Grooming your iguana can be both exciting and troublesome at times. When grooming your reptile, you can touch and hold your iguana, and spend some more bonding time together. But at the same time, trimming iguana’s claws can be nerve-racking, especially if your have never done it before.
To make grooming sessions as comfortable as possible, you need to learn how do these tasks with confidence. This post will help you learn how to bath and trim your iguana’s claws, as well as help it with shedding.
Skin shedding or molting in iguanas
Like all other lizards, iguanas shed to lose their old skin and replace it with fresh skin. While some reptiles lose their skin in one long piece, iguanas are not like that. Iguanas lose their skin in pieces and gradually. Shedding skin will be losing its color and coming off in small patches. Iguanas molt quite rarely, around few times a year. It can happen more often, and will depend on the age of iguana, humidity levels and season.
How to help your iguana when molting or shedding
Iguana’s skin should shed naturally over time. The new skin under the shedding pieces should be formed to prevent scars. But also, the old skin that wasn’t shed successfully can get stuck on crest scales, tail or toes, causing reduced blood flow, compression and even toe necrosis (dying off)!
To help you iguana with skin shedding, place an extra water dish inside the terrarium. Your iguana will soak in the water to increase hydration levels. You should also try increasing its terrarium humidity levels by few percent and misting your iguana two times a day.
If you wish to go further, you can create a hide box (get a large box and cut the hole big enough for your iguana) with peat moss inside. Peat moss will hold in moisture and generally create a high humidity inside this box.
Using a reptile humidifier will also help increase the humidity.
How will iguana lose its shedding skin?
As we have discussed, old and dry pieces of skin will be shedding when the fresh skin underneath is formed. Iguana will lose its old patches of skin when bathing, soaking and when rubbing or scratching against different objects. Shedding skin loses its color and often becomes brown before peeling.
Shedding aids to help molting iguana
There are different sprays that can help your iguana shed more comfortably. These include emollient sprays that keep the skin soft and promote natural shedding. If you can see your iguana struggling with shedding, you can help it by removing the skin manually. Before removing the skin, make sure there is fresh skin under it to prevent scars. Give your iguana a bath and apply some mineral oil or spray before removing the skin.
When your iguana finished molting, make sure to check different spots on its body to ensure no skin is left. Remove any stuck skin between the toes, scales and tail.
Iguana’s claw or nail trimming
Iguanas’ claws are naturally sharp and pointy. That is because these lizards climb trees and other surfaces in the wild. Iguanas wear their claws down naturally when constantly climbing the trees in the wild. But in the captivity, they don’t climb many surfaces, so their nails become very long and need trimming.
How to trim iguana’s claws?
Trimming iguana’s claws will not be the best experience for you or your reptile if you trim too high. To make it more 
comfortable, you will need to restrain your iguana as it might be in pain when trimming and might bite or scratch you.
You must remember that there are blood vessels running through the claws and you should be very careful not to trim where the line runs. When trimming the nails, use the lamp to see through the nails, and you might be able to see the vessels and skip them when trimming.
These vessels should look dark under the light and they come close to the tip of the claw. It is usually a dark line running through the nail. Trim before the line to prevent cutting of blood vessels.
Trim only the sharp tip of the claw before the vessels to prevent damage. Use the pet clippers and cut the point of the nail and then use a file to remove any sharp edges. Don’t cut too high, as this will cause pain to your iguana and heavy bleeding.
How to restrict and hold iguana when trimming the nails?
Restrict your iguana so it doesn’t bite or scratch your severely when trying to 
escape. Place a towel or cloth on iguana’s head and hold its body with both hands. Two people will finish this job quicker than one person.
One person will hold iguana under the front legs with one hand and under back legs with other hand. Try pushing its head up to prevent biting. You can push iguana to your chest with its belly up, and the other person can trim the nails.
Don’t pull iguana’s tail…
Don’t hold or pull iguana’s tail when handling. If you pull your iguana by tail, it can start stressing and even lose the tail. Iguanas tails have fracture planes and the tail breaks at these points. In some lizards, the tail regrows fully. But in iguanas, tail regrowth takes a long time. Younger iguanas regrow their tails quicker than older mature ones.
What if the nails bleed when trimming?
If you appear to have cut the blood vessel in the claw, use styptic powder which will help stop the bleeding. Never cut too high, as it can cause bleeding and then infection. It is also a good idea to disinfect the claws before trimming to minimize any chances of infection.
Bathing iguanas
Bathing your iguana is essential – one or twice in two weeks is perfect. If your iguana is tame, you can take it to your 
bathroom and place it in a bath or big container filled with warm water. Don’t add any soap, and only use the water. You can help your iguana shedding by removing old skin manually. Warm bath will also soften iguana’s claws for trimming.
If your iguana is not docile, you can place a container with water inside the terrarium and let your iguana soak in it. Remove the container with water as soon as your iguana is done – so it doesn’t choose to drink this water with dead skin or even feces.
Nasal salts and sneezing
With iguanas, you might sometimes notice white spots on terrarium glass or even around their nostrils. The sneezing might be a reason of excessive salts gathered in the nasal passage. If there is too much salt in your iguana’s diet, these salts can accumulate around the nose. Don’t worry about it – if you see your iguana sneezing or notice the white accumulations or spots on vivarium glass, this is normal.
Hope this post on grooming helped answer your questions and learn more about caring for your iguana! Read our other posts to learn more about iguana care.
You can read more information on skin shedding and claw trimming in this post.