New Chameleon Owner with Questions for Veteran Owners

[Rango2011]

Hey guys, im Ryan and recently purchased a 3 month old Male Veiled Chameleon, he is now prob 4 months old, anyway i have everything set up right i believe he has a 16"x16"x20" cage i am going to upgrade to a bigger cage in the next 2 weeks, anyway i was wondering about "dusting" the crickets, i believe i was doing it too much lol as i was worried about keeping my new cham healthy, and as a noob i have learned the error in my ways, i was doing it every feeding lol but now have stopped completely, i have a herpitivite which is a multivitamin for him and also calcium with D3, he has a 100w basking lamp and reptisun 5.0 compact uvb, i have a dripper on top but was thinking about doing a misting system or a fogger when i get his new cage, anyway back to my main question i guess, what should be the intervals of "dusting" the crickets? multivitamin one day of the week and the cakcium w/ d3 another day of that same week? cause you dont use both the mulivitamin and the calcium w/ D3 in the same dusting right? cause i know at one point he had a white crust on his nostril and i looked it up and said it was from too much nutrients, so i have backed him off them completely but it has only been 2 days since his last dust of calcium or multivitamin, i have also heard that they get bored with just crickets, how would i go about putting superworms in my cage with coconut fiber bedding? and also where could i aquire stick bugs or praying mantis, that would be cool to watch one day when hes older, right now id worry about the mantis fighting back lol...

 

[jannb]

Welcome to the forums and congrats on your new guy. I keep veileds and have three Luie, Camille and their daughter Elly. You have quite a few things that you need to change in your husbandry. Please check my blog attached below for new keepers and it will help you to get everything corrected for your little guy so that he can be healthy.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blo...-keepers-young-veiled-panther-chameleons.html

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Welcome to the forums!
A few things:
Dusting schedule: calcium without D3 or phosphorus should be used at every feeding, Calcium with D3 should be used twice a month if your cham does not get natural sunlight,
Multivitamin twice a month. I alternate with my multivit and Ca+D3 every Friday. That's the general consensus among experienced keepers. You want the crickets to only be a slightly lighter shade of brown when dusted, not little ghosts running around.

The white crusts are not from too much calcium, it's too much salts - possibly from the water source. DO NOT stop using calcium. The crusts are the body's way of getting rid of excess (and you don't know necessarily what is in excess) and it is not harmful so let your cham regulate what he needs in his own way!

You do not want to put superworms in the cage in their bedding - your cham won't be able to find them if they're hiding! And you don't want him to ingest the bedding. You can hand feed those, or use a feeding cup at the bottom so they can't crawl away. Superworms are okay, but not great. Butterworms, hornworms and silkworms are great worms to use though! High in nutrients and fun to feed! You will need to order those online - check the site sponsors as many of them have worms.

Check out Jan's blog and keep doing some research for other topics, or feel free to ask more questions! Glad to see you looking out for your new cham!

 

[Rango2011]

how many crickets should i be feeding him daily? he seems to want to eat a 100! of course i dont feed him 100 lol prob about 10-15 a day... is this ok? i am feeding him the small crickets, but today picked up 5 large ones to see if the might fill him up and what should i change in his cage?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Don't use large crickets yet as they are probably too big for him. The length of the crickets should be no longer than the width between your chameleon's eyes as a rule of thumb for feeding. Anything larger and they could choke on it. I believe 10-15 small crickets a day is about right...

What are you gutloading your crickets with?

 

[suncei]

I agree with Ferretinmyshoes, those are some pretty great and accurate tips!