Need Chameleon Advice

KobaOregonherper said:
Im implying that rescuing by giving a company your money puts another animal right back where you took that one. Im human i understand wanting to save a dying animal. I cant however knowingly put another animal into that situation.
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I can actually understand where you’re coming from and honestly I hadn’t considered that it opens up a spot for another Cham to go to that PetsMart. And I get it, my set up is bare bones at the moment. It’ll get better. I care about doing a good job on this or else I wouldn’t be on a forum trying to figure it all out.
 
Kristen Wilkins said:
I do not think @KDaters needs your definition‘s . She has a chameleon that she needs help with . She has upgrades to get done . To come In This thread to fight about where she got him from is useless . Please add useful information .

@KDaters where are you located . We can see what vets you have in your area . Or maybe you know if a good one ?
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I’m in Reno, NV. I have a vet but I actually don’t know if they have a reptile specific vet so I’ll be calling them tomorrow and asking. If not there are quite a few that come up. I’ll check around!
 
Daesie11 said:
My edits will be in red!
Chameleon Info:
  • Your Chameleon - Veiled, sex Not Sure, Approximately 5-6 months old. Two Days in my care.
  • Handling - I have only Handled the chameleon once.
  • Feeding - Two superworms Yesterday and about 13 crickets today (I am looking for help creating a schedule) The crickets I have in a critter keeper with orange and apples slices, cat food and Flukers high-calcium cricket diet. Superworms are to be given as treats only. Its recommended to max out at 3 a day. Super worms are known to be really addictive to chams and they can refuse other food in favor of supers. They dont gutload well, which is why they arent recommended as staple feeders. Crickets are great for when they are young, but they are also known to carry a lot of parasites so you have to be careful where you get them from. Rule of thumb is to not get them from a place that also sells chams! We have a ton of great site sponsors that offer a variety of feeders. Your gutload will need improvement, I'll add a care image at the end that outlines the best gutload. Get rid of the cat food asap.
  • Supplements - The Chameleon Kit came with Repti Calcium but from what I've read so far it's pretty much garbage? Yep, the cham kit is garbage. I would recommend getting the Repashy plus LoD. It's an all in one supplement that can be given at every feeding.
  • Watering - I am using a hand held squirt bottle until I can pick up an automated mister. I am doing this several times a day, saturating the fake plant (It dries up pretty quickly so I am trying to stay on top of it). I'm looking for a pothos plant to put in the cage but so far I haven't found them anywhere. I haven't seen the cham drinking yet and this is concerning to me. Dont be too concerned about not seeing him drink. They are shy animals and probably wont drink while you're watching. You want to pay attention to the fecal to get an idea of whether he is hydrating. You'll definitely want an automated mister, it makes things easier. But IMO it's more of a luxury than a necessity, so if money is an issue you can put it off until a later paycheck.
  • Fecal Description - Has not been tested and so far I haven't seen a fecal dropping. I can not stress enough how important it's going to be for you to take your cham to a reputable vet with chameleon experience for a checkup and a fecal exam done. Not only will it give you peace of mind, but you have no idea what it has been exposed to at PetSmart. Do it sooner rather than later.
  • History - No history as this is day two for me. It looked to be starving and not in great shape at PetsMart which is why I decided to do this. I understand it's not an ideal circumstance but that's why I'm happy to have found this forum.

Cage Info:
  • Cage Type - It is a 16x16x30 ReptiBreeze Screen Terrarium. (I'll attach pictures of the whole cage after this post). You need to upgrade this to a 2x2x4 enclosure at minimum.
  • Lighting - The Kit came with a ZooMed 60W Daylight Blue Bulb and a ZooMed 5.0 UVB ReptiSun 13W Tropical Bulb (Mini compact Fluorescent. This is going to be one of the most important things to fix. You need to get rid of the blue bulb, you can just use a normal household incandescent bumb. 60W is good. More importantly, the UVB bb that it came with is garbage! You're going to need to upgrade to a T5HO linear fixture. I recommend a quad fixture. I used the Odyssea fixture which can be found on Amazon. It's much cheaper than other options. If you get a quad you'll want either an arcadia 12% or a 10.0 bulb. The other slots can be plant grow bulbs.
  • Temperature - Cage floor is at around 65 Degrees, Basking spot is at around 81 degrees. Overnight temperature of the house is set to 65 degrees. This is measured using the gauge that came with the Kit. @JoXie411 I'm not sure about veiled temps and humidity, can you give OP some tips?
  • Humidity - At the moment I don't have a way to measure the humidity. I have been misting often since the fake plants the kit came with seem to dry up quickly. I do not want the Chameleon to be dehydrated.
  • Plants - I'm looking for a pothos vine to put in the cage. We have a grape vine in our backyard, I have placed some of the larger leaves in the cage (not pictured) to try and hold some humidity and provide some hiding spots.
  • Placement - Cage is located on top of a dresser in a bedroom. Top of cage to the floor would be about 6 and half feet. Not located near any vents or fans. The only traffic would be us entering and leaving the bedroom.
  • Location - Reno, Nevada.

