Boy or Girl cham?!

Meerkat

Meerkat

New Member
About 5 month old red body blue bar Panther Chameleon. Can’t really distinguish if it is a boy or girl. They told me it was a boy.
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Chameleon Info:
  • Your Chameleon - 5 month old roughly male red body blue bar panther. Owned about 3 weeks now going on a month.
  • Handling - Once a week maybe for 5 min if that. Otherwise i let him be in his cage.
  • Feeding - Crickets and superworms. 10-12 crickets a day. Dusted with repashy calcium plus. 2-3 superworms twice a week. Gutload crickets with Fluckers high calcium cricket diet.
  • Watering - I manually mist probably 6 times a day. Getting a dripper today actually so he has constant water source. I have seen him drink. But i have all fake plants so the basking light dries the water out fairly quick.
  • Fecal Description - Very good fecal. White urate an brown poop.

Cage Info:
  • Cage Type - Reptibreeze 16x16x30 screen cage. (About to purchase Dragonstrand 24x24x48 within the next couple months)
  • Lighting - The dual dome zoo med. 100w basking bulb. 5.0 UVB bulb. (The T5 UVB should get here any day)
  • Temperature - About 83 at basking spot. 70-73 bottom of cage. House gets down to probably 67 at night. Lights on at 7am an off at 7pm
  • Humidity - Haven’t checked yet.
  • Plants - All fake plants
  • Placement - In computer room with air vent. Moved out of living room where alot if traffic was. Top of cage sits 5ft.
  • Location - Bakersfield, CA
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Your husbandry looks correct! The only thing though is that you need to measure humidity, and keep it from 50-70%. I would recommend removing the substrate, as it can get bacteria from feces and feeder insects digging into it and then dying there.
 
Meerkat said:
Chameleon Info:
  • Your Chameleon - 5 month old roughly male red body blue bar panther. Owned about 3 weeks now going on a month.
  • Handling - Once a week maybe for 5 min if that. Otherwise i let him be in his cage.
  • Feeding - Crickets and superworms. 10-12 crickets a day. Dusted with repashy calcium plus. 2-3 superworms twice a week. Gutload crickets with Fluckers high calcium cricket diet.
  • Watering - I manually mist probably 6 times a day. Getting a dripper today actually so he has constant water source. I have seen him drink. But i have all fake plants so the basking light dries the water out fairly quick.
  • Fecal Description - Very good fecal. White urate an brown poop.

Cage Info:
  • Cage Type - Reptibreeze 16x16x30 screen cage. (About to purchase Dragonstrand 24x24x48 within the next couple months)
  • Lighting - The dual dome zoo med. 100w basking bulb. 5.0 UVB bulb. (The T5 UVB should get here any day)
  • Temperature - About 83 at basking spot. 70-73 bottom of cage. House gets down to probably 67 at night. Lights on at 7am an off at 7pm
  • Humidity - Haven’t checked yet.
  • Plants - All fake plants
  • Placement - In computer room with air vent. Moved out of living room where alot if traffic was. Top of cage sits 5ft.
  • Location - Bakersfield, CAView attachment 259835View attachment 259834View attachment 259833
Click to expand...

There are a few things here that will need to be corrected, but you will be able to fix these with a few important changes that won't be too hard! You're off to a good start and I'm glad to see you've already realized your current lighting will not be sufficient.

Supplements: If you are only using that one supplement make sure it is "Repashy Calcium Plus LoD". If the supplement you're using does not have the "LoD" part, that means there is no vitamin D3 in it, which is vital to your chameleon's survival.

Gutload: That calcium gutload you're using is as good as nothing, unfortunately. Not at all nutritious enough for a chameleon. If you want to use a commercially available gutload, then I recommend Cricket Crack. The Fluker's products are notoriously useless. Better still is to use fresh produce like mustard greens, collards, turnip greens, escarole, papaya, etc. Check the resources section for more specifics.

Cage size: I recommend ordering that new cage ASAP. They grow fast and he's already big enough for adult size enclosure (and Dragonstrand has large wait times sometimes I hear).

