New to veiled Chameleons, can someone help please x

[supermum]

I have my first Chameleon, he is a veiled named Victor (because he is grumpy), he is living in the set up he lived in with his previous owner, I just want to make sure everything is okay as I have read some horror stories about things going wrong and I want him to be happy.

The enclosure seems a bit small to me so I do intend to get a bigger one for him, it is 3ft high, 2.5 wide and 1.5 ft deep. The basking temp is 31.5c is this okay for him? It has glass front but the back is 2 thirds mesh. The bulb he has is a normal 60 watt household bulb, it also has no guard, is a house bulb okay and does he need a guard? I am worried he might hurt himself but i'm not sure if they are sensible enough not to get to close.

He has a uvb 5% strip bulb running across the top, I have read they need higher uvb so I do intend to replace it for an arcadia 12% one, is it okay running across the top or should it be running down the side?

His humidity levels are reading at between 70 and 80% is this okay?

He has started shedding this morning, and although he is green and yellow he has got more brown in him then normal, I will add a pic, just not sure if this is normal or if something is wrong.

Here are a few pictures.

the set up

showing the heat bulb

Are these colours okay, someone on another forum suggested he looked stressed out :/

Finally how he looks now he is shedding.

Thanks for any help, just want to make sure we avoid any accidents with him xx

 

[chameleonkev]

A household bulb for basking is correct, I would buy a guard for it to avoid a problem
Is the strip buld a Arcadia? If so is the bulb a t8? It will say on the bulb, the t8 do a 5% and a 10% and personally ivwould stick with the 5%. Alot of use do use the higher % but that's because our vivs have mesh tops and the bulb is on the outside so the mesh prevents half of it going threw
Also humidity is fine
One thing, does the Viv have substrait in the bottom? If so I would remove that as it will hold water, cause mold and possibly impaction for your chameleon
Could you put a few pics up of his head side on, I Carnt tell from the pic but it looks a little like he has some swelling, don't worrie it may just be the angle of the pic

 

[chameleonkev]

I'm looking at the third pic down under his eye slightly to the right, do he have a slight cut or scare there? It look swollen around the sore? It may just be the pic

 

[supermum]

Thank you for your reply, I will get the other half to take more pics, it looks okay to me but I have never kept them so don't know if it is just the angle or not. The bulb is an exo terra repti glow 5%., it has a peice of astro turf at the bottom, I can remove that if its no good though, would a bit of lino be a bit better (or anything else to protect the bottom?)

 

[supermum]

Victor is facing the wrong way lol, he don't like us to touch him, grumpy thing tries to eat us when ever we are near him haha, the other half took a pic of him side on the way he is facing now, we will get more pics when he turns round and put them up too, he is shedding around his eyes at the mo so might not be very good to tell until he's done :/

 

[supermum]

heres the pic

 

[chameleonkev]

AstroTurf is fine, if it gets damp I would just take it out to dry every now and then and it may be the shedding skin then I'm looking at but it's better just to make sure
I've never had the exoterra strip bulb so I Carnt say but you can always upgrade, the Arcadia t5 are a really good kit and the bulb only needs replacing once a year rather than every 6 months like the others

 

[chameleonkev]

It's the other side of his head I was talking about but anyway, from this shot he does not look stressed to me, he's very colourful and looks very well hydrated

 

[supermum]

Thank you, yeah I know you meant the other side, we couldn't get the pic as he was facing the wrong way, he's moved now though so I will pop another up, just thought showing both sides might help, will have a pic up with in the next 2 mins x

 

[supermum]

 

[chameleonkev]

No he's a healthy chameleon, best of luck

 

[Hakai]

In addition to removing the substrait I would cover the potted plant's soil with large rocks so that he can't eat any dirt that could interfere with his digestion. They eat it sometimes just out of curiosity or if they feel they are lacking something nutritionally.

 

[supermum]

Thank you for your help, one more thing we have cricket dust and nutrabol suppliments, should we be using both? Or anything else we should have? So far we have only used nutrabol daily as thats what the previous owner said he needs, also he's on hoppers only, is that okay or should I be giving anything else?

 

[chameleonkev]

Nutrobal is suitable twice monthly, get a plain calcium without d3 for daily use and also you want a multivitamin to also use twice monthly
As for feeders the more variety the better, it's recomended to not let one feeder take up more than 35% of their diet
Just go give you a idea of what is suitable I feed locust, crickets, dubi roaches, Turkistan roaches, hissing roaches, lobster roaches, silkworms, butterworms and blue and green bottle flys
The only feeders I don't supliment are silkworms, butterworms and flys

 

[supermum]

Thats fab thank you, can you recommend a good brand for the multivitamin, the cricket dust is just calcium carbonate, no d3, Are all those feeders readily available at most reptile shops? I will get him some different things in x

 

[chameleonkev]

Zoo med reptivite is a good multivitamin, I buy it of e bay. The zoo med plain calcium is good to and cheap of eBay and no reptile shops don't sell many feeders, I breed my roaches and order other feeders of online suplyier a there cheaper. I can recommend some if your from the UK

 

[supermum]

That would be fab, yeah we are in the uk, thank you x

 

[chameleonkev]

Livefoodsdirect
Livefood warehouse
Rickslivefood
Silkwormstore
Here are a couple, if you decide to give silkworms a go witch are a really healthy feeder go to my freind list, look for Benton. He has wrote a simple little blog explaining silkworm care, it will help

 

[supermum]

Thank you very much, I will get some stuff ordered for him, thanks again for all the help x

 

[Action Jackson]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Your Veiled chameleon appears to have excessive fluid build up in his head. His casque is looks very swollen as do his eyes. I don't keep Veileds and wouldn't feel comfortable giving advise on this. I recommend posting in the Health Clinic forum and filling out this form.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/how-ask-help-66/

If you type in "Veiled chameleon" in google and click images you will see pictures of what a Veileds head should look like.