In this article I will cover the things you need to consider when choosing your first pet lizard.
Many sites will recommend a variety of lizards or reptiles that are “good” for beginners, but when you get your lizard home you find different surprises you hadn’t expected.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
My goal is to give you the knowledge about the aspects of reptile ownership that you might not have thought of in order for you to be able to decide for yourself which lizard is the best choice for you.
Factors To Consider When Choosing Your First Pet Lizard.
- Diet
- Supplements
- Enclosure size, and where to put it
- Handling
- Number of lizards desired
- Price and additional costs
- Ease of maintenance
- Health issues and lifespan
- Where to buy it
Choose The Diet That Works For You
One of the most important things to consider when choosing a lizard, is the food your pet will eat.
First you need to look at the frequency of feeding. Some lizards need fed once or twice per day, while others may only eat once or twice per week.
Secondly you need to decide which types of food you will be best suited to offer.
Lizard diets can be categorized as follows:
- Herbivores – Diet consisting of mostly fruits and vegetables
- Insectivores – Insects like crickets, various worms, or roaches make up this category.
- Carnivores – Lizards which eat meat, usually in the form of rodents.
- Omnivores – Those that eat a combination of anything we just mentioned.
All of these diets have their pros and cons.
Herbivores for example, typically eat daily.
It may not sound hard, but it can get old after awhile. Every single day, 365 days per year you have to prepare your lizards “salad”. It’s not as quick and easy as pouring food into a dog bowl.
On the flip side, you don’t need to go out of your way to get their food. Simply pick up extra produce when you’re at the grocery.
With carnivores you often have the luxury of only feeding once or twice per week, but unless you also want to raise rodents or keep dead rats in your freezer, you have to make a trip to a special store each time.
It’s the small, but important things like this that many new lizard owners don’t think about.
Lizards Usually Need Supplements
An often overlooked aspect of having a lizard as a pet is the need to supplement their diet.
These include things like multivitamins, calcium and vitamin D3.
As hard as you might try, you just can’t precisely duplicate the diet your reptile would naturally eat were it to have the entire forest to scavenge the foods that it needs.
Many herbivores for example, may eat the occasional egg or rodent. They might also get an insects from the vegetation they are eating, even if it it unintentional.
In nature, reptiles receive all the sunlight that they need. Sunlight has a wide range of benefits including helping the body to process vitamin D3.
You also need to ensure your lizard gets enough calcium. This is often lacking in reptiles kept in captivity because their diet is not as well rounded as it would be in the wild.
We make up for all these deficiencies by offering our lizards supplements to their diet.
Depending on the lizard you choose, you may need a lot of supplements, or very few if any.
Enclosure
Obviously one of the biggest considerations in regards to a new pet lizard will be the size of the enclosure.
DO NOT plan on upgrading your enclosure “some day”.
Before you get a new baby lizard, you should already be prepared for how you will house it once it becomes an adult.
I can’t stress this enough.
The number one reason people get rid of their reptile is because they aren’t prepared to house it and take care of once it is an adult.
The absolute minimum sized enclosure a reptile should have is something one and a half time it’s body length including the tail.
Iguanas are a great example here. They are inexpensive, readily available in almost any place that sells reptiles, and are cute and small. As babies, they require nothing more than a 30 gallon aquarium.
As adults however, these lizards can grow to over six feet in length. They should have a small sized bedroom, or at least half of a bedroom all to themselves! (Just one of the MANY reasons you should NEVER get an iguana as a beginner!)
Have this all planned out ahead of time!
Side Note On Enclosures.
Some lizards are naturally nervous and easily stressed.
You may want to consider an enclosure with solid sides and back, with only the front being glass or acrylic for viewing. This cuts down on the amount of activity your lizard can see, making it feel more secure.
Where Are You Going To Keep The Enclosure?
In addition to deciding ahead of time what type of enclosure you are going to use, you should also know where you are going to keep it.
You never want your lizard’s cage to be in direct sunlight. It will act like a greenhouse. It’s like sitting in a car in the sun with the windows up.
The temperature inside of your pets home will rise, and could potentially reach a point where it kills the lizard. This is a very real threat, and it does happen!
Secondly you want to make sure your lizard’s enclosure is not located where there are drafts. Having their housing next to windows, outside doors, vents, or anywhere that would allow cool air to regularly seep into the cage is an easy way to get your lizard sick.
I personally made this mistake when I first began my journey into herpetology.
I had a tegu that I kept in a screen top aquarium in the living room. When the front door opened it would allow a draft in that went straight to the tegu’s cage.
That winter my pet lizard began losing weight and became pretty aggressive.
I ended up taking it to the vet and found that it had an upper respiratory infection. The first thing the vet asked me was if I had the cage near any vents or doors.
Fortunately that lesson only cost me a couple hundred bucks and not the life of my pet.
Rookie mistake by a first time lizard owner.
A Pet Lizard For Looking Or Touching?
Some lizards such as the Australian bearded dragon, are perfectly fine being handled on a regular basis. (Link is to our article about them)
Other lizards, like the green anole, are easily stressed and require as little handling as possible.
You need to decide ahead of time which you want from a pet lizard.
One Lizard Or Multiple?
Some lizards do not play well with others.
On the other hand, some lizards actually do quite well in groups.
Many chameleons for example, are very territorial. In nature they are often found in trees with canopies that spread 30 feet or more, and they will be the only chameleon in that tree.
Leopard geckos however, can be kept in groups consisting of one male with multiple females. You can even keep a group of all females together.
You can’t keep more than one male leopard gecko in an enclosure though, because they will then fight over territory.
Many people who select smaller lizards often decide they want several.
There is nothing wrong with that as long as you do your research ahead of time to learn which ones tolerate being housed together, and which ones don’t.
