New Cham owner, Hydration questions!!

C

Charmeleon818

New Member
Hello you guys! My name is Nathan and i recently bought a chameleon , along with set up off of a cool reptile collector i came in contact with through craigslist. Its a Male, Veiled Chameleon adult, measuring at about a foot and some change. I decided to name Charmeleon after one of my favorite pokemon. Anyways. Im slightly concerned as his poop has been yellow!!!!!!! Ive been feeding him superworms bathed in calcium(which he accepts, eating about 5 every other day) and had a dripper set up in his cage dripping at about a drip every 3 seconds or so. Ive also been doing a heavy misting 2 or 3 times a day. My concern is the yellow coloring in the urates and the fact i have NEVER seen my baby drink any type of water whether it be from the dripper of off of a leaf (fake) in his enclosure. Because of my concerns ive been "force" drinking him... Basically when i go to retrieve him from his cage, he gets a lil upset and opens his mouth so i get the dripper tube and guide the drips into his mouth (without putting the tube in his mouth)! usually at this point he accepts the water but only 5 or so drips at the most then begins to reject. His enclosure is 18 x 18 x 36 ... 36 being the height. he has plenty of fake plants to climb on. his lighting includes a 10uvb bulb and also another light which i bought from petco a while back(for another pet) when both on keep his enclosure around 85 - 90 degrees during the day and another bulb i use (purple in color) which keep it around 75 degrees at night... Ive also heard of showering techniques wich i would like to make use of to keep this baby hydrated... please! all HELPFUL information would be great!!!

afterthought...
he accepts food from my hand. and ive had him for aboout 3 weeks.
 
It may help him drink if he has real, live plants that can collect large drops of water for him to drink. Also, if you are dripping water in his mouth be sure it goes to the very back because their windpipe is closer to the front of the mouth and you want to be very careful that he doesn't aspirate any water.

Also note that he should have no light, including no red light, at night. They can see red light and it could disturb his sleep. You only need heat at night if the temp gets below 50F. In that case you should use a ceramic heat emitter which puts out no light. Ideally the temp should be in the 60s at night, but he should be OK with it in the low 70s. Cooler temps at night are natural and help slow his metabolism down.

Can you post pics of him and his cage? Also, below is the care sheet for veileds:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/
 
ok. what kind of real plants are acceptable for veiled chams??? what kind of soil is acceptable? how can i ensure no bugs or mites are in the soil? where would be a good place to buy these plants???
also. i put the purple night light because i currently rent a room. so other people have access to the air condition system so it tends to get cold at night...
 
unless the room is going below 55 degrees you can leave the purple light off . if you feel they need heat buy a ceramic heat bulb , it can't disturb their sleep at all . I also put my lizards in the shower with a plant once a week when I have them indoors .
 
still a lot of my questions are not being answered! I need details!
 

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Have you tried looking at the Care Resource section of this forum? It's located on the left. You'll find info on veileds and under the FAQ info on plants.

Your answers are here, but as a responsible owner you need to be willing to put in the leg work as well; it will benefit your husbandry skills and give your cham the best gift it could ask for.
 
why dont you post a pic of the poop to get more peoples opinion if it loks dehydrated or not. i wouldnt forcing it to drink. one temporary solution to ensure its getting hydration would be to grab some hornworms. they are practically sacs of water and chams tend to love them. how long are your misting sessions?

some may never drink in front of you so if you dont see it might not be so bad but keeping an eye on the urates like you are is a good idea.
 
Ok Jamjam ^>^ here are the urates, notice the large amounts of orange!. when i mist i usually just mist untill there is heavy water dripping off all the fake plants.... i also tried showering him yesterday but his immediate reaction is to get the hell out of there :// but i will definitely give those horn worms a try!!! im going to see if my local exotic pet store has them in stock ^.^
 

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It does look somewhat orange, but there is also white and he does not look dehydrated in the picture. So I am guessing it is very mild dehydration. The hornworms are definitely an easy quick fix for the time being.

Schefflera (umbrella tree) and pothos are the two easiest plants to use as live plants in his cage. They are both very hardy, schefflera is a tree/bush and pothos is a vine. You should be able to find both at most hardware stores. For soil, I would use something well-drained and then cover the top with large river rocks so he can't ingest the soil.

He looks like a very healthy veiled. Can you post pictures of just him closer up?
 
absolutely!! i actually just posted another thread regarding plant specific questions! lol. but i will def keep those in mind. Specifically i was curious on the dampness of the soil in regards to keeping out mites and what not. also the techniques used when scrubbing the newly bought plant. should i just scrub each leaf individually with tap water?? or rinse it? also do i need to make any changes to the lighting? i will post more pictures of him in the morning!! hes in his corner, sleeping and i dont want to disturb ^.^ Thanks for keeping this thread going!!
 
His poop doesn't look that bad to me a lot of the orange you are seeing is the actual poop. The urates are at the front and they look fairly white to me. And he looks happy and healthy to me. He is a handsome boy by the way. One thing I would suggest is he may need a bigger enclosure he is fairly large. And real plants will help you keep the humidity up which in turn will help keep him hydrated. :)

Oh after you get your plants make sure you wash them to get any pesticides off before putting it in his cage. If you want something different to what was suggested here is a link where you can see which plants are safe. Although the ones suggested are the most popular in my opinion it's what I have in my enclosure. http://www.flchams.com/safe_plant_list.asp
 
Two things I would like to add.
1) turn that night heat light off. Chams can go into the low 50f.
2) that cage is WAY to small for a adult. My 5.5m panther will be moving out of the size cage in a month or so.
 
brownie64 said:
One thing I would suggest is he may need a bigger enclosure he is fairly large.
Click to expand...
Ok ^.^ ill definitely be getting him a bigger enclosure as soon as i can! the guy i bought him off of said hes had him in this enclosure since he was just a baby, so im glad he looks good!
 
He sure is a beauty I like the contrast between the yellow, and the dark. Would really like to see him fired up I'll bet he is breath taking. :)
 
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