Learn how to prepare food for your iguana

National Iguana Awareness Day: NIAD
Your starting point to great iguana care information
NIAD IS BACK ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2006!

INTRODUCTION: Before you read this page please know that there is no one way to prepare food for an iguana! My description of food preparation is just the way I prepare food for my iguana when I go out of town. I am sneaky and give Q the best food when someone else is watching him - then he is a happy iguana :) So before my recent trip to Las Vegas I took these pictures as I prepared Q's food.

SAMPLE: IGUANA FOOD PREPARATION

collard greens	turnip greens	dandelion greens

Greens are the staple to any green iguana diet. I try to include at least three. In this case I chose collard greens, turnip greens and dandelion greens. Remove the tough stems from the collards and set aside.

"salad" ingredients	chop green beans	chop collard stems

The "salad" was made popular by Melissa Kaplan and includes several different ingredients. In this case I chose green beans, parsnip, mango, butternut squash and the collard green stems. I use a mini food processor to chop the "salad" ingredients.

peel parsnip	peel mango	peel squash

Peel the parsnip, the mango and the squash prior to chopping.

cut mango	chop mango	chop squash

Cut the mango in half and remove the seeds. If you use the whole butternut squash (I did not in this case) you will have to remove the seeds from that as well. Chop the mango and the squash in the food processor ...

chop parsnip	chopped salad	chopped greens

... and chop the parsnip in the food processor. The pictures above show the final salad (after mixing the ingredients) and the cut greens.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Different sized iguana's will need more or less food. This amount (1 bunch each of collards, turnip greens and dandelion greens, 1 parsnip, 1 mango, green beans and 1/2 a butternut squash) was enough to feed my iguana for one week. Younger and smaller iguana's will eat less. Larger iguana's (Q is 4ft) will eat more.

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