Panther eating Sphagnum moss

[ianthebeej]

Hey everyone, I have a panther ambilobe that is around 6 months old. I just added some live dracaenas or however you spell that today, and covered the soil in long cut sphagnum moss. I walked in the room a little while later to see him walk down and start eating a piece of the moss. I just kinda pulled it gently from his mouth w/ my feeding tongs.. and he got annoyed and went behind his plants.

Is that a problem that he is trying to eat the moss? I haven't been able to find anything covering the cham actually eating moss in my searches. All advice is very welcome, as I am new to this. I will fill out the cage info form a tomorrow hwen I have more time. Thanks a lot everyone!


Ian

 

[gabzzy]

river rocks

u should put rocks on the plant so he doesnt get to the moss

 

[laurie]

Hello Ian and welcome. Just think of your chameleon as a little kid who will get into everything, and all of it will go into that little mouth. That is the reason we all use safe plants and cover them with rocks to large to fit in his mouth. You just never know when he will take a bite out of a leaf, try to eat moss that could cause impaction, get to close to a light and burn himself, eat to much and be overweight and the list goes on. Our challenge as keepers is to think at least one step ahead of the chameleon, that is not always easy or even possible. But it is what we do, the best we can for our kids. Hope this helps.

 

[ianthebeej]

thank you for your responses. I have three 3-4 inch pots in there that are too small to put any large enough rocks in...the only rocks would be about cricket size so I can't do that. I will grab some river rocks for the larger pot.

 

[pssh]

You can try putting some fiberglass screen over the moss if you like. It's not as heavy and works just as well if you do it right.