Jakama
Member
My chameleon has been insisting on eating sand for the past week, since we put a sand tray in her enclosure. The tray is only about two or three inches deep, but we suspect that she may be gravid, so we are keeping it in there until we get a bigger sand container. She used to eat dirt from our ficus, but we put some rocks over that, so now she is eating this sand. I try and shoo her away from the sand when she tries to eat from it, but I know I am not successful, since I am finding sand grains in her fecal matter. How do I stop this?
Picture of sand tray:
Maybe the sand is too coarse?
Info sheet:
Female veiled chameleon, about five months old. Owned it for three weeks. I handle her about one time every two weeks. I feed her medium to large crickets- about ten per day on a normal day. I feed the crickets fresh carrots and broccoli. I dust them with Zoomed Repti Calcium without D3, and twice a month with Calcium with D3. Soon I will be purchasing multivitamins as another dusting supplement, which I will use twice a month. I mist her twice a day with hot water (comes out lukewarm), and I have a cup of water with a hole in it that I fill up about twice a day. I do see her drinking water from this. Fecal matter is dark brown, sometimes with a white section. I have never tested her for parasites. She received a burn on her left side on the second day we got her, but the situation that caused this has been remedied- I moved the lamp.
Cage is about 24x24x36 inches, wire mesh. During the day, I use a 100W basking spot lamp from zoo med and a 15W UVB tube lamp (33% UVA, 10% UVB). At night it gets pretty cold, so I use a space heater to keep the temperature at about 60 degrees. I switch it to daytime lighting at around 7:30 AM, and switch it to nighttime lighting at around 9:30 PM. I am using two live ficus in my enclosure, as well as a climbing vine, a large piece of driftwood, and a fake bush. I keep the temperature in the enclosure between 70 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and I try and keep the humidity at around 60%. The temperature of her basking spot is 80 degrees. The table that the enclosure is resting on is about three feet off of the floor. I keep her enclosure in my room, and people do tend to walk around this room several times a day. This provides the advantage of being able to keep an eye on her throughout the day. Her enclosure is next to a window, so she gets plenty of natural light during the day in addition to her two normal lights. This window is always closed, but I keep the blinds open. The sun never shines directly through this window. I am located in California.
Picture of sand tray:
Maybe the sand is too coarse?
Info sheet:
Female veiled chameleon, about five months old. Owned it for three weeks. I handle her about one time every two weeks. I feed her medium to large crickets- about ten per day on a normal day. I feed the crickets fresh carrots and broccoli. I dust them with Zoomed Repti Calcium without D3, and twice a month with Calcium with D3. Soon I will be purchasing multivitamins as another dusting supplement, which I will use twice a month. I mist her twice a day with hot water (comes out lukewarm), and I have a cup of water with a hole in it that I fill up about twice a day. I do see her drinking water from this. Fecal matter is dark brown, sometimes with a white section. I have never tested her for parasites. She received a burn on her left side on the second day we got her, but the situation that caused this has been remedied- I moved the lamp.
Cage is about 24x24x36 inches, wire mesh. During the day, I use a 100W basking spot lamp from zoo med and a 15W UVB tube lamp (33% UVA, 10% UVB). At night it gets pretty cold, so I use a space heater to keep the temperature at about 60 degrees. I switch it to daytime lighting at around 7:30 AM, and switch it to nighttime lighting at around 9:30 PM. I am using two live ficus in my enclosure, as well as a climbing vine, a large piece of driftwood, and a fake bush. I keep the temperature in the enclosure between 70 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and I try and keep the humidity at around 60%. The temperature of her basking spot is 80 degrees. The table that the enclosure is resting on is about three feet off of the floor. I keep her enclosure in my room, and people do tend to walk around this room several times a day. This provides the advantage of being able to keep an eye on her throughout the day. Her enclosure is next to a window, so she gets plenty of natural light during the day in addition to her two normal lights. This window is always closed, but I keep the blinds open. The sun never shines directly through this window. I am located in California.
