Who doesn’t love oranges? These tangy fruits are a staple in every health-conscious household and even serve as a key ingredient in many tasty snacks.
But can everyone at home eat oranges? Can our pet iguanas, for example, consume these fruits?
Unfortunately, no, iguanas can’t eat oranges. These fruits are extremely acidic and high in sugar, which can cause these animals a slew of problems. While iguanas may experience no issues ingesting a tiny amount, there’s little point in feeding them these fruits when so many other options are safer and more nutritious for them.
Keep reading to find out why oranges can be bad for iguanas!
Why Can’t Iguanas Eat Oranges?
Do your best to avoid feeding oranges to your iguana. While one or two tiny pieces per month are unlikely to cause major concerns, any larger serving size can seriously harm your pet.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the reasons why iguanas can’t eat oranges!
Oranges are highly acidic
Oranges are exceptionally acidic, which poses a huge problem to iguanas for one simple reason: the iguana’s stomach lacks the ability to properly digest extremely acidic food.
This means that if an iguana ingests an orange, the fruit’s acid can wreak havoc on the animal’s entire gastrointestinal tract, burning and irritating parts such as the throat, stomach, and intestines. This will cause the reptile not only severe discomfort but also problems such as diarrhea and bloat.
Because it’s bad for iguanas to lose a lot of water, diarrhea is particularly dangerous to them as it can result in dehydration. Left untreated, dehydration can hamper shedding and even blood circulation, which can potentially lead to a lost tail or lost toes. In addition, dehydration can leave an iguana vulnerable to more serious health risks such as kidney failure, heart failure, and death.
Oranges contain oxalic acid
Oranges are particularly high in a type of acid known as oxalic acid. When consumed, this acid can interfere with the iguana’s ability to absorb a mineral known as calcium.
Calcium is extremely important to iguanas as it plays a crucial role in the development and maintenance of strong, healthy bones. When an iguana becomes deficient in calcium due to the overconsumption of oxalic acid, it can end up with metabolic bone disease (MBD), which can result in brittle bones that are prone to breakage, irreversible limb deformities, paralysis, and even death.
Of course, ingesting a tiny amount of oxalic acid once in a while won’t harm your iguana. However, as the orange contains an excess of oxalic acid, you’ll only be jeopardizing your pet’s health if you feed it this fruit.
Oranges are high in sugar
Like many fruits, oranges are rich in sugar. While this sugar is natural and therefore healthy in moderation, it can raise an iguana’s blood sugar levels if ingested in abundance. This can make the iguana less efficient at regulating its blood glucose levels, which can lead to serious concerns such as fatty liver disease, diabetes, and heart disease.
On top of that, iguanas have a difficult time digesting sugar, so sugar can cause digestive concerns such as bloat and diarrhea. And as discussed above, diarrhea, if ignored, can lead to dehydration, which is associated with serious problems such as the failure of major organs such as the heart and kidneys.
Oranges don’t contain vitamin D
Vitamin D is extremely important to iguanas as it plays an essential role in keeping their bones healthy and strong.
Unfortunately, oranges lack vitamin D. Therefore, frequently feeding oranges to an iguana can result in soft, brittle bones that are prone to damage. In fact, these bones can grow so weak that they can break under an iguana’s own body weight. The bones of a young, growing iguana with a vitamin D deficiency can also grow incorrectly, leading to deformities.
True, oranges are high in calcium – a mineral that’s also essential to bone health. However, as the aforementioned oxalic acid prevents iguanas from absorbing appropriate levels of calcium, this particular benefit loses its significance to these lizards.
Oranges are rich in fiber
Iguanas require fiber to stay in excellent health. So why is it a bad thing that oranges are high in fiber?
When consumed, fiber makes the iguana feel full for longer periods, thereby reducing its appetite for other foods. This wouldn’t be an issue if the fiber-rich food the iguana eats is chockfull of the nutrients essential to its health. But when that fiber-rich food is an orange, the iguana doesn’t receive such nutrients. Therefore, the more oranges you feed your pet, the fewer nutrient-rich foods it’ll ingest.
Other Fruits Iguanas Can’t Consume
Many fruits are high in sugar, acid, or both. For this reason, iguanas can’t properly digest a wide range of fruits.
In addition to oranges, your iguana shouldn’t consume the following fruits.
