Can you buy an Iguana iguana?

Answer 1

Iguana's are easy to find. Most major pet store chains like pet supplies plus and petsmart carry juveniles for around $20. Larger or older iguanas are a little more difficult to find because pet stores and larger animal distributors or importers do not have a practical method of establishing long term care for iguanas to reach maturity. Juvenile iguanas can be safely bought from just about anywhere, they are still young and resilient, but I would avoid privately owned, smaller pet stores if conditions and animal upkeep are questionable since many health problems take a long time to become evident. Large mature iguanas you can buy off craig's list, pet stores (mostly the small privately owned ones or exotic pet/specialty reptile stores). When buying an older iguana take into consideration that: (A) iguana's are territorial, a bad attitude may have more to do with a stranger reaching in their cage than their daily disposition (B) Old iguanas are set in their ways, if he's mean now he will stay mean (C) while they do not change color to camouflage their color does indicate other things, like: dark green indicated inconsistent heat levels or a poor diet with little to no variety, blotchy coloring and pale spots indicate fairly long periods of time without adequate lighting (which can be a tip off to potential metabolic bone disease being an issue fairly soon), or lumps, bumps and odd growths can once again indicate metabolic bone disease, infection, or a variety of less common but equally as ungodly expensive to treat injuries and illnesses. I got both of mine as juveniles from Pet Supplies Plus, they're pretty healthy and since they were bread in captivity they're more reasonable to handle and deal with than a lot of wild caught ones are. They do have little personalities just like any other pet however, and when deciding on which one to take home one should consider the lizards disposition and what type of lizard they want. One of mine is nice and lets me hold her whenever, the other one tries to kill me every chance he gets, they've always been that way since they were little 7 inch babies, now they're about 40-43" snout to tail tip.