Gone for 3 weeks

[herbiethechameleon]

hi everyone!
I am going to be out of the country for 3 weeks and I wanted to know what you guys recommend when you leave for so long! My chameleon has timers on everything so he’s good there, just curious about the food situation. Would you recommend someone come maybe once a week to refill his food bowl and water reservoir or more often than that? I’ve also seen some people make sort of a cricket dispenser with a bottle that sort of self feeds. What do you guys recommend?

 

[janjan20]

I have never been away that long. The longest was about a week and I had my sitter checking on my cham everyday lol. He was only fed every two days. Watering was automated and they just had to fill the bucket when it was low. 3 weeks is a long time, not sure if any other members have been away that long. @jannb you have been out of the country before when you were in the states. Any suggestions?

 

[jannb]

I have never been away that long. The longest was about a week and I had my sitter checking on my cham everyday lol. He was only fed every two days. Watering was automated and they just had to fill the bucket when it was low. 3 weeks is a long time, not sure if any other members have been away that long. @jannb you have been out of the country before when you were in the states. Any suggestions?

I always have a petsitter.

 

[Gingero]

This video should help!



I have my pet sitter come every 3-4 days to feed the chams, check on them, and refill any water buckets as needed. Otherwise everything else is automated and I have a camera in the room to make sure the power doesn’t go out or a bulb burns out.

 

[absolutbill]

Do you live in an area where people might want to visit? See if a friend or family member who don't live near you (and with whom you are comfortable) would want to stay at your house while you are away. I'm leaving for 2 weeks, and am lucky enough that my best friend will be staying here at my place. I've typed out daily duties (we also have a ton of plants, 2 cats, and a poison dart frog), so he can follow along. Doesn't hurt that we meal-prepped meals for him and froze them, either! Just another idea.

 

[elizaann2]

Recently was away from my scaled and fur babies for 9 days on vacation. This is what I did:

- I had a pet sitter that stayed at my house the whole time
- Bugs for each 'meal' while I was gone is pre-set up in deli cups with the type of supplementation needed marked on the cup. Example: "Monday (dubia) + Calcium"
- I had cameras on all my chameleons so I could also check in on them whenever I needed/wanted
- I set up all my timers on wifi timers so if things needed to be adjusted I could also do so whenever I needed
- The wifi sensors I have have alarms that I can set up to inform me when temps/humidity is too low/high, so I set up the alarms to alert me and my sitter if anything is off
- I had an emergency list with my regular vet, my back up vet and my emergency ER/weekend vet in case anything happened
- I had basic husbandry typed up on a paper (attached) for my sitter to refer to when caring for my animals
- I had a schedule typed up for her to follow every day in regards to care for my animals (attached)
- Days before I left I walked myself through my schedule to ensure I didn't miss anything
- The day before I left I walked my sitter through my schedule
- The day I left, my sitter walked through the schedule with me observing

I also checked in with my sitter at least once a day to see how things were going.