Usable surface

Usable surface area:

This is a part of the iguana keeping that alot of people miss out on. We often hear that the cages should be of a certain size, but that will not do much on its own. In the wild the males often have a tree or two as their territory, ofcourse we can’t give them that in our cages, but we can max out the space they can use inside the cage.

The wall’s are a area that is often overlooked. You can see on the pic how i have done in my cages to max out the usable surface. The branches are attached to the wall by two vertical branches that are screwed in with one screw in top and one in the bottom, that way it is easy to change the branches later on if needed.

As for the logs and branches used for climbing and resting, people often only add a few, again it don’t give much usable surface, think of how dense a tree top can be, and just add alot. Always place some branches horizontal high in the cage to give a few nice resting areas. It is almost impossible to add too many branches. I always add so many branches so that the iguanas can easy reach the next branch, again many branches add to the usable surface.

The cage on the photo has a usable surface area that is around 5,3 square meters, ofcourse more is always better, but at around 5 square meter usable surface the iguanas have enough space to be able to move away from each other and enough space to be able to really move around.