Hemithingy severe bleeding and blood loss

[wildheart]

Why on earth is this website changing my iguana's male organ to thingy?

Forest is now in his second breeding season that started on the 8 of March and he is 2 years 4 months.

This boy does not only leave white marks everywhere but actually mates with his teddy and towel. Last week wednesday I found him full of blood when I got home. I bathed him and did not find any wounds but found my bed and his teddy full of blood. Thursday when we got home his towel, my carpet and he were full of blood again. Friday the same. I am talking about A LOT of blood! (Will take a photo tonight and post it.)

I took him to his vet on Friday, he was totally shocked about the amount of blood. He took earbuds and inserted into his vent but all of them came out clean. Luckily the bleeding stops every time that he retracts his hemi-thingy. Forest is completely pale inside his mouth which indicates that he did loose lots of blood. According to the vet his hemi-thingy is EXTREMELY big, but forest is big for his age.

Only advice the vet gave me was to spray supplements = iron, magnesium into his mouth. To leave all the toys otherwise he will just find something else to mate with and to take photos. There are no such supplements for iguanas, there is only calcium and more calcium available.

I wasnt happy with his advice so I went to another vet who said that I must take forest out of his room and keep him in a bathroom with nothing so he can stop mating.

I am not happy with this advice either because it is bad enough that forest only eats 1-5 bites of food since the beginning of March and by putting him in a bathroom will only result in stress and no food intake.

I also phoned Onderstepoort where all SA vets write there final exams and nobody had a solution either, they can only help with a prolapse.

Forest needs to eat, he needs to be at the ultimate humidity and heat so that he can heal himself by absorbing all the nutrition that he stored before the breeding started. Correct? I am not talking about healing his hemi-thingy, I am talking about replacing the blood loss.

So what I've done this weekend was I took ALL toys away and I covered his tree stumps with bright colour duvets so that he cannot scrape himself if he maybe decides to mate with it. I also increased the humidity and the heat. He IS NOT HAPPY - jungle, his soft green toy means the world to him! He was aggressive this weekend BUT he stayed on his pillow under the increased heat and he ate at least a cup of food.

He was still pale inside his mouth last night and his eyes also look pale but he is very alert. I saw his hemi-thingy this morning, also a pale colour and it is definitely the left one that is hurt because the the line that he left was red on the one side and white on the other.

Do you think I can crush a little bit of human iron pills and spray that in his mouth? It is better than nothing right?

Any other advice? I know what to do when he has a prolapse but that is not the problem.

I hope I find nothing when I get home!

(Both the vets have not seen anything like this before plus I've been surging the web since Thursday and I cant find anything so severe.)

My boy means more than the world to me and I will stop at nothing to make him super healthy again. Please help me think of solutions.

[ChamZilla]

Hello and sorry to hear about your problem.

I have a few questions.... why have you increased the heat in his enclosure? And what temperature is it at right now?

Most iguana's expecially males benafit from a "love toy" which would be your green stuffie. Which was a great idea! BUT something would have had to have damaged his hemi-thingy for it to get injured.

(Hemipenes (singular = hemithingy) - A male iguana's copulatory organs. Males do not have a single thingy, but rather two hemipenes, that deliver sperm to the female's body during copulation. Hemipenes are often seen protruding from the vent during or after mating or other sexual activity. Hemipenes may also be visible during defecation, and may occasionally remain outside the body in what is known as a prolapse)

So since it has been injured... keeping everything away that he might want to "relieve" himself which is a good idea. Since he is already injured.

I know why the vet suggested you put him in the bathroom. Males during breeding season get VERY territorial and can get very dangerous to be arround.....if you have no enclosure... he will be safe in there. You just move his lights into there and mount them safely out of his reach.

As for eating.... if an iguana is at a proper weight BEFORE breeding season, he will not starve to death by the end. Most male iguana's go off there food almost completly for a few months and are perfectly fine. (they have been doing that for hundreds of years) Can you post some photos of him? How old is he as well? How many breeding seasons has he been through? And what is your geographical region? (USA, Canada, England?) I know you want to get him as healthy as possible quickly, but supplements arn't really the best idea, expecially since you have NO idea what to properly give. Iron supplements are VERY hard for most animals even humans. I would IMO not give any iron supplements. But that is only my choice, you never know what the side effects will be.

I'm sure other people have had it happen and it happens in the wild (they have two hemithingy's for a reason) but we don't hear about those situations.

