Female veiled help

[Rhea’s mum]

Hi guys

my other half thinks I’m being over protective and worrying about nothing, but for the past few days Rhea has been showing her ‘stress’ colours and has been cage wall crawling pretty much all day.

Nothing has changed in her enclosure in the past week. Temps are always around 80f at basking and 72 at the lower portion of the cage. I’m feeding her every other day now as she is 5-6 months old. She gets about 8 s/m Dubias or medium locusts and sometimes I swap out a few roaches for calci worms they are all gutloaded with various veg from the usual gutload sheet. She is on the correct supplementation that is recommended by everyone on here. Uvb is still working (I have card that reads whether it’s still pumping it out, plus it’s only a month or so old). I see her drinking when I mist in the evening and she gets a misting in the morning before lights on. Humidity runs high but always has done and I have a dehumidifier set up to try and lower it as best as possible (although I think the hygrometer is dodgy). Uvb is a t5 6% but I am considering switching up to 12% to see if that does anything. Live plants and bioactive. She has plenty of walk ways and plenty of shade and hiding spaces. I have also done the paper test to make sure the basking bulb doesn’t have the ring of death.

Should I be worried as it’s been about 3/4 days now of this or is it just her being a teenager?
She isn’t showing any signs of her receptive colours coming out yet. She is eating, drinking and pooping fine with white urates.

 

[MissSkittles]

You say she’s showing her ‘stress colors’...can you post a pic? The restlessness sounds like she’s entering her receptive phase.

 

[Gingero]

Few things based on what you wrote:

1.Definitely stick to the 6%. Odds are the 12% would be too strong.
2. I’d cut back her food even more to 2-3 bugs every 2-3 days.
3. Can you please post pics of her enclosure top to bottom as well as pics of her?

 

[Rhea’s mum]

The reason I said stress colours was because she used to show these markings and colourings when she was younger in the cage that we got her in from her previous owner, which was really inadequate for her.

 

[Rhea’s mum]

I’ve had a lay bin in with her ever since I moved her across into the XL reptibreeze. It’s got washed playsand in that stays moist enough to hold a tunnel.

 

[Rhea’s mum]

Basking light you can just see in the back left corner. The white bucket is the lay bin with pothos vines and some walkways coming out of it for her. All plants are from the safe list on the Cham academy website.

 

[MissSkittles]

As it would be her first receptive phase, maybe her colors just haven’t come in fully yet. I remember Grumpy having patterns but very subtle coloring for her first. She went from her baby greens to this

and within about 2 weeks to this

And now she’s mature, her colors are much more defined teals and oranges.

 

[Rhea’s mum]

It did cross my mind about her becoming receptive. Guess I was was just hoping she was a bit too young yet. I’ll definitely drop the feeding back again now.
She has got a lovely peach colour behind her cask so I just thought I would be seeing more of those sorts of colours when she became receptive.
I’m just hoping she doesn’t lay too many eggs. I found out the hubby was sneaking her wax worms ‘so that she would like him’ ? he got through a whole tub in a week without me noticing because I was only allowing her 1 a week if that! No more wax worms since.

 

[Gingero]

I found out the hubby was sneaking her wax worms ‘so that she would like him’ ? he got through a whole tub in a week without me noticing because I was only allowing her 1 a week if that! No more wax worms since.

Hahaha she probably does like him now!

 

[MissSkittles]

Well, as you can see Grumpy was a little tree pig. I way way over fed her when I first got her (didn’t know any better at the time). I can’t recall the exact number of her first clutch but it was in the 30’s I think. It wasn’t until a week or two after her first clutch that I really started in earnest to restrict her diet to decrease laying.

 

[Rhea’s mum]

Thanks for all your help.
I saw people on fb groups saying that 30 was a small clutch and that they averaged 50-80! I quickly started to question everything that they were telling people!
I’m just glad I stumbled across this site not long after I got her as everyone on here that I have come across is so so helpful. And the majority aren’t judgemental towards novices.

 

[Flick boy]

Yeah same here about diet my girl is 18 months and has layed 2 clutches first 42 then 53 . I have had to say right I need to not overfeed and not every day which has been hard as I feed my dogs every day and feel bad but I know its the right thing for her health

 

[Rhea’s mum]

Please tell me they stop doing this soon. I don’t think my nerves can handle much more ??‍

 

[Flick boy]

My girl stopped around 14 15 months put my stress levels through the roof so to speak

 

[AmandaS]

Please tell me they stop doing this soon. I don’t think my nerves can handle much more ??‍View attachment 283114

My female still does this whenever she is receptive or ready to lay. She gets so antsy she literally climbs the walls and ceiling.
Any other time though, she is calm and does not screen climb. She's 2 years.

 

[MissSkittles]

I don’t stress over their receptive restlessness. It’s when it’s time for laying that stresses me.

 

[Rhea’s mum]

I know I’m going to be paranoid when it comes to that. Does it ever get any less stressful?

 

[kinyonga]

@Rhea's mum ...what's is stressful about it? What's bothering you about her doing it?

 

[Rhea’s mum]

I just over think everything.
so when she’s climbing on the roof I worry she is going to fall or hurt herself being too close to the uvb light. Then when it comes down to egg laying just generally worried she will become egg bound or the tunnel will collapse and I won’t notice.

 

[kinyonga]

Chameleons can do this to us. She could fall...but hopefully she won't and if she does, hopefully she will fall without hitting anything that will hurt her. They can fall in the wild too...it's just part of being arboreal and being a chameleon. We just have to hope!

Regarding egg binding...it's almost always a husbandry issue. Once in a while, a female will have some reproductive system issue but that's not very common. So once she becomes close to adult she needs to be cut back on the food to maybe 4 well fed crickets or similar amount of other insects. Make sure your supplements are done properly and temperatures, UVB, etc are all right.

Overfeeding her once she is an almost an adult can make her obese, result in MBD, cause prolapses and other health issues...and leave her muscles too weak to push the eggs out....resulting in eggbinding.
Also not having a proper laybin can lead to eggbinding.

Chameleons always worry us....so al we can do is make the husbandry as right as possible and hope all goes well.
Hope this helps a bit.