Temperature Threshold

I've had my veiled for close to 4 months now. I believe he is somewhere near 6 months old. I've been keeping him at my parent's house which has a thermostat set to somewhere around 75.

I just moved back to school and the temperatures at night are in the mid 30s. Will he be too cold at night without his heat lamp or uv bulb? Will he need some sort of night light for heat?

Thanks,

Steve

75F is too cool to keep a veiled chameleon at all the time. The basking area should be in the mid to high 80's at that age. A chameleon can't digest its food if the chameleon is not warm enough. I hope it hasn't already started to develop health issues.

You said..."the temperatures at night are in the mid 30s. Will he be too cold at night without his heat lamp or uv bulb? Will he need some sort of night light for heat?"...if you are meaning 30F...that's below freezing....YES, it will definitely be too cold for it at night.

The UVB should be on during the day and so should the basking light..and off at night. The cage should be somewhere where the normal daytime temperature is normal room temperature (like 70F).

Chameleon's should not have lights on during the night...they won't be able to sleep. If you need to have extra heat at night, then use a ceramic heat emitter...but the temperature surrounding the cage should not be any lower than about 65F even then IMHO.

I think you misunderstood my questions. Yes I know, basking spot temp should be ~85 during the day, yadda yadda yadda. But, my question is, with both the UV and the basking bulb off during the night, will a house with a temperature of 40 degrees be too cold for the cham while it sleeps?

steveo said:

I think you misunderstood my questions. Yes I know, basking spot temp should be ~85 during the day, yadda yadda yadda. But, my question is, with both the UV and the basking bulb off during the night, will a house with a temperature of 40 degrees be too cold for the cham while it sleeps?

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Yes, it should only drop to around 60. Lowest 55.
You could use a space heater of some sort to warm the room, however this will dry up the cage so make sure you closely monitor humidity levels.

steveo said:

I think you misunderstood my questions. Yes I know, basking spot temp should be ~85 during the day, yadda yadda yadda. But, my question is, with both the UV and the basking bulb off during the night, will a house with a temperature of 40 degrees be too cold for the cham while it sleeps?

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The house temp is that low at night???

-Brad

When IW as away at training last year, my night temps in the lizard room got to around 38 degrees a few times. The melleri and deremensis could care less, as long as they could warm up in the morning (the only time I've seen deremensis bask is after cool nights).

The veileds did't like it so much. I have not seen a bit of a problem when the temps got down to the lower 50's at night, they were normal and active in the morning. But they had a very hard time recovering after those 40 degree nights. When I came back from training, and noticed how cold it had been, I was surprised I didn't lose any. I had juviniles down there too!

No long-term problems, but they clearly did NOT benifit from it. My adults lost a bit of weight after that spell, but regained it quickly.

I wouldn't keep veileds if the nighttime temps dipped below 60 very often. If they did, I'd use some sort of heater.

Good Grief, dont you freeze your butt off at those temps??????

While I agree that the recommended temps are best for optimum health and growth, I believe that they are not natural, or necessary. With that being said, check out these two links:

http://weather.yahoo.com/regional/YMXX.html Ok, the direct links don't work. Go here and click on Sana'a and Ta'izz.

The first, Ta'izz is a confirmed Ch. calyptratus habitat where they occur in large numbers. The temperatures there will be 53-74F over the next four days. The second link is Sana'a, around which I believe is also a confirmed locale for the species. The temps there will get down to 39F with the highs only reaching 75F several days from now. There have been reports that this species descends to the ground, both in the wild and captivity, to seek a protected shelter on cold nights. Food for thought.

They can deal with freezing temps - just like those iguanas in Florida. They're made to recover from something like a bad temperature drop - not thrive in them. People are often surprised at how tough these little critters can be.

Other species, like deremensis, seem to do much better with cold nights.

Eric Adrignola said:

They can deal with freezing temps - just like those iguanas in Florida. They're made to recover from something like a bad temperature drop - not thrive in them.

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This sounds like you're saying Ch. calyptratus isn't thriving in Yemen, where it has existed for millions of years. Surely that's not what you meant, right?

And actually, the very coldest areas of Nicaragua where iguanas don't live barely drop below 60F. The coldest areas in Yemen where veiled chameleons are found drop below freezing. I don't think you can say cold temps mean the same to these species because of where they evolved.

I go to school in San Luis Obispo, CA and live in a house with a couple other college students. We do not run the heater, so we can save money on utilities, since none of us have large pocketbooks. It's been known to dip into the mid-low 30's and since we live in an older house I would imagine it would be close to that temperature inside. This morning when I awoke I could see my breath inside the house. We just layer on clothing instead of running the heater.