I hope to see the photos I asked for and have you answer the questions I asked. Hope to hear back soon!

[wildheart]

Thank you for your response!

I have a few questions.... why have you increased the heat in his enclosure? And what temperature is it at right now?

He has 3 favorite areas in his room - one is the basking area and the other two is on his trees. The one tree was 27C/80.6, I increased it to 29c/85 and the other was at 29c/85 and is now 31c/87. I did this so that his hindgut can be more active so that he can replace his own iron loss etc.

which would be your green stuffie.

He does not only mate with jungle but with everything that looks green.

Here he is busy with my green top on the 8th of March 2010 -


(Hemipenes (singular = hemithingy) -

My first language is Afrikaans - sorry for the misspelled word.

I know why the vet suggested you put him in the bathroom. Males during breeding season get VERY territorial and can get very dangerous to be arround.....if you have no enclosure... he will be safe in there. You just move his lights into there and mount them safely out of his reach.

This worries me because he is one of the worst cases when it comes to change. When we moved homes Dec 08 it took him a full 2 months to adapt. He refused to eat, were always hiding and constantly turned black. He was severely stressed which is not healthy.

As for eating.... if an iguana is at a proper weight BEFORE breeding season, he will not starve to death by the end.

Yes, he did not eat the first season and also not this one - it does not bother me.

Can you post some photos of him? How old is he as well? How many breeding seasons has he been through? And what is your geographical region? (USA, Canada, England?)


Forest is 2 years and 4 months.
His first season also started in March and he was 1 year 2 months old, it lasted until June.
I am from South Africa.
I had to go home to take some photos for you, I couldnt find the towel anywhere and my domestic informed me that she found it in cupboard and washed it.
He was on my bed watching Garfield:


I got him to stick out his tongue, it looks as thou the color is coming back:

Here is his morning mark:

Here is a photo that I took 2 weekends back just to see his proper size:


I would IMO not give any iron supplements. But that is only my choice, you never know what the side effects will be.

Thank you and I agree, it really confused me that the vet told me to get some but did not have any to give me.

He didnt attempt to mate with anything since friday and I hope I can prevent it until his season ends and I guess it will be in June.

It is a 50/50 - shock him by keeping him in the bathroom and then hopefully the mating will stop.
But in return I get a very stressed iguana which will not be able to heal himself and make up for the blood loss.

Keep him in his own environment and he heals himself but with the chances of loosing more blood.

I feed him from my own herb garden and he his diet is made out of alfalfa, collard, mustard, turnip and 10+ other herbs. I pray that this would have been enough for him to use now. It just scares me that the vet was VERY convincing about giving forest iron supplements after he saw the towel and his mouth.

He is not eating, how can I help him replace everything that was lost? If there is no safe supplements then the only thing I can think of is optimum heat?

[ChamZilla]

Hello sorry for my delayed response.... it is spring here in Canada and things are needing to be taken care of outside before they get out of hand (garden beds and things like that) Ok... Well with what your giving him now he will be fine. Give him a few weeks and he should have his blood/iron under control. Well, if worst comes to worst and you are that worried that he is going to starve to death or something.... you can force feed him. You do this by blending everything up in a blender till its liquid and mixing in a very small amount of water OR gatoraid(if gatoraid or sports drink use only a small amount and mix in some water as well) And get a syringe (www.amazon.com/DYNAREX-CORPORATION-PISTON-IRRIGATION-SYRINGE/dp/B001B5NE38) and put the mixture in there and shoot it down his throat. You'll have to make sure you get it past his glottis and into the back of his throat and give him time between each amount to swallow and breath. (glottis is the little "air hole" you see on his tongue that opens and closes as he breaths) If you get fluids or food down there he could choke or you could exacerbate him and he could die. SO when doing this you have to be VERY careful.

The second thing you could do is give him baths everyday to let him soak up water. Warm baths like room temperature or 72F he will soak water up his vent and that will help soften things up, up there. As long as he's properly hydrated and doesn't get too hot.... I'm thinking he will be fine.

IN MY OPINION his mouth doesn't look that bad. I have seen much worse and under much worse situations and the iguana ended up being just fine. There mouths are supposed to be a pink color with the dark ended red/dark pink tongue. My one females mouth looks like your guys but my one males is darker pink and red on the end. I don't recommend the iron but if you stick with the vet then its your choice. I have no idea of the outcome.

Good luck and let us know how you make out!