How to prevent toe nails getting caught on the screen?

[rmichaelk]

Hello,
I have a 6 month old panther male and he is doing great. I see him walking on the screen once in a while and right now he doesn't seem to have any issues. But I am wondering if his toe nails will get caught in the screen material when he grows up. What can I do to ensure he doesn't run into any such issues?

Thank you.
Michael

 

[SpinyFranky]

I have never heard of an effective way to prevent your chameleon from climbing on screen. If he wants to, he will.

Some tips to make sure if he does it is as safe as can be:

Some people makes holes in the screen to attach vines and leaves - make sure these holes are properly sealed, this way his foot cannot slip through and get stuck. Simply bending the screen back into original position with some pliers should work. Just avoid foot sizes pot holes on his screen road.

Provide ample climbing materials other than the screen. Those brown vines you can buy at petco are famous for creating chameleon freeways, and I am sure that if the animal wants to go somewhere it would prefer a vine over screen.


In the end, some chameleons just like climbing in the screen. My female panther adores it, while the male is like "meh". She will climb upside down and all over, he will only go on it in pursuit of a cricket or running away from my evil no good hand.

Just makes sure the screen is kept in good condition and you should not really have to worry about him.

 

[dodolah]

line your cage with a plastic chicken wire.
Check my link:
http://chamworld.blogspot.com/2008/01/health-section-h-misc-and-conclusions.html

Scroll down to the bottom paragraphs

 

[moody232002]

Mista lost a couple of toe nails through climbing the roof of his enclosure when i first got him.
Mine is a flexarium and i was advised to put some of the garden netting to line the inside,so he had a bigger area to grip.

 

[lbesok]

line your cage with a plastic chicken wire.
Check my link:
http://chamworld.blogspot.com/2008/01/health-section-h-misc-and-conclusions.html

Scroll down to the bottom paragraphs

Yep, Frans I agree with Franz. That's actually my photo on his site To attach the chicken wire to the cage, first I cut three pieces, one for each side and for the back and fit them in. Then I attached all three pieces together in the two back corners of the cage w zip ties. Then attached the rest to the screen with twist ties. Hope if you choose to go with this method it helps prevent any missing toe nails!

 

[tkilgour]

I had to use the plastic chicken wire for a couple screen climbers too. I think it is ugly and takes away from the beauty of the enclosures. However, thats what I had to do to stop them. I also put long vines running from top to bottom in rows along the sides and doors. Eventually, it trained them and they stopped walking on the sides, so I removed the chicken wire. I slowly removed each side of chicken wire and luckily no more screen climbers. Good luck.

 

[sandrachameleon]

The best way to avoid having toenails get caught in screen is not to use dense screen for caging. Coated wire, such as used in quality bird cages, might be best. Chicken wire and hardware cloth is sharper edges than you may think, and can damage feet.

 

[SS4Luck]

Ive read before that larger squared plastic mesh instead of the wire mesh is another way to help keep toenails attatched to feet

 

[rmichaelk]

Yep, Frans I agree with Franz. That's actually my photo on his site To attach the chicken wire to the cage, first I cut three pieces, one for each side and for the back and fit them in. Then I attached all three pieces together in the two back corners of the cage w zip ties. Then attached the rest to the screen with twist ties. Hope if you choose to go with this method it helps prevent any missing toe nails!

Just curious, does the plastic chicken wire material just stay in front of the regular screen that comes with the cage? Won't the space in the chicken wire be large enough where the chameleon can still accidentally get his toes stuck in the cage screen?

Michael

 

[dodolah]

The best way to avoid having toenails get caught in screen is not to use dense screen for caging. Coated wire, such as used in quality bird cages, might be best. Chicken wire and hardware cloth is sharper edges than you may think, and can damage feet.

yes. make sure you used the plastic chicken wire.

If you do not like the idea of hanging a plastic chicken wire.. you can order your cage at cages.net
The company allows you to substitute the normal mesh screen with a larger size mesh wire with no extra cost. The larger one is very safe and there is no way your chameleon's toenails can get caught. the only problem is that it might not be feeder proof (insects such as flies, small crickets, and so on might be able to escape).

 

[xanthoman]

plastic border/base

you will notice in my avatar that my cages do not use typical window screen for that reason. the screen in my avatar is 1/2" mesh vinyl coated hardware cloth , if you construct a cage out of such a material you can carefully fit a plastic border of 1/8" thick plastic around the bottom inside perimeter about 6"tall, you can also do this on regular screen cages, some plastics are easier to climb than others, poly-propelene (ppe) is the hardest of all plastics to climb (this is like what white nylon cutting boards are made of) and is harder to climb than glass, most insects (even ones that can climb glass) cannot climb polypropelene. polyethelene (pe) is probably the second hardest to climb, but surface texture plays a role. polystyrene and most other plastic sheet is readily climbable by most insects that can climb glass. you can get most of these plastics in sheet form at most plastics shops that sell plexiglass (also easily climbed)./chams would prefer climbing branches and if cage crawling is an issue, it can often be eliminated or reduced by offering more and better climbing structure within ALL parts of your cage. even if you climb proof the bottom of a wide mesh cage, there is nothing (other than your chams) to stop feeders from climbing the branches and then jumping out (thats why i use feeding cups). if you already have your cage and dont want to build another one, most standard cham cages can be easily dismantled and rescreened with a different mesh screen. i personally prefer the super pet screen manufactured by ST. GOBAIN FABRICS, it has slightly larger openings than most stock cham screen is plastic coated and ultra tough but much softer than most typical cham / window screens, the manufacturer is large qty wholesale only and it can be hard to find , i found it at fred meyer, if you use it, you will need to go with thinner spline, because of the plastic coating it is significantly thicker than most standard cham/ window screen. it is cham toe friendly for all but the largest of cham toes. i think it is too late for me to include a photo attachment in this post, so i will post again showing a picture jmo

 

[xanthoman]

st gobain super pet screen

 

[OldSkoolxReasons]

They have 1/4" 36inch wide plastic screen that I use for all my cages. It's sold in the home depot garden section and they have different widths, types, and thicknesses. The chams can comfortably stick either end of their foot in it an climb it if they want. I don't see them climbing it much because they are usually free ranging anyways. Lol. But every one of my chams has all their toes and nails and were kept in cages until they were all 6 months old. Now they are just in cages when every free range tree or uvb light is full.


Justin

 

[jojackson]

Mwaaaahhhh!

I'm Just Kidding!

 

[rmichaelk]

Hi John,
I do have that super pet screen and that was actually one of my thoughts, replace the existing screen with that one. Need to figure that out.

Michael