Baby panther chameleon set up PLEASE HELP!

[Julirs]

IMO-people often worry too much about humidity. You cannot re-create nature made humidity-what humans end up doing is just create a "wet" environment. Personally living in Florida-it is not much of an issue despite most of my collection being inside in the air conditioning. Pardalisgirl lives in the Northwest-and we are some of the few with a large collection hand misting each and every cage! I mist everyone twice daily, soaking the plants and letting the chams that come up to drink right from the mister (like my spoiled Mellers!) drink until they are done. I have well planted cages, and the humidity is just not too much of a concern as long as everyone is shedding OK and have white urates. Being in the cold Northeast-I would possibly cover the back and sides of your cage with soft plastic-leaving the top and front with just screen, make sure your cage is well planted with leafy safe live plants, and see how it goes.

 

[gsurfn]

Julirs, thank you very much for the advice!! At the momeny I only have fake plants in there. It is a very small enclosure (he is only 3 months), and I am trying to figure out where I can get a small enough ficus. He has been dark in color unless I come in to open the cage and feed him. Then he turns lighter...like an off grayish-white.

I will take your advice too on covering the sides and back of the cage with some plastic material. That should definitely help keep some humidity in there.

I feel like a nervous wreck lol...all I can hope is that while I am at work now, he is hunting away and grabbing those crickets.

 

[Julirs]

Oh we all felt like nervous wrecks with the first one! I sure did. I would look for a Pothos-it would be easier to fit into a smaller cage and is good and leafy to hold water. As long as you are making sure your temps are good (with a digital thermometer), all should be fine.

 

[PardalisGirl]

Julirs is right......

IMO-people often worry too much about humidity. You cannot re-create nature made humidity-what humans end up doing is just create a "wet" environment. Personally living in Florida-it is not much of an issue despite most of my collection being inside in the air conditioning. Pardalisgirl lives in the Northwest-and we are some of the few with a large collection hand misting each and every cage! I mist everyone twice daily, soaking the plants and letting the chams that come up to drink right from the mister (like my spoiled Mellers!) drink until they are done. I have well planted cages, and the humidity is just not too much of a concern as long as everyone is shedding OK and have white urates. Being in the cold Northeast-I would possibly cover the back and sides of your cage with soft plastic-leaving the top and front with just screen, make sure your cage is well planted with leafy safe live plants, and see how it goes.

I agree with Julirs....I think you are worrying way too much about humidity. I live in the Pacific NW where it rains a lot, but my house is dry because it's heated during much of the year. I don't use a single fogger. I use plastic plants for babies because I keep them in tubs and they are easy to clean. Misting a tub (plants and sides) twice a day creates humidity for a couple of hours. But then it dries out. The babies are not living in humidity all day long.

When they move to screen cages they get live potted plants. They are hand misted like Julirs says twice a day. Things dry out during the day and more importantly at night. The humidity is high for two hours after misting. It's not very high the rest of the day. Moisture in the potted plants keeps it higher than my house in general. You definitely don't want things like moss in the cage that stay damp. You want it to dry out between mistings.

For right now forget about humidity. As long as you are misting several times a day for drinking purposes he will be fine. The more you fuss with his cage the more stress you create. Concentrate on letting him be alone for awhile so he can eat and become confident in his new home. Worry about getting him to eat those crickets by the dozen each day. Congrats on being very devoted as a new keeper. You get lots of points

 

[gsurfn]

Thanks to you both, you have really eased my mind about the humidity. The temperature at the basking site, according to my digital therm, is 83 degrees. I read/was told that you want a lower basking temp for babies.

Thank you so much for all the help. I don't know what I would have done without it. I will def look into the Pathos for the small cage, and line the sides with plastic to keep in some of that humidity (do I sound like a broken record yet?). Thanks again everyone. I will keep you all posted with his progress.

 

[Dave Weldon]

...The temperature at the basking site, according to my digital therm, is 83 degrees...

Howdy,

As a sanity check, stick the back of your hand at the basking spot. If it doesn't feel more than just slightly warm then you are not likely to burn your chameleon. Digital thermometers are much better at measuring ambient temps than basking temps. $10-$50 infrared "temp gun" type units allow you to actually measure the skin/body temp directly.

Examples:

Distance to spot ratio 6:1
http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog...timers/-/infrared-temperature-gun-with-laser/

D:S 1:1
http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog...ostats-and-timers/-/infrared-temperature-gun/

D:S 6:1
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93984

D:S 8:1
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=96451


D:S of 8:1 means that you can be 8 inches away and you'll be measuring a thermal spot size of 1" and so on... Usually you want 6:1 or 8:1 so that when you are even closer, you are measuring an even smaller spot size.