5 days of driving...

[ballz]

Hello all,

I'm moving from Alberta to Newfoundland, driving, which is about 5000km, a good 4.5-5.5 day drive.

I just bought a veiled chameleon like a month ago from the pet store and they assured me that it'd be doable.

How should I go about this? They said just to put him in a little critter keeper / box with moist paper towel or facecloth, but I don't like that idea much, not for 5 days anyway. It'll be way too hard to feed him like that...

I might luck out because I'm a night person and will probably drive from 9pm-11am sort of deal, and then in a hotel from 11am - 9pm, meaning I can set up his cage and turn on his lights and whatnot, and he can sleep while I drive.

I dunno, any suggestions or thoughts?

 

[hawaiianice99]

i wouldnt do it if i were you, all that stress you would be causing it because of the setup and breakdown of the enclosures all the time.

get somebody you can trust and teach how to take care of the cham, and leave it at home.

 

[lanceman]

maybe if u have to keep cage covered all the time so he dosnt see suroundings change??

 

[Fate X]

whats the weather like?i mean if its not cold you could put it in a small screen cage and take a sprayer with and a bin of crickets.just at night put a blanket over the cage.when you stop for rest you can take the cage out and mist it and let it sun.

 

[Sepioteuthis]

I know Kristina (Studiocham) drove cross-country with a melleri once. You could send her a PM.

 

[studiocham]

How should I go about this? They said just to put him in a little critter keeper / box with moist paper towel or facecloth, but I don't like that idea much, not for 5 days anyway. It'll be way too hard to feed him like that...

I might luck out because I'm a night person and will probably drive from 9pm-11am sort of deal, and then in a hotel from 11am - 9pm, meaning I can set up his cage and turn on his lights and whatnot, and he can sleep while I drive.

I dunno, any suggestions or thoughts?

I moved cross-country much the same way.

We had to drive two vehicles, only one of which had functioning air conditioning, in the heat of midsummer. We placed each cham in a small box with air holes and a damp cotton towel in the bottom, scrunched up to make a perch-like gripping surface. The important feature of a travel box is that it be dark inside. A cham will sleep without stress at any time, as long as it is dark and comfortable.

These boxes were stacked in the passenger seat of the "good car", with the A/C blowing on them. We only drove from midnight to roughly 10am, or whenever it became unbearably hot for me in the old classic. Each day at a motel, I woke up every couple hours to rotate chams out of the shower, under a UVB, handfeed, under a hotspot, then back into their boxes. It should be a lot easier with just one.

 

[ballz]

so roughly how many hours a day of light were they getting?

because obviously its supposed to be 12+hrs but you obviously cant pull that off driving all the time... will she be ok if she only gets say 8 hrs a day for the journey and then once i get down there i'll return it to normal conditions?

 

[summoner12]

A shoe box works very well!

Do just like Kristina said! Keep the box dark and cool and they will sleep the entire ride. Just make sure you place the box on the floor of the car. That way the box won't be exposed to sun (heat/light) and if something were to happen they wouldn't go very far. The floor of a car isn't bumpy like someone's lap or a seat.

 

[stephen]

travellin'

How about asking a friend (or pet store) to take care of him and ship him out when your set up
Stephen

 

[studiocham]

so roughly how many hours a day of light were they getting?

For the duration of the trip, each cham only got a couple basking hours out of every 24. They all gained weight on the trip, doing nothing but drinking, eating, and sleeping. I kept the room dark, and set up the bulbs with grapevine perches in the closet "area". You know how motel rooms don't have actual closets, just a rack? That's where I set them up, on moving boxes (for height) from the backseats of our cars. Take an extension cord, you never know where the electrical outlets will be!

You can bring your light timers and run lights for longer phases while you rest.

 

[lanceman]

how is it chams are shipped comercialy if just drivin with them is such a big deal how do any of em ever make it from a supplier or wc.

 

[studiocham]

how is it chams are shipped comercialy if just drivin with them is such a big deal how do any of em ever make it from a supplier or wc.

They are shipped overnight and Express commercially, as per carrier rules for live animals. Sometimes, internationally, they arrive dehydrated and worse... as in, going on the "slow boat".

 

[ballz]

i talked to a shipping company about it and decided that the chameleon was better off in my care where I can moniter her status and if worse comes to worse, stop driving for a few days and put her back in her normal cage setting.

she'll get at least 8 hours of light at a time i think, probably more since after the first day I probably won't be able to go for 16 hrs straight, the morale probably just wont be there.

alright thanks everybody (but dont stop with the suggestions of course!), i'm confident that i'm prepared enough to make this work.

 

[ballz]

just thought i'd let everyone know bubbles made it to Newfoundland safe and sound. the whole shoe-box and wet towel worked great, the hardest thing was probably sneaking her into the hotels every night.

 

[jannb]

Glad to hear that she's did well.

 

[Sang]

thats good,

even if the hotel asked, i would of said something else,...like believe me bros..you don't want to know!

 

[ballz]

i usually propped the backdoor open with one of their tiny shampoo bottles to bring in all of the chameleon stuff and the chameleon haha.

 

[greg1989]

u can buy 1 of them vivs called the explorium which look good an i dont think they are that expensive maybe 1 of them would work

 

[summoner12]

Glad to hear your cham made it!