Colour

[mitchellb]

Hi folks I am new to Chameleons and am a little concerned. We took ownership of a Veiled Chameleon yesterday off someone who bought it but didn't have the time for it. It's now in our house. I have a couple questions

Misting... I misted the (fake) plants yesterday about 4 times. Is it recommended/okay to mist the chameleon while doing so?

I'm going to set up a drip station. Is there instructions to setting one up?

He isn't very green like most pictures I've seen. He is sort of a Gray/ brown.... Why? Is this normal?

He ate pretty good yesterday. When should I be feeding him?

I'm sure I'll have more questions.

 

[Kath44]

Hi, check out https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/ for great info and jannb has a great blog on keeping veileds.
What's your lighting like, feeding, gut loading,temps. Set up?
The more info you give the more help this great forum can give.
Kath.

 

[mitchellb]

Thanks for the reply. We just got him yesterday

He ate some super worms yesterday and crickets today. I just read about gut feeding so I will start that.

Temp is high 80's and went too 90 today. Where should the temp probe go? The previous owner has it up top on the same side as the heat lamp.

I added an umbrella plant today and I'll be ordering a drip system tomorrow.

I spoke to the local store today and he said the colour is that way as it is in a new environment with new people.

 

[Daver13]

Do you have a UVB light too? And for feeding, feed everyday and dust with calcium d3, and the multivitamins a handful of times a month, offer worms mostly as treats though some chams can get addicted to worms (like my panther), feed 5-10 crickets a day

 

[ir0k]

im not experienced at all with veilds, but I know they can be very very beautiful chameleons.

Good luck. I hope he/she comes around soon ;D

 

[mitchellb]

Yep there's a UVB light. I took the plant out and will put it back in once I clean it and change the dirt.

 

[mitchellb]

He had about 10 dusted crickets today

 

[Daver13]

Yep there's a UVB light. I took the plant out and will put it back in once I clean it and change the dirt.

sounds good umbrella plants are good my one loves his
Also most chameleon owners don't use dirt or substrate of any kind as it's better to just have nothing, which chameleons prefer. I put old paper towels down to soak up moisture but you have to change them frequently. I'd recommend taking out the dirt as he could accidentally pick some up when grabbing a cricket and choke, also dirt holds moisture which can lead to respiratory infections

 

[Daver13]

unless you were just talking about the dirt in the plant pot... lol just realized that's probably what you meant

 

[Ferrah88]

Dirt in the plants can be covered with large river stones or anything too big for him to accidentally eat!

For a feeding regime, I'd say to feed him no earlier than 1 hour after lights go on and no later than 2 hours before lights go off (so he has some time to digest). In my opinion, the earlier the better, but I sometimes can't help giving my chams a bedtime snack 2 hours before, especially since I come home so late! The legs on your new boy look really thin, so he might need to eat a bit more. His legs should fatten up really quickly though, so don't worry too much about that!

His brown colour could be because of stress or basking (my veileds get brown while basking). I'm sure he's just not used to his new home yet and with some tlc will start showing colours in no time. Nothing at all looks wrong with him on the pictures (except his legs as I stated earlier).

For your drip station, you'll have to see what works for him. I have 3 different watering methods:

1. Yuki: Drinks from a dripper-hose like thing and from the spray bottle while misting.
2. Marimo & Midori: Exclusively from droplets from leaves. If I put any kind of dripper for them, they start avoiding that corner like the plague!
3. Ryuu: Misting the top of his screen enclosure so that water collects and then forms large droplets of water. He will then drink his fill from said droplets. I caught him drinking from a plant leaf once, but he prefers the mentioned method.

Those are just some ideas should you notice that whatever you are trying is not working for your chameleon. Just try to adapt to him, see what he likes. Veileds also get some of their water requirements from fruits and vegetables, to try and get him to eat some every now and then! While misting if you mist him too, it's not a problem. If he starts running away though, don't try and chase him and let him get out of the way of the water. If he wants to get misted, he will come back and sit under it. But getting him wet is not an issue. Just make sure the water is not too hot or too cold. I always mist with room temperature water.

Supplements should be as follows:
Every feeding: Calcium WITHOUT D3
Once every week: Vitamin Supplement / Calcium with D3 alternating (Eg: Week 1 Vit, Week 2 Calc + D3, Week 3 Vit...)

Your feeders should be gutloaded, if possible, with fresh fruits and vegetables. There are also plenty of other gutloads to use (I also include bugburger in their diet if I cannot access fruits and veggies for whatever reason). Almost anything is better than whatever they are fed when you buy them! Staple feeders should include Crickets, Silkworms, Dubias, Hornworms, Phoenix Worms and plenty of others. Things that should rarely (if ever) fed are Butterworms, Meal/Superworms, Waxworms and anything with a really high fat content.



I think I covered everything I could think of at the moment. Feel free to post any more questions if you have them! We're here to help you as much as possible

 

[Iluvheidi]

my veiled went through a brown faze. now he is mostly green with depending on mood color stipes. his faze lasted about 3 months