Help Needed

[MattiBee]

Yet another concern of mine......

I sometimes catch my panther chameleon taking a bite out of the kitchen paper on the bottom of his enclosure and today my girlfriend has caught him with a huge bit in his mouth and it looked like hes struggling with it. She carefully removed the paper and we are no longer putting it in his enclosure.

I am just wondering, is this a normal thing to do (i know they shouldn't eat the paper but is it normal for a young cham who is just curious?) or is it a possible deficiency?

Thanks

 

[sharkey]

take the paper and any other substrate that you have at the bottom of the cage out, and don't replace it. they don't need a substrate - they can/will eat it, poop in it causing bacteria to grow and it is completely unnecessary/hard to clean.

 

[MattiBee]

yeah the only sub i had was a few sheets of kitchen paper/roll but i found it un-needed. Thanks for your reply, any ideas if it was just him eating it for the sake of it or a lack of something?

 

[sharkey]

i've found 2 of my baby jackson's eating soil that they dug out of the plant in their enclosure - and i put rocks in there! i think, from my human perspective, that they are just examining their environment. they were not hungry - i made sure of that. they are too young to breed and they are not an egg laying species. they can't be nutrient deficient - i've raised them since birth and they ALL lived so i just chalk it up to a need to explore! btw i did remove the dirt - something they didn't like but it wasn't hard to do.

 

[MattiBee]

yeah i agree that i dont think its a deficiency but i just thought i would ask. Yeah my panther gave me funny looks when i took the paper out of his enclosure like 'excuuuuuse me what do you think your doing?' lol

Thanks