My cham is dark today

Good day so sorry to bother my wife and I just got this baby 9 week old male vale chameleon and today I made some changes to his cage by going bio active by adding some better plants organic potting soil spring tales and isopods after a struggle and intruding him to the cage he got brown and dark as different colour then he uslay is I know after I water the plants he started gaping witch means his hot and went down to the floor of the cage he kept moving up and down to the floor and high up and he still was dark my temps are between 21c (69f) to 32c (89.6) from morning to late afternoon and humidity is now a constant 34- to 45 just want to find out if it was just stress being handled so much and in a new environment we feed him crickets with calsum powder without d3 and planted the plant in the middle into the soal
 

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His colour now and temp is 20.9c (69.9f)
 

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Hi and welcome. :) Cute little one. Usually they darken in order to better absorb heat or uvb, but your temp of 32c is much too warm, especially for a little one. That would be why he was gaping. For young chameleons and girls, the temp shouldn’t be any higher than 25-26c. Adult males can be up to 29c. Are you keeping him outside? If so, you’ll need to provide more shaded area for him. Some people will put a tarp or other similar cover on half of the top and maybe a side if needed. He can overheat very quickly, which will dehydrate him. Little ones can be fragile. If it gets too hot outside, you’ll need to bring him in. As he grows into an adult, he will be needing a much larger enclosure of at least 60x60x120cm…if you can go even larger than that, perfect! If he’s kept outside, you won’t need to give him any vitamin D3 (he should get all he needs from the sun) but he should have a good multivitamin dusted on his feeders once every other week. Reptivite without D3 is a good option. I’d also suggest giving him a variety of well fed and healthy feeders. At his young age, he should be getting as much as he can eat in about 15-20 minutes, twice a day. When he reaches about 3 months old or so, you’ll want to reduce him to once a day about 20+ feeders. Then we keep reducing as he grows older. The rule of thumb for feeder size is anything larger than the space between the eyes is too big. All that info and more can be found here. https://chameleonacademy.com/chameleon-husbandry-program-getting-started-with-chameleons/ I hope I’ve been of some help to you. Ask as many questions as you need…we love to help. ☺️
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Hi and welcome. :) Cute little one. Usually they darken in order to better absorb heat or uvb, but your temp of 32c is much too warm, especially for a little one. That would be why he was gaping. For young chameleons and girls, the temp shouldn’t be any higher than 25-26c. Adult males can be up to 29c. Are you keeping him outside? If so, you’ll need to provide more shaded area for him. Some people will put a tarp or other similar cover on half of the top and maybe a side if needed. He can overheat very quickly, which will dehydrate him. Little ones can be fragile. If it gets too hot outside, you’ll need to bring him in. As he grows into an adult, he will be needing a much larger enclosure of at least 60x60x120cm…if you can go even larger than that, perfect! If he’s kept outside, you won’t need to give him any vitamin D3 (he should get all he needs from the sun) but he should have a good multivitamin dusted on his feeders once every other week. Reptivite without D3 is a good option. I’d also suggest giving him a variety of well fed and healthy feeders. At his young age, he should be getting as much as he can eat in about 15-20 minutes, twice a day. When he reaches about 3 months old or so, you’ll want to reduce him to once a day about 20+ feeders. Then we keep reducing as he grows older. The rule of thumb for feeder size is anything larger than the space between the eyes is too big. All that info and more can be found here. https://chameleonacademy.com/chameleon-husbandry-program-getting-started-with-chameleons/ I hope I’ve been of some help to you. Ask as many questions as you need…we love to help. ☺️
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Thank you so much we made the mistake of buying the cham starter kit witch I'm slowly replacing now the cage will be changed shortly but first need to get a proper uvb light as the globe we have is completely wrong why we placing him outside during the day and bringing inside at night we feed him 20 crickets a day but trying to switch him over to Dubai Roche's and silk worms as he only after crickets ATM I feed the feed fresh vegetables everyday so they can be full when it's feeding time
 
When they are that young small crickets is a great feeder to get them used to using their tongue and targeting. When mine was that young he was terrified of a small hornworms I tried with him. It wasn’t til he was 9 months old til he ate one. Also changes to the cage are traumatic and changes to food also. They may stop eating for a few days. Looks like he is trying to be the branch in the one pic. lol. Cute little one you got.
 
When they are that young small crickets is a great feeder to get them used to using their tongue and targeting. When mine was that young he was terrified of a small hornworms I tried with him. It wasn’t til he was 9 months old til he ate one. Also changes to the cage are traumatic and changes to food also. They may stop eating for a few days. Looks like he is trying to be the branch in the one pic. lol. Cute little one you got.
He just ait his first dubi and silkworm yesterday tried with a home made feeder and it work wonders 😀 and he is cute and getting bigger everyday
 
Well you and your wife enjoy wonderful little Rango! I like the name too. It’s good to let them get real sun every once in a while. Mine loves going on walks with me I don’t let him climb to my head. He has to stay on my hand or cling to the front of my shirt. I am so terrified of a bird swooping down and grabbing him. More people stop me for photos and to ask questions. Being out of his cage and outside has allowed us to bond better he definitely knows who I am and wants to stay close. So you should try that. Never grab hold of Rango from the top. Put your hand out in front of him and see if he climbs on. If he doesn’t slip a few fingers under him going between his legs and he will grab onto your other fingers with his hands. If you grab him from the top he will hold on for dear life cause that’s how birds take them and you could damage his nails pulling him. Forcing him to climb onto your hand is better and teaches him how to climb onto you.
 
Well you and your wife enjoy wonderful little Rango! I like the name too. It’s good to let them get real sun every once in a while. Mine loves going on walks with me I don’t let him climb to my head. He has to stay on my hand or cling to the front of my shirt. I am so terrified of a bird swooping down and grabbing him. More people stop me for photos and to ask questions. Being out of his cage and outside has allowed us to bond better he definitely knows who I am and wants to stay close. So you should try that. Never grab hold of Rango from the top. Put your hand out in front of him and see if he climbs on. If he doesn’t slip a few fingers under him going between his legs and he will grab onto your other fingers with his hands. If you grab him from the top he will hold on for dear life cause that’s how birds take them and you could damage his nails pulling him. Forcing him to climb onto your hand is better and teaches him how to climb onto you.
He getting some morning sun for a hour
 

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