- Avocados
- Blue plumps
- Eggplants
- Grapes
- Grapefruits
- Kiwi
- Lemons
- Limes
- Pineapples
- Pomegranates
- Tomatoes
Fruits Iguanas Can Consume
Fruits shouldn’t make up a large portion of an iguana’s diet. While these foods are nutritious for humans, they don’t provide iguanas with the same nutritional benefits. For this reason, any iguana that often eats fruits can end up with nutritional deficiencies and, ultimately, malnutrition. It may even gain unnecessary weight due to the high sugar content of many fruits.
Therefore, make sure only 5% of your iguana’s diet consists of fruits. You should also feed your lizard different kinds of fruits to ensure it gains more nutrients than a single type of fruit can supply it with.
With that in mind, here are the fruits that are healthy for iguanas to consume:
- Apples (remove the seeds)
- Apricots
- Bananas (skin included)
- Blueberries
- Cherries (occasionally)
- Cranberries
- Dates
- Figs
- Guavas
- Mangoes
- Melons
- Papayas
- Peaches
- Pears
- Raisins
- Raspberries (occasionally)
- Star fruit
- Strawberries
Seek a veterinarian’s advice before feeding any of the above fruits to your iguana. This is because a vet can determine which of these fruits your pet needs to eat, how often it can eat them, and how much of them it can eat.
The Best Plant-Based Foods for Iguanas
Between 80% and 90% of your iguana’s diet should be made up of leafy green veggies. While dark green vegetables are best for these reptiles, you can also feed your pet red, orange, and yellow vegetables. Avoid light green veggies as these are low in the vitamins and minerals necessary to keep iguanas in excellent health.
As the mineral calcium is of utmost importance to iguanas, we recommend feeding your pet the calcium-rich vegetables listed below. These should compose 40% to 50% of the fully grown iguana’s diet.
- Alfalfa hay
- Beet greens
- Bok choy
- Collard greens
- Dandelion greens
- Escarole
- Kale
- Kohlrabi
- Mustard greens
- Parsley
- Romaine lettuce
- Swiss chard
- Turnip greens
- Watercress
Below are other veggies you can feed your pet. These should compose around 30% to 40% of a mature iguana’s diet.
- Asparagus
- Bell peppers
- Broccoli
- Cabbage (red or green)
- Cactus
- Carrots
- Cilantro
- Corn
- Cucumbers
- Green beans
- Okra
- Parsnips
- Peas
- Sprouts
- Squash
- Sweet potatoes
You can also add mushrooms to the above list.
Refrain from feeding your pet light green vegetables such as celery and iceberg lettuce, as these are deficient in nutrients necessary for iguanas. They also boast high water content, which can give these lizards diarrhea.
It’s best to feed raw vegetables to your iguana, as cooking reduces their nutritional value. If you do decide to cook veggies for your pet, make sure to keep said veggies as plain as possible. This means you should avoid using ingredients such as salt, sugar, oils, fats, herbs, species, etc. during the cooking process, as these substances can harm reptiles.
Also, make sure the vegetables you feed your iguana are fresh, as stale or spoiled veggies can contain microorganisms that can harm it. They may even attract insects that can infect your pet with diseases. For these reasons, remove any uneaten veggies from your pet’s enclosure before they have a chance to cause problems.
In addition, keep in mind that iguanas don’t chew but instead swallow food. Therefore, to prevent choking your pet, chop up any food you offer it into tiny pieces. You can also grate or shred said food.
Conclusion
It’s a bad idea to feed oranges to iguanas.
Oranges are extremely acidic, which means they can cause the iguana significant discomfort, diarrhea, and dehydration, which is associated with dangerous issues like heart and kidney failure. They contain an abundance of oxalic acid, whose absorption can lead to weak bones, limb deformities, paralysis, and death. These fruits are also high in sugar, which can lead to diarrhea and more serious concerns such as heart disease and diabetes.
In general, fruits lack the nutrients iguanas need to survive and thrive, so you shouldn’t feed your pet lots of fruits in the first place. To keep your reptilian friend happy and healthy, ensure you provide it with a diet that’s 80% to 90% dark leafy greens and only around 5% fruits that are appropriate for these lizards. That means avoiding giving your pet oranges as much as possible!