Baskden a warm den for reptile folk

🩺 Your free vet-prep sheet

Your Green Anole Vet-Prep Sheet

Reptile vets are rare, and it is easy to freeze in a crisis. This is the one page to have ready — how to find a vet, what to bring, what to tell them, and the questions to ask. This helps you prepare for a visit — it is not a way to treat at home. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it’s a vet trip yet? Try the Is this normal? triage first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

Baskden a warm den for reptile folk · baskden.com
Green Anole — Vet-Prep Sheet

🔍 Find a reptile / exotics vet — before you need one

  • Search the ARAV Find-a-Vet directory (the Association of Reptilian & Amphibian Veterinarians), or in the UK the RCVS Find-a-Vet — or search "reptile / exotics vet near me".
  • Call ahead and ask the key question: "Do you see reptiles?" Not every practice does.
  • Ask the exam fee when you call. Knowing the cost up front removes the money-panic in a crisis.
  • Find and save one now, while things are calm — not in the middle of an emergency.

📇 Fill this in now — before the crisis

Two minutes now saves ten in a panic. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

My reptile vet
My green anole
What I'm seeing

🚨 Is this an emergency now?

See a reptile vet promptly if you notice any of these:

  • A rubbery jaw, bowed or wavy limbs, tremors, or a soft spine (signs pointing to metabolic bone disease — very common in anoles kept without UVB/calcium).
  • Sunken eyes, wrinkled skin, or lethargy (dehydration — usually from too little misting).
  • A raw, rubbed snout (rostral abrasion from trying to escape a too-small or too-exposed enclosure).
  • Open-mouth breathing or mucus (possible respiratory infection), or poor weight and abnormal droppings in a new import (parasites).
  • A female straining and off her food (egg-binding), or any tissue protruding from the vent (prolapse).

When in doubt, a vet call is never wrong — most issues are reversible if caught early.

🚗 On the way / while you wait

✅ Do

  • Keep it warm at a safe transport temperature — a cold reptile crashes fast (a warm car or a covered container with a warm, not hot, pack helps).
  • Keep it calm, dark and quiet in a secure, ventilated container — stress makes almost everything worse.
  • Bring it in its own container so the vet sees it as it lives.

⛔ Don't

  • Don’t offer food, or any OTC, aquarium-shop or online-forum remedy — many are useless or harmful and can mask the signs.
  • Don’t let it get cold on the way in.
  • Don’t handle it more than you must.

🎒 What to bring

  • A short video and a couple of clear photos of the behaviour or sign — it may not show it in the clinic.
  • A note of your setup (basking, cool-side and night temperatures, UVB, humidity, substrate) and exactly what — and how often — you feed.
  • Your reptile, transported safely in its own secure, ventilated container — kept warm (see below), not in a cold car.

🗣️ What to tell the vet

A general vet may not know this species. Come ready to explain its correct care:

Temperature
A basking spot of 90°F (32°C) from an overhead heat bulb, placed over a branch up in the canopy where the anole will bask. Cool side 70–77°F (21–25°C), with a vertical gradient it can climb through. Night 65–75°F (18–24°C) — a natural drop is fine.
UVB & lighting
UVB is essential (diurnal, sun-loving): a T5 HO bulb (Arcadia Forest 6%) giving UVI ~3.0–4.0 at the basking branch (Ferguson Zone 3), plus a bright daylight LED. 14-hour summer / 10-hour winter photoperiod; replace the UVB bulb yearly.
Humidity
Average 60–70%, achieved by misting the enclosure morning and evening — anoles drink the droplets off leaves and will largely ignore a standing bowl, so misting is their main water source. A night fogger helps in dry homes. Live plants hold humidity and give cover.
Enclosure
A TALL, planted, front-opening enclosure — minimum 24×24×24 in (60×60×60 cm) for one, larger preferred — because they’re semi-arboreal climbers that live up in the foliage. Pack it with branches, vines, and live or artificial plants to climb and hide in. House ONE (or a single male with females); males fight.
Substrate
A moisture-holding, bioactive-style mix (topsoil/coconut fibre) with leaf litter and live plants — it holds humidity and supports the planting that makes an anole feel secure. Vertical cover matters more than floor space.
Diet
Insectivore — a varied menu of small feeders (crickets, dubia/discoid/red-runner nymphs, flightless fruit flies, black soldier fly larvae): juveniles eat as much as they’ll take daily; adults take 2–3 feeders, each slightly smaller than the anole’s head, every other day. Gut-load feeders 24–48 hours first.
Supplements
Dust feeders with a 50/50 calcium + multivitamin mix at every feeding — small, fast-metabolising insectivores are prone to calcium deficiency, so this plus UVB is what prevents metabolic bone disease.

⚕️ Reptiles are ectotherms kept at species-specific temperatures — a cold reptile can’t metabolise medicines properly, so tell the vet your exact temperatures and keep it warm for transport. Reptiles are prey animals and hide illness until it is advanced, so early changes matter. Mention your UVB/lighting and any supplements or remedies you’ve already used, and ask for reptile-safe products and doses.

Then note which of the warning signs (above) you are seeing, when they started, and whether they are getting worse.

❓ Questions to ask

  • Do you routinely see reptiles? If not, can you refer me to a vet who does?
  • What are the likely causes — and could my setup or diet be contributing?
  • What is the treatment plan, the likely cost, and what should I watch for at home?
  • How do I prevent this from happening again?