Here's the weather forecast:
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/93401?from=36hr_fcst10DayLink_undeclared

use the heater.. or get an area heater for the room they are in.

Sounds like the ambient temp in the house probably isn't getting very high in the day now either. The temps down here are about the same and I have to run the heater to keep what I believe to be an adequate ambient temp for my herps. Can you experiment and give us day/night ambient temps inside the room where he is? Radio Shack sells a cheap digital thermometer that records highs and lows if you are busy or sleeping and can't check it.

No, that would be nonsense. Simply, veileds aren't going to thrive if the temperatures hit 33 degrees every night. They won't thrive if they're constantly being exposed to the extremes of their tolerances.

They can deal with extremes, like nearly all animals, but they don't necessarily thrive during these times.

Leads to another question, are veileds supposed to "thrive" for 12 months out of the year? They come from an area that seems quite temperate during winter months. Reptiles that inhabit areas with similar cool periods brumate or hibernate during the winter. Are we sure that Ch. calyptratus is not supposed to? My tortoises come from an area that doesn't freeze but gets close to those temps throughout the winter months and they've been sound asleep for a while.

John Deas went to Yemen twice in 2001 and searched for chameleons. He found a bunch of veileds on his second trip, but on his first trip during mid-winter, he couldn't find any at all. I'd bet they were all tucked away brumating or hibernating.

Edit: Since no one has answered this yet, I'll add something else. The reason I asked the above is because it has been shown many captive animals that would normally brumate or hibernate during the winter are adversely effected if not given the chance to do so in captivity.

When I first was talking to people who (supposedly) knew what they were talking about, many years ago, I was grrssly misinformed. A very prominent chameleon person, and author of a very well-respected book, actually told me that my veiled was sure to die if not exposed to UVB light on a regular basis - several times a week. this person told me to take him outside for 15 minutes a day, 2-3 times a week, as long as it was above 32 degrees - else he would surely die. Freaked me out.

To sum up what I've been saying: Just because a veiled chameleon can tolerate temperature drops near freezing doesnt' mean it's good for them to tolerate temperature drops near freezing on regular basis.

This is NOT to be confused with temperature drops in general, or even seasonal changes. I fully believe the fact that my aniamals get exposed to low temps at night during the year is very benificial - for the deremensis it's crucial. For the calyptratus, it's certainly not harmful.

That said, when my calyptratus were exposed to ~40 degrees nights for a couple weeks, it didn't seem to be good. The adults lost weight, and were stressed for a while.

For all I know, this may be perfectly normal in the wild. If MAY prolong their life and increase reproductive success. It may weaken them and make them live shorter lives. Dont' know.

It's difficult to tell with these animals where the boundry between necessary/benificial and potentially harmful lies.

With my deremensis, I've found that cold-as-heck nights seem to be tolerated very well, as long as the day is warm. My melleri seem to be the same, though they like their days a bit warmer and sunnier (my deremensis only bask int he AM), my melleri are busy all the time.

My calyptratus just seem to endure the cool nights and days until they're over. when they have a cold night, they basked, but they didnt' do much else. They seem to tolerate it, whereas the others were much more "normal" with cold nights.

In the past years, I lot MANY deremensis. All of them were healthy, relativly stress-free, and well taken care of. They all lived well for a year or so, and then just stopped eating. They never got skiny, they just died. They died with a grossly fat liver, massive fat-pads and huge stores of not-yet-ready eggs.

The crazy thing was I was careful not to overfeed them. One cricket a day, lots of mealworm beetles, flies, etc. Low-calorie insects, not much fat. they were not consistently fat - only shortly before death did they plump up.

Problem was, I lived near Raleigh. Kinda hard to get the temps down at night. Especially in summer.

Now, I've been living in the mountains near Asheville. My deremensis get their cool downs, they go through their brumination. They do not eat for days at a time. And most importantly of all - THEY LOSE WEIGHT! all my deremensis got skinny (relativly speaking) this Fall. Late Fall, early Winter, they started to get active again (I warm them up for the breeding season). Now, they're pigging out, and are back to their normal weight.

For deremensis, the cold temps, and the lack of "normal" activity is key. While it's not a great analogy, it's kinda like a bear going into hibernation - putting on tons of fat and all - but not going into hibernation. I think the deremensis do something similar, but they just do very poorly with fatty livers.

Also, I spoke to Josh Ease a year or so ago about this. He remarked that after the winter, most of the deremensis were emaciated. While we don't have to make things so extreme in captivity, we do need to replicate some of these stresses if the animals need it.

