My boyfriend and I were enjoying the lovely sunny weather we have been having lately (in Cali) and he suggested taking Gandhi out with us....I am wondering what you guys do when you want to take your ig out with you, say to some lovely spot in nature, without the ig getting injured (which I have heard can happen with a harness) or lost (which we all know is very likely to happen without one). I know we can build him an outdor enclosure for sunning on the deck, but is there anything more portable? Or is it just a dumb idea? Gandhi likes seeing new things, but it isnt worth the expense of his safety (of course!).

I myself don't take Liv Tyler outside, even on the balcony. She's just not yet completely tame and occasionally manages to leap off my hands. It's a pity when the sun is out I know, but I myself would not take mine out to a "Non-escape proof" area before she's much much tamer.

I've used both hind hip leashes and dog harnesses on my ig with no problem. Well there was one problem with the dog harness involving taking it off, a lapse in my attention, two or three holes through my thumb nail, and a lot of my blood.

I've used these leads daily for hours at a time over the last three summers.

There is no highly portable cage for the ig that is strong enough and large enough for an ig. You start to look at about 40 pounds for a cage like this so taking it "to some lovely spot in nature" won't work. I had a great outdoor ig pen over last summer. 6'x9' footprint with a 3' wall. Worked great until I got lazy and started dragging the thing over concrete and rocks and did not bother to take it fully apart for two major T-storms. But the frame weighted about 35 pounds. I will be building another one this summer and correcting the flaws I found in that preliminary design.

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~ Mark

The safest way to do it is to use a hip leash, but alot of iguanas don't take kindly to it, and it isnt meant to let you 'walk' the iguana like you would a dog, its more or less a safety device to help you grab the ig if they leap from your hands. I rarely set my iguana down outside for fear of him spooking and running or eating something toxic, or getting picked up by a hawk or something.

Here's Zola with the hip lead on:

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Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

~*~Lacey~*~

My Photos

Sure there is. If you follow her other posts you will know her ig is a baby.

Even for a baby iguana I don't think you should have an outdoor cage be smaller than a 2 meter diameter circle or a rectangle 4'x8'. For an outdoor cage you should have about twice the space of a reasonable indoor cage half of this completely out of the direct sun at all times and half of it in the sun and allow the ig to freely move between the two areas.

Whenever you are caging something outside you must allow a lot of room for it to retreat from the sun or else you will trap it in the baking sun and, essentially, cook the animal.

Yes these are animals native to areas that get much warmer than where most of us keep them but out in the wild they're able to seek cooler shaded areas when they need to. Remember unlike us igs don't have any reasonably effective means of cooling themselves.

Even with a cage you are best off with a leash also. When I had my ig in the cage most of the time he was still wearing his dog harness with engraved IG tags. There are keepers on this forum who are very experienced who have had igs walk off or escape from common cage designs. To complicate matters further by trying to make the cage small and light enough to be highly portable -- such as weighing under 20 pounds and fitting in a common backpack -- will only make it easier for the ig to escape.

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~ Mark

Mar I was thinking of a cage for the car trip there to the picnic site or whatever wasn't thinking of a cage to use there. I guess you'll need one of those too.
If you want a cage to use there it may still be possible if you have a van or a car with a luggage thing on top which some folks have. You can make a big cage of PVC tube and mesh panels that can be folded up into a square because the corners have hinges and the top is removable and reattacheable through some kind of plug. I've seen tutorials on this somewhere may be worth a try. A big ig may be able to bump it down but a baby should be fine. give it a cardboard box (also foldable) as a hide and also a platform to bask on top and a small log to climb or something.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA When I saw the "how the make a hip leash" post on here I always thought it meant "how to make a cool leash".......I didnt realize it was literally meant to go around the igs hips....Thanks for the photo Lacey!

Not a problem Roynan! I got tired of trying to explain the leash, and pictures seem to help even the most confused people get it!

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Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.

~*~Lacey~*~

My Photos

Here's the link to instructions on building that really cool leash.

http://www.herpcenter.com/showthread...7149#post57149

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~~Steph

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world." John Steinbeck