You're on the right track, but you have a lot to adjust still. Take it one at a time and you'll find it's not as overwhelming as it seems. Youre going to want to get a lot more plants. Lots more than just one more pothos plant. You want to have it be very dense foliage so your cham has plenty of places to hide both from you and the "sun"! There is a cham sage plant list on FLChams website.
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What other live plants are safe to put in the terrarium?
 
hi there. here's a list you can use to find safe plants. https://flchams.com/chameleon-safe-plant-list/
You can also use the search bar to find past threads that discuss plants and many, many other topics of interest to this community.
I, too, bought my cham from a big box pet supply. You are by no means alone. There are a range of perspectives on the hobby here...take it all with a grain of salt and be assured we all agree on one thing: we love chameleons. We welcome you :)
 
cham_urchin said:
hi there. here's a list you can use to find safe plants. https://flchams.com/chameleon-safe-plant-list/
You can also use the search bar to find past threads that discuss plants and many, many other topics of interest to this community.
I, too, bought my cham from a big box pet supply. You are by no means alone. There are a range of perspectives on the hobby here...take it all with a grain of salt and be assured we all agree on one thing: we love chameleons. We welcome you :)
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I appreciate you and everyone’s support! Thank you thank you thank you!
 
Kristen Wilkins said:
I do not think @KDaters needs your definition‘s . She has a chameleon that she needs help with . She has upgrades to get done . To come In This thread to fight about where she got him from is useless . Please add useful information .

@KDaters where are you located . We can see what vets you have in your area . Or maybe you know if a good one ?
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Excuse you. Joexie and I were having a fair disagreement lol. But on the good information note, everyone already beat me to it, and they seem fairly capable already and as I said theyre here which says a lot. But im here for all chameleons not just the one. If I piss everyone off but no one buys another reptile from a big box store Ive done my job.
 
I would get as big of a variety of plants as you can afford and fit in your enclosure! Just getting a few pothos is not nearly enough for a 2x2x4 enclosure. Pothos is a great option, as it provides a lot of avenues for your cham to wander the enclosure, but having more variety and different angles of avenues is important. Remember, these chams live out in the wild where there are tons of different plants to create dense foliage for them to hide in. You want to replicate that as much as possible. Schefflera is another really popular plant that provides a lot of good vertical cover.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/help-me-pick-out-plants.170297/

Here is one of my threads where a ton of members of the forums told me all about their favorite cham plants! There are lots of pictures also to help you choose your favorites as well as match them to ones in your local nursery. I've found that once you have enough plants, you dont really need many branches in there at all, as the plants turn in to the basking spots etc. The branches turn in to something for the plants to grow over, like a lattice.
 
I'm trying to help the op making it easy. Other cham supporting plants take special maintence, I can list a safe plant list that will die without giving special care, I have experimented with most.....
 
salty dog said:
I'm trying to help the op making it easy. Other cham supporting plants take special maintence, I can list a safe plant list that will die without giving special care, I have experimented with most.....
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Most of the plants listed in that thread dont require any special care. I can appreciate trying to make things easy, but what is easy and what is right isnt always the same thing. Plus, I prefer to give the OP the benefit of the doubt that they arent just looking for the easy option!
 
Kdaters,

Welcome to the forum!!! You are very welcome and thank you so much for filling out the form! My quick advice is the following:

1) just use ‘repashy calcium plus loD’ at every feeding.
2) gut-load your bugs with ‘bug burger’ or ‘superload’ by repashy, until you figure out the best fresh ingredients to use.
3) plan, in the next year to upgrade your cage to a 2x2x4 with live plants.
4) when you can, invest in a linear t5 uvb bulb in the 10-14% range, and just use a cheap 40-60watt incandescent bulb for your heat source.
5) take a deep breath, know you made a responsible decision coming to this forum, and do what you can, when you can, from the list of advice.
 
Can I just say,that I love what I’ve learned on this forum. I can correctly answer all of the new owners question, and that make me happy.

I’m still not confident enough to publicly post my answers, but I’m getting there. For now I’m just sitting back, reading and hoping that all Cham owners will listen to everything! (Even tho you learned different from the pet store)

PS i hate auto correct
 
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