Husbandry check
- Thread starter Chance289
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I have a hard time finding leafy greens that are on the safe list. I see a lot of lettuce and kale and from what I understand that is a no no. So I stick with the things I know are safe. The calcium plus people actually use as a daily and I was told by my breeder to use it daily but from my own research I chose not to use it daily but to still substitute it in. I dripper once a week because I never see my Cham drinking the dripper. He has droplets when he wakes up, I have a mister go off 30 minutes before lights off so that misting session replaces the dripper in my mind, and he gets misted and fogger at night for high humidity. For my uvb the basking branch is 8-9 inches away. 6 inches from the chameleons back
Klyde O'Scope
Chameleon Enthusiast
Veileds do have a reputation for sampling plants, but technically, they're still strictly insectivores. They do not require being fed greens, nor should they be fed greens. Feed the greens to your feeder insects.
From the archives: https://www.chameleonforums.com/search/1615711/?q=greens&c[title_only]=1&o=relevance
Yes I didn’t mean feeding the Cham directly greens. I meant it as a gutload options for bugs. I have a very hard time finding the greens that are on the safe gutload list. I only get the basics like kale and lettuce or spinach. What greens do you use that you can find at a local grocery store?Veileds do have a reputation for sampling plants, but technically, they're still strictly insectivores. They do not require being fed greens, nor should they be fed greens. Feed the greens to your feeder insects.
From the archives: https://www.chameleonforums.com/search/1615711/?q=greens&c[title_only]=1&o=relevance
Klyde O'Scope
Chameleon Enthusiast
Sorry, that wasn't clear.
We have a beardie and a tortoise as well, so we tend to gut load with whatever they're eating. Most recently it's been:
bok choi
dandelion greens
mustard greens
collard greens
turnip greens
carrot
Those are from the grocery. We grow a few others, like prickly pear cactus, and some flowering plants. What the beardie & tortoise don't eat gets gut loaded.
RescueMom
Avid Member
Does anyone check the temperature in Madagascar? I keep my guys basking spot about 88, which is right about where it would be if he were in his natural environment.
This may have been covered, if so I apologize for the repetitive input in advance.
As far as wanting out of his enclosure, he has never wanted out, or to be handled, until just recently, but I'm pretty sure I know why.
He's about 18 months old and I've had him since he was 4 months old. He's not aggressive at all, but content in his enclosure, climbing around on the highway of branches I made for him, and never being afraid to eat from my hand.
The thing that changed was moving from a house where he was in a smaller room with normal height ceilings to a house where he's now in the living room (I'm home during the day, and my husband is in the evening, so not high traffic) but the ceilings are extremely high (higher than your normal vaulted) . He sees that there are things much higher than his cage now and he wants to go up up up , which means trying to escape every chance he gets. And not just get out, but it's always a fight because he tries to get on top of the cage and of course he'd burn himself if that happened
So, just a thought, even if his cage is high enough off the floor, if there are things he can see that he thinks he could climb up up up on, that could be the issue.
This may have been covered, if so I apologize for the repetitive input in advance.
As far as wanting out of his enclosure, he has never wanted out, or to be handled, until just recently, but I'm pretty sure I know why.
He's about 18 months old and I've had him since he was 4 months old. He's not aggressive at all, but content in his enclosure, climbing around on the highway of branches I made for him, and never being afraid to eat from my hand.
The thing that changed was moving from a house where he was in a smaller room with normal height ceilings to a house where he's now in the living room (I'm home during the day, and my husband is in the evening, so not high traffic) but the ceilings are extremely high (higher than your normal vaulted) . He sees that there are things much higher than his cage now and he wants to go up up up , which means trying to escape every chance he gets. And not just get out, but it's always a fight because he tries to get on top of the cage and of course he'd burn himself if that happened
So, just a thought, even if his cage is high enough off the floor, if there are things he can see that he thinks he could climb up up up on, that could be the issue.
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Kaizen
Chameleon Enthusiast
I know how tempting it is to use weather data from their home country. But it is usually misleading. Weather stations in Antananarivo will most assuredly not accurately represent the microclimates in the rainforests, or coastal areas. Likewise, even if you found a weather station close to a particular species’ home range, it would still fail to capture what the ambient temps are in the dense shade, or in a thicket of trees over moist soil. And those differences can easily amount to 10 degrees or more. If you are set on mimicking natural conditions, check out https://www.madcham.de/en/category/chamaeleons/. You’ll get in the ground climatic data and uvi readings.Does anyone check the temperature in Madagascar? I keep my guys basking spot about 88, which is right about where it would be if he were in his natural environment.
This may have been covered, if so I apologize for the repetitive input in advance.
As far as wanting out of his enclosure, he has never wanted out, or to be handled, until just recently, but I'm pretty sure I know why.
He's about 18 months old and I've had him since he was 4 months old. He's not aggressive at all, but content in his enclosure, climbing around on the highway of branches I made for him, and never being afraid to eat from my hand.
The thing that changed was moving from a house where he was in a smaller room with normal height ceilings to a house where he's now in the living room (I'm home during the day, and my husband is in the evening, so not high traffic) but the ceilings are extremely high (higher than your normal vaulted) . He sees that there are things much higher than his cage now and he wants to go up up up , which means trying to escape every chance he gets. And not just get out, but it's always a fight because he tries to get on top of the cage and of course he'd burn himself if that happened
So, just a thought, even if his cage is high enough off the floor, if there are things he can see that he thinks he could climb up up up on, that could be the issue.
You’re right about that. There are things around him that are a little bit higher than him. There’s some shelvings that hold the wires from the lights and a dripper held up above. It also doesn’t help that I’ve installed a vine outside his enclosure that he hangout onDoes anyone check the temperature in Madagascar? I keep my guys basking spot about 88, which is right about where it would be if he were in his natural environment.
This may have been covered, if so I apologize for the repetitive input in advance.
As far as wanting out of his enclosure, he has never wanted out, or to be handled, until just recently, but I'm pretty sure I know why.
He's about 18 months old and I've had him since he was 4 months old. He's not aggressive at all, but content in his enclosure, climbing around on the highway of branches I made for him, and never being afraid to eat from my hand.
The thing that changed was moving from a house where he was in a smaller room with normal height ceilings to a house where he's now in the living room (I'm home during the day, and my husband is in the evening, so not high traffic) but the ceilings are extremely high (higher than your normal vaulted) . He sees that there are things much higher than his cage now and he wants to go up up up , which means trying to escape every chance he gets. And not just get out, but it's always a fight because he tries to get on top of the cage and of course he'd burn himself if that happened
So, just a thought, even if his cage is high enough off the floor, if there are things he can see that he thinks he could climb up up up on, that could be the issue.
RescueMom
Avid Member
I've found (with mine at least) it's all or nothing. He either acts like I've come to eat him and hides like an idiot or comes to the front of the cage and hangs on the dripper nozzles so I have to fix them two or three times a day
But like many others have said, as long as everything checks out okay in his enclosure that's the most important thing. And if so he's probably just doing what his instincts are telling him, which is to be as high as possible... In the words of Leo Decaprio ... "I'm king of the world"