Humidity: A quality hygrometer is essential to keeping chameleons. It is very important to know exactly what your humidity is.

Plants: It's really much better to incorporate some, or imo preferably all, live plants into the enclosure.

And lastly, I second that those wood chips have got to go. They are a breeding ground for bacteria, serve no real purpose, and are a respiratory infection waiting to happen.
 
Good morning @Meerkat

Looks like everyone is leading you on a path to good husbandry.

I suggest you add another branch or two closer to the basking areas. Those compact uvb bulbs don’t project uvi very well. I would put a branch closer to the top of the cage so he can get more uvb. I would also put a branch closer to the heat bulb. Get a temp gun and make sure that new basking area isn’t too hot. Chams don’t know when they’re burning themselves kind of like we don’t know when we’re getting sunburned.

Once you remove the substrate you might need to consider a drainage system for all the water you spray.

Lastly, the stand for the cage makes me nervous. One little bump, one little oopsie makes me feel that your chams world will come crashing down. I would put him on something else or mount the cage down.
 
Syreptyon said:
There are a few things here that will need to be corrected, but you will be able to fix these with a few important changes that won't be too hard! You're off to a good start and I'm glad to see you've already realized your current lighting will not be sufficient.

Supplements: If you are only using that one supplement make sure it is "Repashy Calcium Plus LoD". If the supplement you're using does not have the "LoD" part, that means there is no vitamin D3 in it, which is vital to your chameleon's survival.

Gutload: That calcium gutload you're using is as good as nothing, unfortunately. Not at all nutritious enough for a chameleon. If you want to use a commercially available gutload, then I recommend Cricket Crack. The Fluker's products are notoriously useless. Better still is to use fresh produce like mustard greens, collards, turnip greens, escarole, papaya, etc. Check the resources section for more specifics.

Cage size: I recommend ordering that new cage ASAP. They grow fast and he's already big enough for adult size enclosure (and Dragonstrand has large wait times sometimes I hear).

Humidity: A quality hygrometer is essential to keeping chameleons. It is very important to know exactly what your humidity is.

Plants: It's really much better to incorporate some, or imo preferably all, live plants into the enclosure.

And lastly, I second that those wood chips have got to go. They are a breeding ground for bacteria, serve no real purpose, and are a respiratory infection waiting to happen.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help!! So i just ordered the Repashy with LOD. Be here tomorrow. An also Repashy superload for the crickets. I live there products!
Also could you recommend a good hygrometer for me? There’s sooo many options an i just want a solid one that’s not to pricey.
I will grab some cham friendly live plants as well this weekend, an also jump on a bigger cage ASAP. I appreciate all your input!!
 
@Meerkat

I know this question wasn’t directed at me, but as far as the hygrometer goes, I’ve had good results in the last day with this Bluetooth hygrometer
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R586J37/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uVvxEbJRCJZT6

This one is also good. I‘ve been using it and getting good results. It’s just tricky to mount. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004K8RF10/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_53vxEb119KYES

Otherwise just get a Zoo Med digital one with a probe. Either way just put whatever one you get in a spot that won’t get directly misted. You want to put it somewhere that will correctly read the relative humidity. If it gets wet it’ll read 100% which is not correct RH
 
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Syreptyon said:
Supplements: If you are only using that one supplement make sure it is "Repashy Calcium Plus LoD". If the supplement you're using does not have the "LoD" part, that means there is no vitamin D3 in it, which is vital to your chameleon's survival.
Click to expand...

just to let you know the regular repashy calcium plus does have d3 in it. a ton of it.

that’s why the loD is called loD. It has a lower d3 content then the regular formula.
 
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I got my digital hygrometer from Target. Much cheaper than any that have a reptile brand on it.

Also I'd be mindful of misting so often... 6x/day is very high. Once you know your humidity levels, you'll be able to adjust this since it depends on the climate you live in. Drier climates are going to need more frequent mistings than naturally humid climates. Usually 2x/day for 2-5 minutes is recommended.
 
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