The last thing you want is to wake up in the morning and find one of your lizards dead or eaten by a cage mate.
Price And Costs
Price is usually one of the first things people think of when choosing their first pet lizard.
Beyond the price of the lizard itself and the initial set up though, is the long term costs of keeping and maintaining your new reptile.
Make sure you understand all of the accessories your pet may require.
You might need:
- A basking light in addition to a heat light.
- A heating pad.
- UV bulbs (these can be expensive)
- Replacement UV bulbs (how long will yours last?)
- A timer for the lights
- Humidity accessories such as a fogger, a drip system or hydroballs.
- Consider the monthly cost of feeding.
- Additional supplements
- Substrate replacement. The substrate you use will need to be changed on a regular basis.
In addition to these things, you should find a vet ahead of time that is able to treat reptiles. Normal veterinarians don’t do this. You will need to find a specialist.
Ease Of Maintaining
It’s a sad truth that many people think that reptiles are the perfect pet because they require no care.
While it’s true that they need less care and attention than say a dog or a cat, they do still require consistent attention and routine maintenance.
Some lizards require high humidity for example.
This is not something you do once and then forget. High humidity requires constant monitoring and replenishment.
The idea is to spike the humidity to a certain level through things such as misting the cage, and then allowing it to slowly come back down over time. You have to monitor this time, and spike it again when necessary.
Many monitor lizards are fairly intelligent.
Most of them need to do more than just sit in a cage all day. They need things to stimulate their mind by doing things such as interacting with you.
Here are some other maintenance tasks you should consider:
- Water Bowl – The bigger the lizard, the more often you will need to change the water dish. Regardless of the size, the water dish should be pulled out a minimum of once per week and thoroughly cleaned. Larger lizards might require this daily.
- Substrate – The more your pet eats, the more it will use the bathroom, and the more often you will need to clean and replace its substrate.
- Cage cleaning – Beyond just cleaning up the poop and replacing the substrate, the enclosure itself and everything inside of it will need to be cleaned routinely.
- Changing UVB bulbs – Even though a uvb bulb hasn’t burned out, doesn’t mean it is still producing the necessary uvb rays. These need changed every six months.
All of these things are affected by the lizard you choose.
Exercise
Some lizards do fine staying in their enclosures all the time, as long as their caging is big enough to give them ample room to move around.
Other lizards need more.
As I mentioned above, monitor lizards are very intelligent. Many of them will recognize your voice and possibly even recognize when their name is called.
How much time do you want to devote to taking your lizard out of its cage and allowing it to roam about the room a bit? How much time will you have to handle your pet?
There’s nothing wrong with having a lizard to simply look at and observe, just like there’s nothing wrong with having one that you hold and interact with.
Just know ahead of time which one you want, and pick a pet that best matches your lifestyle.
Longevity
I don’t want to sound morbid here, but how long do you want your lizard to live?
If this is a pet for a teenager for example, will the parent be the one taking care of it when the teen goes off to a college campus that doesn’t allow pets?
Then again, you might want a lizard to become emotionally attached to, and want as many years as possible.
I could come up with countless more examples of why the life expectancy of a pet is an important consideration, but for the sake of maintaining a non-offensive article I’ll leave it at that.
You should research the life span of a lizard before deciding on which one to get.
Choose A Captive Bred Lizard
This is less a thing to consider, and more a SOLID piece of advice.
Any time you EVER get a reptile, you should choose one that is captive bred.
There are numerous moral reasons you should do this, including the cruel way in which wild specimens are caught and shipped, but beyond that are practical purposes.
Captive bred reptiles are typically easier to tame. They are already at least somewhat accustomed to handling and human interaction.
They are also generally healthier than ones that are wild caught.
You don’t have to worry about the negative health affects caused by the stress of shipping the animal overseas.
There is also a minimal chance that your pet will have internal parasites, external parasites or some form of disease. Wild caught lizards frequently have one or all of these health issues.
The list can go on and on.
Captive bred reptiles are a little more expensive than wild caught specimens, or those found in a pet store, but the end result is well worth it.
What To Look For When Choosing Your First Pet Lizard
Now that we’ve covered all of the research that should be behind choosing a specific type of lizard, we should cover exactly what you want to see in your future pet.
- Clear eyes – One of the early warning signs of a potentially sick lizard is swollen eyelids, or eyes showing signs of mucus discharge.
- Healthy Looking Body – There should be no signs of malnutrition. The lizard should not be overly skinny or unhealthy looking. The belly should be somewhat rounded and full looking. Definitely not recessed.
- Alertness – The lizard you choose doesn’t have to be timid and afraid, although that is perfectly normal too, but it should be alert and not lethargic.
- Complete Tail – You want to make sure your lizard as a complete tail. You should also make sure the tail looks healthy and not broken or misshaped.
- Vent – The vent is basically the area under the tail where the lizard poops from. You should not see anything sticking to this area, or anything sticking out of this area.
The best advice I can give you in this area is to pull up pictures on the web of what a healthy specimen looks like and compare the overall look of the reptile you want with the ones in the pictures.
Research
Which brings me to my final point.
Do your research!
Decide ahead of time which aspects of owning a lizard is important to you. Do you want a herbivore, an omnivore or a carnivore? Do you want a lizard you can hold, or just one to observe?
Once you’ve decided on all of the conditions that work best for you, it is time to do your research and narrow down your prospects.
Just the process of elimination from making all of the decisions that I have listed in this article will easily bring your choices down to only a few lizards to choose from!
Summary
By now you should have a fairly clear picture of the things you should consider before getting a pet lizard.
I have given you enough information for you to feel confident that the pet you select will be the right one for you.
Now you just need to check out the numerous care guides on this site to find more information on the species of your choice!