My Veiled's Coloring: General Question!

[liquidnia]

Hey everyone!

This is my 3 month old male veiled, Octavian, or generally called Oscar/Groucho by my fiancee. I have a quick question about his coloring though. During the day, he expresses a wide range of coloring, but he spends a good portion of the day with more brown on his body than green. As soon as I take him out of his cage, he generally turns a brighter green, and when he sleeps a bright bright neon green. I know they are generally this bright when they sleep because they are relaxed.

I was just wondering if this coloring is natural, or if he is too stressed out? We live in a quiet apartment, and we don't generally take him out of his cage except once or twice a day, and when we do he turns bright green. I've added a picture of our current set up: we have an 18"x18"x18" screen enclosure with 2 Reptisun coil UVB 10 bulbs and one 60watt bulb in his heat lamp. We have a ficus benjamina and a jade plant in his cage, but we recently removed the fountain. We keep the temperature in his cage about between 80-87 degrees F during the day, between 70-75 at night.

Here are some pictures!

Cage Set Up

Octavian being brown-ish

He stays this color for about 1/3 of the day

Immediately after taking him out of his cage

About ready to go back into his cage

Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[BocaJan]

I have found with my veiled chams as they were growing up that when young they liked to fool with thier colors. My adult isn't so emotional and reserves his coloring only for special occassions.

 

[FooL111394]

Hey everyone!

This is my 3 month old male veiled, Octavian, or generally called Oscar/Groucho by my fiancee. I have a quick question about his coloring though. During the day, he expresses a wide range of coloring, but he spends a good portion of the day with more brown on his body than green. As soon as I take him out of his cage, he generally turns a brighter green, and when he sleeps a bright bright neon green. I know they are generally this bright when they sleep because they are relaxed.

I was just wondering if this coloring is natural, or if he is too stressed out? We live in a quiet apartment, and we don't generally take him out of his cage except once or twice a day, and when we do he turns bright green. I've added a picture of our current set up: we have an 18"x18"x18" screen enclosure with 2 Reptisun coil UVB 10 bulbs and one 60watt bulb in his heat lamp. We have a ficus benjamina and a jade plant in his cage, but we recently removed the fountain. We keep the temperature in his cage about between 80-87 degrees F during the day, between 70-75 at night.

Here are some pictures!

Cage Set Up

Octavian being brown-ish

He stays this color for about 1/3 of the day

Immediately after taking him out of his cage

About ready to go back into his cage

Thanks in advance everyone!

The reason why he was brownish was so he could abosrb more heat. Chams generally turn darker to abosrb heat and when they don't have it or don't want it so much they will turn lighter to block off the heat.
I would get rid of the coil lights all together. Linear is the way to go when it comes to uvb/uva bulbs.
It seems like you do not have enough plats to keep high humidity.
You should have two daytime temps in your cage.
Basking temps should be between 85-95 at his age and the shadier temps should be about 70-80.
Nighttime: temps are pretty much great where you have them. Make sure the temps don't drop below 60 or I would suggest a small ceramic heater or heater in your room.

 

[VinceD]

I don't know why he would be that color unless that's his genetic traits or there is too much "brown" in there with him. I would get those coil UV lights out of there asap and add some more plants, make it so he can really hide in there and he might relax more. The coil lights will damage their eyes over time, the best thing to use is a uvb 5 strip light. You don't really need the carpet in the bottom either. Maybe consider a larger cage in the near future.

 

[liquidnia]

Thanks for the advice! I will probably be getting him new lights tomorrow. We have only had this set up for about 2 weeks, so we're still adjusting things. We are DEFINITELY planning on getting a bigger cage for him, but since he is so small still we didn't want him to be swallowed by a huge cage at first. We're going to get more plants and add a drip system as well within the next 2 weeks.

I will update again after we change the lights and add a few more plants!

 

[kinyonga]

There is nothing wrong with either color IMHO. They almost always change color to some extent when taken out of the cage. IMHO you are taking them from their comfortable "territory" (the cage) to an area where they have to be more on guard.

 

[Brad Ramsey]

I agree that his color is fine.
I also agree that the compact fluorescent bulbs need to be removed.
A high basking temp of 95 was mentioned in a post here ... that's too hot for a young chameleon. I would try to keep the basking spot at around 85 degrees f.

http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/

-Brad