Hi all!
So about a month ago I got a 2-month old male veiled chameleon, his name is Carl. I'm completely new to owning chameleons, although I've had pretty much every other category of pet you can think of (cats, dogs, fish, birds, small mammals like hamsters, other lizards, etc).
I've done a ton of research on veiled chameleons and I just want to provide the best home possible for Carl and I figured it wouldn't hurt to get opinions from a group of experienced chameleon owners. He seems happy and healthy but these are such complicated animals I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
I also would really really appreciate any tips/tricks on how to improve handling experiences or anything else that I should be doing to help him get accustomed to me. I know chameleons are not wired to be social animals and I don't have any high expectations. My goal is to be able to handle him so if I need to take him to the vet or if I move houses I can do so without giving him PTSD, and if he happened to warm up to me a lot and wanted to be handled more or come out of his cage that would be a very nice bonus.
About four days ago, I coaxed him onto my hand with food and he crawled on completely by himself. He was fine until I moved my hand slightly out of the cage and he realized he couldn't just crawl back onto his branch and then he started to do the weird backing up slowly thing and started to turn a little darker. I moved him towards this hanging pothos that I have and he gladly grabbed on and turned a bright shade of green and crawled up and hung out there while I cleaned his cage. Except now he seems way more nervous around me so I'm just wondering if I went too fast with moving him out of the cage and if I should've just kept my hand there or if I should keep putting him on the pothos if I can coax him out again so he knows he gets to go there.
Chameleon Info:
Cage Info:
cage picture: https://www.flickr.com/gp/187517753@N05/Dg449K
So about a month ago I got a 2-month old male veiled chameleon, his name is Carl. I'm completely new to owning chameleons, although I've had pretty much every other category of pet you can think of (cats, dogs, fish, birds, small mammals like hamsters, other lizards, etc).
I've done a ton of research on veiled chameleons and I just want to provide the best home possible for Carl and I figured it wouldn't hurt to get opinions from a group of experienced chameleon owners. He seems happy and healthy but these are such complicated animals I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
I also would really really appreciate any tips/tricks on how to improve handling experiences or anything else that I should be doing to help him get accustomed to me. I know chameleons are not wired to be social animals and I don't have any high expectations. My goal is to be able to handle him so if I need to take him to the vet or if I move houses I can do so without giving him PTSD, and if he happened to warm up to me a lot and wanted to be handled more or come out of his cage that would be a very nice bonus.
About four days ago, I coaxed him onto my hand with food and he crawled on completely by himself. He was fine until I moved my hand slightly out of the cage and he realized he couldn't just crawl back onto his branch and then he started to do the weird backing up slowly thing and started to turn a little darker. I moved him towards this hanging pothos that I have and he gladly grabbed on and turned a bright shade of green and crawled up and hung out there while I cleaned his cage. Except now he seems way more nervous around me so I'm just wondering if I went too fast with moving him out of the cage and if I should've just kept my hand there or if I should keep putting him on the pothos if I can coax him out again so he knows he gets to go there.
Chameleon Info:
- Your Chameleon - Veiled, male, 3 months old, 1 month in my care
- Handling - Only once, about 4 days ago
- Feeding - I feed him as much food as wants 2x a day (9am, 3pm), probably around 10-20 small crickets or 10 medium crickets per day with a couple worms thrown in (small superworms and small hornworms so far). When I'm feeding with the tongs, I usually try to get him to move around the cage to get the food for exercise, and I'll let loose a couple on the branches in his sight that he'll run after. He's been a picky eater who only wanted crickets for a while so I'm trying to introduce other worms and food slowly. I always feed him myself with tongs at 9am, depending on the day I'll either leave a cup in his cage with some more food or usually I'll feed him again myself at 3.
- Supplements-
- Week 1 and Week 3:
- Mon-Fri: Miner-All Calcium/Mineral supplement w/o D3 or phosphorous
- Sat: no supplements
- Sun: Miner-All Calcium/Mineral supplement with D3 (no phosphorous)
- Week 2:
- Mon-Fri: Miner-All Calcium/Mineral supplement w/o D3 or phosphorous
- Sat: RepCal Herptivite w/ beta carotene
- Sun: Miner-All Calcium/Mineral supplement with D3 (no phosphorous)
- Week 4
- same as week 2 w/o vitamin beta cartene supplement
- crickets
- i gutload crickets with apple slices, potato slices, different greens, and naturezone Total Bites for crickets and feeder insects
- Week 1 and Week 3:
- Watering - I spray the cage down after each feeding with a hand sprayer, another spray before bed and I turn on the fogger usually every other night. (I know that foggers are controversial in terms of chameleon health, but I live in a pretty dry place and I make sure to clean the fogger every time I use it. I hope that the benefits outweigh the risks)
- Fecal Description - Droppings are consistent and regular. The first part is brown and then there's white at the end, no orange tinting
- History - bought him from florida chams
Cage Info:
cage picture: https://www.flickr.com/gp/187517753@N05/Dg449K
- Cage Type- 24"x24"x48" screen cage (plastic taped to two sides to preserve humidity)
- I read conflicting things from a lot of different sites, even different posts on this forum about cage size. I decided to go with the bigger one since bigger seems to always be better and most of the issues that people talked about were chams not finding food and I handfeed/cupfeed. He doesn't seem like he minds the extra space, he has favorite spots within the cage on all levels and moves around easily.
- I'm getting a stand for the cage as well but its been backordered for like a month. I'm only 5' and I sit whenever I feed him or interact with the cage so I don't think its a huge issue but I'm hoping the stand gets here soon.
- Lighting - Heating: Repti Basking Spot Lamp 75W, UVB: ExoTerra UVB 150 13W
- Temperature - 85 at basking spot, ~72 in lower area. Temp drops at night around 65 where he sleeps
- Humidity - 30 to 85
- Plants - Ficus (weeping benjamina), lots of fake branches, vines, and other plants on the upper areas. I'm going to be buying more plants and stuff to put around the cage, but Carl seems to like spending his time on exposed branches during the day, his favorite spot is right where there's no plant cover in the middle of the top branch, and on a slightly lower branch in the back of the cage that you can't see but also has no plant cover (that's actually where he's hangin in the photo lol)
- Placement - he is in my room across from a bunch of windows. Basically I'm the only person that goes in there especially now because of social distancing, its not a well-trafficked area and I spend the majority of the day at school or now in my living room in online classes so he gets a lot of alone time
- Location - USA, CO
