low in all nutrition for an iguana so he'd starve if thats all he was fed.

I wish you luck with him -enjoy, you are a great person for rescuing him.

Edit:You mentioned getting his food when you got him at the yard sale - canned\bottled\pre processed type iguana food, is really not a good source [alone] of nutrition for these animals -they need fresh greens because they are vegetarian and that is what they live on in the wild.

Thank you. I am, however, very aware of Iguanas and their needs.

The problem with his tail is that it had heeled over but it was looking slightly black, and as you might be aware, they can sometimes heal over but become gangreanous and later have to be further amputated. Obviously it was difficult to tell if this was the case or if it was simply "growing back", which of course some do, some don't and they never really ever re-grow any particular length and the length they do "grow back" can of course take on the colour at the point the tail was severed. In this case, his tail was severed along one of the black lines and so i do expect it to grow back dark. On a treck around our apartment, he managed to catch his "scab" and it came off. This is what concerned me with the wound and the posibility of it being infected and not actually healling properly, but the guy i bought it off of couldnt tell me when the tail was originally lost so i dont know if it was a recent injury.

Thankfully, since i've been treating it, it seems to be that it is slowly healing and healing cleanly. It does not look soft or gangrenous at all and so i am extremely hopeful for him.

As for the heat rocks, we don't use them for him, the guy actually threw in a bunch of other stuff that wasn't meant for the iguana, including fish accessories. I was emphasising the fact that this guy jut gave me EVERYTHING and didn't give a crap about the iguana.

He has several different lamps and I know how important they are too.

Since he has been in my house all he has eaten is greens and one or two carrot slices. I also give him the occassional taster of scrambled egg but never banana. My sons dads Iguana becomes tired and moody on bananas so I'm not going there with this one! I always put 2 or 3 pre-prepared dry iguana food pieces in with him and have managed to ween him away from it by taking it away day by day - not straight away as i didn't want to screw up the diet his owner had him on. When the Pre-made food is gone, its gone. We eat well in our house and our guys eat far too much good food, he's no exception.

The flaky skin is not shedding. He has very dry white patches on his body where it LOOKS a though he's been in an accident and it hasn't quite heeled properly. It isn't diseased and it won't ever be right again, but it is looking better with care.

When he did shed last time, his owner didn't help him out at all, some of his spines were broken off and all sorts of dumbness! I am aware of helping them when they do shed but I refuse to do it unless he is soaked first. There is no need for unnecessary discomfort.

If you look in the picture of him on top of the shelving, you can make out little patches where it looks like a dog or something just pulled off his skin!

At night time, he's in peace and quiet. The human traffic in the day is me, my sons and my husband. Stumpy is actually a lot more active if he's not bored. At night we leave 2 lights on for him and its peaceful in my house. Its not like a circus.

I am 29 years old and have been caring for animals for a very long time and wouldn't take any in unless I knew what I was doing.

But thank you.

c.cloudwalker · Aug 5, 2009

ocular said:
What type of birdies eat calcium ?

100%

ocular · Aug 6, 2009

I was thinking of Parrots.

Lisa B · Aug 6, 2009

What am I thinking of now

*thinks*

Dagwood56 · Aug 6, 2009

It sounds like Stumpy's life has and will continue to really turn around in your care. I'm glad. :thumbup: I didn't mean to come on so strong with all the info - I'm just really passionate about the cause so to speak. I've seen so many of these animals abused, and housed and fed improperly, even in pet stores, that it makes me really angry and I immediately feel the need to "inform" people and I climb on my soap box and start spouting off my mouth. It was all I could do to contain myself one day in an area pet store when I saw 3 reasonably large iguanas in a small glass aquarium with corn, letuce and half an orange as food! Then I listened as the sales clerk sold one to a couple and instructed them to get a 50 gallon aquarium, told them to buy some crickets, and the pre processed igunana food and a heat rock and they'd be set.....Ithink not. Needless to say my husband has had to suffer through some embarassing moments when out with me. :lol:

c.cloudwalker · Aug 6, 2009

Dagwood56 said:
It sounds like Stumpy's life has and will continue to really turn around in your care. I'm glad. :thumbup: I didn't mean to come on so strong with all the info - I'm just really passionate about the cause so to speak. I've seen so many of these animals abused, and housed and fed improperly, even in pet stores, that it makes me really angry and I immediately feel the need to "inform" people and I climb on my soap box and start spouting off my mouth. It was all I could do to contain myself one day in an area pet store when I saw 3 reasonably large iguanas in a small glass aquarium with corn, letuce and half an orange as food! Then I listened as the sales clerk sold one to a couple and instructed them to get a 50 gallon aquarium, told them to buy some crickets, and the pre processed igunana food and a heat rock and they'd be set.....Ithink not. Needless to say my husband has had to suffer through some embarassing moments when out with me.

I easily understand that as my wife and I are the same about birds and dogs.

Lisa B · Aug 6, 2009

Dagwood56 said:
It sounds like Stumpy's life has and will continue to really turn around in your care. I'm glad. :thumbup: I didn't mean to come on so strong with all the info - I'm just really passionate about the cause so to speak. I've seen so many of these animals abused, and housed and fed improperly, even in pet stores, that it makes me really angry and I immediately feel the need to "inform" people and I climb on my soap box and start spouting off my mouth. It was all I could do to contain myself one day in an area pet store when I saw 3 reasonably large iguanas in a small glass aquarium with corn, letuce and half an orange as food! Then I listened as the sales clerk sold one to a couple and instructed them to get a 50 gallon aquarium, told them to buy some crickets, and the pre processed igunana food and a heat rock and they'd be set.....Ithink not. Needless to say my husband has had to suffer through some embarassing moments when out with me.

Thats perfectly understandable, hence why I gave you all that information, jut so you know I know, you know?!

As it goes, his UVB bulb died last night, i've been looking for one like a nut today!!! I hope he knows somewhere deep inside that reptile head of his how much he's costing me

I also got my dog licenced today and booked her for her first shots!! I'm excited about being able to take her for propper walks when she's had the shots! She's the most loving thing, even when she's biting my face at 2am when im trying to sleep!!!

I also got pulled over for turning into a one way street today!! But thats a whole other story hahah....

ZING!!