He drinks from a bowl!

[MiyagiCham]

Wow, I'm honestly suprised he does this! So I have a drip system set up in miyagi's cage for water. It always created quite the mess when it was left on, so I put a bowl on the floor to collect the water. (Its rather shallow, I was worried he mighy drown in too big of a bowl) So today when I got home, I was rather shocked to see miyagi at the bowl, sticking his tongue in to grab water. How unusual! Does anyone else have a cham that will drink from a bowl?

 

[Andee]

It's probably because when the dripper drips into the bowl it causes the surface to move. They drink moving water. Are his urates white? Usually I've noticed they do this when they are thirsty.

 

[trickedoutbiker]

I have a bowl at the bottom of my cage to catch some water in as well, because my chameleon too, learned that you can drink from a water dish. Most of them don't ever do that at all.

I had no drain tray when I first got him, so I used a bowl to catch the majority of the water running off his plants. He learned that you can drink from it, so after I got my drainage tray all setup, I still left the bowl in the cage to catch water for him. From time to time when he is exploring the bottom of his cage, I will see him flick his tongue into the water really quick to grab a nice big drink. I've never seen anything but white urates in my chameleon. Always has a healthy looking stool. He has many many opportunities throughout each day to lap water off his plants, and there is always that water bowl at the bottom of his cage.

Some people freak out about water dishes and such in the cage due to bacteria buildup. This can be seen as a bigger issue in waterfalls that cannot be easily cleaned like a bowl can. I think a bowl of water in the cage is okay IF YOU CLEAN IT REGULARLY. I dump the water in mine every time it fills all the way up and starts to over pour, and I also take out the bowl and clean it / sanitize it every two days OR when I see him poop in the water, which has only ever happened once, at the very beginning when I first got him. He probably avoids doing this now that he knows he can drink from it. But deff make sure you are dumping the water and cleaning the bowl on a regular basis to prevent any bacteria or buildup of any kind and you should be good.

 

[MiyagiCham]

He still has white urates. I clean his bowl everytime his dripper stops dripping. So i fill the dripper a little bit, turn it on, it drips for about 2 hours, and when its done I dump the water out and put it back.

 

[cbilan]

I just saw my panther doing the same thing yesterday for the first time.

 

[gotwqqd]

I think if you are going to use a drinking cup, it's best that it is high up in enclosure and tilted slightly as to allow runoff and promote water replacement.

 

[Shilohpsu]

My veiled chameleon Herbert has an exoterra drip plant that has a water bowl under it to collect the drops. At first, he would bite the end of the leaves or shoot his tongue to get the drops. He eventually learned that he can drink from the bowl. He's about 11 months old now and I haven't had any health issues. Not sure why people freak out about bacteria water. He's currently 16 inches long, still growing, and perfectly healthy. I caught him taking a drink from his brothers goldfish bowl last night. I had just changed the water the day before so I will continue to not worry about him getting sick from it. Here is the video.

 

[leedragon]

My veiled chameleon Herbert has an exoterra drip plant that has a water bowl under it to collect the drops. At first, he would bite the end of the leaves or shoot his tongue to get the drops. He eventually learned that he can drink from the bowl. He's about 11 months old now and I haven't had any health issues. Not sure why people freak out about bacteria water. He's currently 16 inches long, still growing, and perfectly healthy. I caught him taking a drink from his brothers goldfish bowl last night. I had just changed the water the day before so I will continue to not worry about him getting sick from it. Here is the video.

because experience has taught them better. Yemens are more forgiving. I am myself made the misstake of assuming I could wing the same mistakes with a jackson only to have it dead a week later with mounth rot.