Hybrid (Free Range and Enclosure): NEED ADVICE!

[surfingcham6]

Hi everyone! This is Mel, an approx. 1 year, 3 month old male veiled chameleon. He's been with me since last June. At first, he was super shy and would hiss anytime I'd get near him. In fact, the vet said he was the meanest chameleon they'd seen (I love him regardless, duh). One day, I lured him out of his cage with a horn worm and I let him roam around my living room. Now, everytime I'm in my room for extended periods of time and the sun is shining through the window, he walks to the door of his enclosure and waits for me to take him out and put him in my window. He will sit there for hours! I'm glad he finally trusts me and gets to enjoy the sunshine! He does a pretty great job of navigating around my blinds and even makes his way onto my fake lego plants haha. We move to Florida soon and there will be no blinds on the window there. He has an enclosure setup, which he will remain in most of the time, since I have a dog. However, I WFH, so I can supervise while he's free range during the work day. Just wanted some advice/tips on what to buy to make his out-of-cage adventures more enjoyable! I love this lil dude

 

[nightanole]

Id just load up the window with some hibiscus or other large barky house plants.

Keep in mind florida folk have the opposite problem of Ohio folk. How to drop the humidity during the day, and raise it at night while increasing the humidity.

Also Holly ridges batman.

 

[VeiledMoodRing]

yes, my velied loves his window i put some vines from my yard so he can climb on them

 

[MissSkittles]

Hi. By any chance does the home which you’re moving to in Florida have a screened lanai? If so, that would be a fantastic place to get some large schefflera, hibiscus or even a small tree, like a lemon tree, to make an awesome free range area where he can get some natural uvb. If there’s by chance a Florida room or screened porch, that would be a great place to keep his enclosure and set up a nice free range, maybe with plants that have lower sun needs or in a spot that gets some great sun. Do keep in mind that uvb does not pass thru glass, plastic or other solids. There are some keepers in Florida (among other states) that keep their chams outside in nice weather. Just make sure there’s ample shade so they don’t burn up in the blistering sun. I’m in central Florida and had once set up an outdoor enclosure so my chams could take turns getting some fresh air and sunshine. My big dog who is almost glued to me freaked them all out, so I stopped.
For inside the house, start looking for a decent sized weeping fig tree that you can sit in front of a window. I found one long ago at Walmart and Lowe’s used to have them, but for the past few years I can’t find any anywhere. You could also start growing a pothos and train the vines to grow upwards and they’ll get thicker and leaves bigger the higher up they get. Or get 2 or more pothos or philodendron and hang them in the window. When the vines get long enough, create a valance type free range. Palm trees are nice and are safe but are rather flimsy for climbing. For very sunny spots inside or outside, veileds love hibiscus, especially the flowers. Every now and then I give my girl a hibiscus flower and she runs over and chows it down.

 

[jamest0o0]

id get a ficus ‘AliI’ tree I have 3 giant ones and I love them. You can also propagate them by trimming branches, dipping in root hormone, and planting in soil. To add to that, you could get a nice viney plant to hang from the tree or grow up from the bottom.

There’s loads of really cool options for trees, if you have a really sunny space in Florida you could do a non toxic citrus tree or something else interesting, but picky with light/humidity.