Cosmic Rainbow 1-Year Birthday and Health Check

[Lunatuck]

Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - Ambilobe Panther Chameleon, 1 year, Male
• Handling - 1-2 Times per week.
• Feeding - Crickets (Gutload:Repashy Superload, Apples, Carrots, Oranges, Bee Pollen, Dandelion Leaves in season, and some other scraps) Eating has slowed a bit. Maybe 8-10 3/4" crickets daily.
• Supplements - Multivite 3x per month, Minerall no D3 2x per week, Calcium with D3 2x per month, Reptical 3-4x per week
• Watering - Misting for 1 minute every 6 hours, manually misting morning and evening when I hear the mister kick on(So he has enough time to drink). I watch/force him to drink 2-3x per week. Added a dripper after cage redesign as insurance.
• Fecal Description - Poops are massive! Urites has been a little orange since 6 months or so, but I watch him drink. No parasite tests yet.
• History - The only oddity is that his urites used to be pure white until about 6 months. At about that time, his poops got very large and his urites had hints of orange. I got more persistant about watching him drink, but the urites stayed orange.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Screen 24"w x18"d x 36"h
• Lighting - Heat lamp with dome, Brand new 10.0 UVB added a couple weeks ago. Changed from 5.0.
• Temperature - Top is 90F, bottom is 70F falling a little bit on the coldest winter nights.
• Humidity - 40% humidity most of the time. When it's freezing outside, I try and compensate with extra misting cycles.
• Plants - Shefflera and Bromeliad. He killed all of his other plants, so I used some fake vines on the top of the cage to make him feel hidden. He's on his 3rd shefflera.
• Placement - In my study. Very quiet, no vents, some natural light, but no direct sunlight until the late spring early summer.
• Location - Northeast PA

Current Problem - A few of things I'm watching... First, his orange urites. It's always orange no matter how much I watch him drink. Half of the urites will be orange, half white. Orange can be bright somtimes. I do gutload carrots which is making me wonder if that has something to do with it.
Second, he's been a bit dull in coloring. He rarely fires up. It almost seems like he's just trying to blend in. I think a shed is coming, but even after his last shed, he wasn't as bright as I'd expect.
Third, He had a few small pieces of stuck shed on the middle of his tail. His tail and body have always shed at different times. This is the spot right between them.

Notes - I just replaced his tree and added the fake vines. It's definitely more full, maybe too full? He's relearning his cage. He's changed his sleep spot since the change. It's now where he is in the picture, where he used to stay higher up on the right side facing the window. He now sleeps in a nice hidden spot, so I don't think he's sick, just doesn't want to sleep in the full bush. I'm tempted to thin out his tree more, but I also think it's only a matter of time before the tree starts dying off. I have two new plant lights, but am having trouble positioning them because the heat dome melted one. Working on that now.

 

[Lunatuck]

 

[Thehippie]

• Your Chameleon - Ambilobe Panther Chameleon, 1 year, Male
• Handling - 1-2 Times per week.
• Feeding - Crickets (Gutload:Repashy Superload, Apples, Carrots, Oranges, Bee Pollen, Dandelion Leaves in season, and some other scraps) Eating has slowed a bit. Maybe 8-10 3/4" crickets daily. he should eat every other day since he hit the one year mark around 6-8 large.
• Supplements - Multivite 3x per month, Minerall no D3 2x per week, Calcium with D3 2x per month, Reptical 3-4x per week the supplement schedule should be multivitamin every 2 weeks, d3 every two weeks and every day no d3.
• Watering - Misting for 1 minute every 6 hours, manually misting morning and evening when I hear the mister kick on(So he has enough time to drink). I watch/force him to drink 2-3x per week. Added a dripper after cage redesign as insurance. should be misting 2-4 mins every time. i usually prefer twice a day.
• Fecal Description - Poops are massive! Urites has been a little orange since 6 months or so, but I watch him drink. No parasite tests yet.
• History - The only oddity is that his urites used to be pure white until about 6 months. At about that time, his poops got very large and his urites had hints of orange. I got more persistant about watching him drink, but the urites stayed orange. try a dripper so he has water all day.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Screen 24"w x18"d x 36"h might want to upgrade to 2x2x4 foot enclosure, that is the minimum for a male panther.
• Lighting - Heat lamp with dome, Brand new 10.0 UVB added a couple weeks ago. Changed from 5.0. i would change it back to 5.0
• Temperature - Top is 90F, bottom is 70F falling a little bit on the coldest winter nights.
• Humidity - 40% humidity most of the time. When it's freezing outside, I try and compensate with extra misting cycles. should be a humidity spike at night.
• Plants - Shefflera and Bromeliad. He killed all of his other plants, so I used some fake vines on the top of the cage to make him feel hidden. He's on his 3rd shefflera. try pothos, those are harder to kill!
• Placement - In my study. Very quiet, no vents, some natural light, but no direct sunlight until the late spring early summer.
• Location - Northeast PA

please see my annotations in red

 

[Lunatuck]

Thanks for the advice. I think I try and compensate on all of the annotations to make it fit my routine. But I am definately open to change.

For example, I order 3/4" crickets so they live longer. When I order adults, they go winged too quick or die off and I think I'm supposed to avoid winged, right? Tyipcal order is 500 crix.

In regards to supplements. the minerall has cal, but no D3; so he gets calcium almost daily. I give him approximately 3 days per month undusted because he sometimes gets a coating on his poo (Over supplementing ca?).

Because my mister maxes out at 1m, I manually spritz in the morning and pm when I hear the mister running. This gives me an opportunity to actually watch him drink. I am also using the mister to try and keep the humidity up. Otherwise, it'll be 20% this time of year. That's until I upgrade the enclosure and misting system. That's coming very soon. I have added a dripper.

Why the 5.0 over the 10.0?

 

[Thehippie]

Thanks for the advice. I think I try and compensate on all of the annotations to make it fit my routine. But I am definately open to change.

For example, I order 3/4" crickets so they live longer. When I order adults, they go winged too quick or die off and I think I'm supposed to avoid winged, right? Tyipcal order is 500 crix.

In regards to supplements. the minerall has cal, but no D3; so he gets calcium almost daily. I give him approximately 3 days per month undusted because he sometimes gets a coating on his poo (Over supplementing ca?).

Because my mister maxes out at 1m, I manually spritz in the morning and pm when I hear the mister running. This gives me an opportunity to actually watch him drink. I am also using the mister to try and keep the humidity up. Otherwise, it'll be 20% this time of year. That's until I upgrade the enclosure and misting system. That's coming very soon. I have added a dripper.

Why the 5.0 over the 10.0?

check out this link!!! https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/the-truth-about-uvi.172065/ thats why 5.0 uvb!!

 

[Thehippie]

i dont think that you can over supplement calcium unless youre heavily dusting, i lightly dust, but that regimen is whats worked best for many keepers. also i think that ordering 3/4 inch is fine but still would cut down the feeding to 8-10 per every other day. its better since they dont grow much after the one year mark!!

 

[Lunatuck]

I'm thinking I'm going to add a layer of screen below the UVB bulb. Option 2 is to raise it up a few inches, but not sure that'll be as easy.