It's my experience that veileds do best with drops in the 60's or 70's at night. Don't know if colder temps or long cooldown periods have a positive or negative effect on individuals. Thoguh I can attest to the fact that days after a cooldown period (that lasts a couple weeks) females become receptive and males become energetic in their courtship displays.

I'd suspect that many veileds that are not good breeders could benifit from a seasonal change or two.

hairfarm67 said:

Leads to another question, are veileds supposed to "thrive" for 12 months out of the year? They come from an area that seems quite temperate during winter months. Reptiles that inhabit areas with similar cool periods brumate or hibernate during the winter. Are we sure that Ch. calyptratus is not supposed to? My tortoises come from an area that doesn't freeze but gets close to those temps throughout the winter months and they've been sound asleep for a while.

John Deas went to Yemen twice in 2001 and searched for chameleons. He found a bunch of veileds on his second trip, but on his first trip during mid-winter, he couldn't find any at all. I'd bet they were all tucked away brumating or hibernating.

Edit: Since no one has answered this yet, I'll add something else. The reason I asked the above is because it has been shown many captive animals that would normally brumate or hibernate during the winter are adversely effected if not given the chance to do so in captivity.

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This definitely warrants more research. If it's true that veiled chameleons practice brumation in nature, it would explain why so many are behaving the way they are right now.
Within safe perimeters, some experimentation with food and temps could be performed during the winter months.
Hmmmmmmmm.

-Brad

One thing that I've always done with my veileds was limit their photo period. I usually keep the lights on for 12 hours during the spring and summer, but only 8 hours in the fall and winter. Now, that's not to say they only have an 8 hour day - ambient light keeps their days a more natural length - but they only get bright light and basking lights for the 8 hours. Sometimes, in Raleigh, I had my basking lights set to a different timer, so they were on for only 4 hours a day - it got too hot in the room when the heat was on.

In the mountains, the natural temps make it easier to give them their fluctuations. The challenge is to keep it from getting too cold.

Hunger strikes are really common, and are usually related to food intake. Part of that might be related to temperatures. I noticed my animals seem much more active and hungry (and aggressive) immediatly after their warming up has started.

Coloration changes, behavior changes, appetite changes - tolerance for conspecifics changes dramatically. My male veiled could care less during the winter - but when I pull out one of his kids, or god forbid my melleri - he goes crazy with rage at the sight of them.

Also, my favorite seasonal indicator... My male deremensis' lips turn blood red.

More good food for thought. I totally agree with what you're saying about the deremensis as I actually have real experience with them....and actually very little with the calyptratus but I've been reading I'd be interested to hear if others have found similar results in necropsied calyptratus, especially the condition of the liver.

I'm going to have to do a little more research on temps around the world, but I'm guessing the different activity levels between the Tanzanian animals vs Ch. calptratus may be due to how high the day-time temps warm back up to. For instance, if the temp fluctuations were 40-82 every day, I think animals would remain more active than if the temps averaged, say 40-68 every day. In the latter case, like the reptiles in most of North America, brumation or hibernation with the associated inactivity have evolved.

Anyway, if the species can be located with ease in the late fall but not at all in mid-winter, I think the only conclusion would be that Ch. calyptratus brumates in the wild. Allowing a male to brumate in captivity certainly doesn't seem necessary but I would suggest that expirimenting with a brumation period along with the reduced food that Kinyonga advocates for females could lead to a longer life as a result of lessened reproductive demands. I also know that with most reptile species, huge rapid growth is not advised, yet this is exactly what most male calyptratus experience. I'm not implying that temps need to go down to near freezing to do this, just that a brumation may be better than the same temps 365 days a year.

Reduced food intake that Kinyonga advocates?!?! Bah! I’ve been advocating that for over a decade! I stop posting on the forum for a few months and I stop getting credited! Just kidding.

Seriously though, it’s awesome to see more and more highly experienced people advocate reduced food quantities. I cringe every time I see someone exclaim about their 6 month old veiled’s clutch of 80 eggs – only to have everyone congratulate them.

For over a dozen years, I haven’t’ had a female lay more than 40(+/-) eggs, and usually it’s around 25. I’ve not lost a female veiled egg bound since I was taught about the correlation. I’ve never had a female produce infertile clutches, either.

I wonder if the brumination period is a factor in their growth? We need to find out where those 25” long veileds live, and WHY they’re so freaking big. Genetics, food, temps???

The deremensis are very much like parsonii – they go through a period of near complete inactivity, sitting in their trees motionless for weeks or longer, and afterwards, go looking for trouble.

Last winter, my deremensis did not move a digit for 2 weeks. No food, no water, nothing. They never attempted to eat or drink, even though they were heavily misted.