Parsons Chameleon long term thread

GrandJean

Established Member
Hi,

I am creating this thread to track a very long term project. And leave my experience as a guide for others long term, success and failures!

I have been keeping and raising reptiles for about 20 years, this will probably be my last project.

I have recently received a young pair of WC OE Parsonii, it is currently possible to get Them in Canada, I see more and more keepers posting them in forums. At 1400$ Per Chameleon, the good news is most keepers are serious hobbyist and they are in good hands. Hopefully in a few years we start seeing A CB community grow.

So for my part, over the next 10-15 years I wish create a breeding program. Big mission I know but passion is the force behind it.

With that said, here is where I am at today.

Enclosure:

pair is currently housed in a hybrid 8 x 6 x 4 cage ( i know I know , this is temporary while i build the second, I have already found a few things to change in the next one) it has 3 full sized trees in it and they cannot see each other when not basking. I am also monitoring with a webcam.

Temps and water:

There are 3 basking spots, 2 watering spots (big dripper at each end) and a full misting system with 4 nozzles. These guys drink a LOT

The UVB and heat comes from 3 160w powersuns outside of the cage. Sounds like a lot but I built the cage specifically with the right distances and made it so they can’t climb to the top and be upside-down right under. Current temps and calibrated UV meter measurements in basking area are 28 - 32 degrees depending on room temp, max UV is currently 5 on Ferguson zone, average is 1.5 in the middle where they hang out most of the day. When wandering on top part of the cage UV will vary from 2.0 to 5.0 depending on angles. I have always worked with MVB and that’s what I prefer.

My basement has a heated floor so I have total control of ambient temperatures, this heats the actual foundation so it’s very stable. Current temps during day in cage 24 degrees @ 50% humidity with spikes to 90% when mister goes on. I currently drop to 20 at night, working on getting that down to 16 with my floor timer. My basement gets really cool when not heated.

Feeding:

Every morning I put 3 dishes of crickets out, they currently eat around 30 per day. I offer a variety of worms and such directly from my hand.

I used standard dusting schedule. Calcium every feeding and vitamins + D3 every 2 weeks.

Everything is gutloaded.

Currently turning hornworms into Moths and just hatched 100s of praying mantises for extra variety.

Current experience:

Two weeks in Male is very easy to deal with, eats non stop and has already grown and understands there is food in dishes. (Goes to them) he is also well hydrated.

Female is difficult and fussy eater. Doesn’t understand the dishes yet, so during the day I monitor and if she doesn’t cross path with the dishes, she doesn’t eat and i have to feed in the evening, good news is she eats from my hands no problem. Also refuses to eat worms except butters and silks. This sucks cause hornworms are a great hydration tooI. I had to manually re-hydrate her twice. I trigger her “drinking position” with the mister and spray extra water in her mouth. Works great.

The issue I am having with her hydration is it takes her a very long time to start drinking when the mister is on and I can’t leave it on too long cause it would flood.

Have a vet appointment for fecal test in 2 weeks.

That’s it for now! Here are pictures of their first day when they came in!


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Beautiful animals... Its cool that you got some younger WCs as opposed to full grown adults that could be towards the end of their lives. I would be careful with treating for parasites quickly, just make sure they are well established and stress free before treatments.
 
Hi! Update is on the way, turns out they had a heavy load of parasites. I’m on the last week of treatment of metronidazole+fenbendazole.

It’s going very well up to now. Once treatment is done I’m going to weigh these guys and log in a full update.
 
Update!

So a little over 2 months in, things are going very well! Here are my notes

Enclosure:

These guys drink a lot, and they take their sweet sweet time before the first sip, counting on the misting system for hydration does not work in my case. It would have to stay on too long and would flood my setup. In the future when i build another one, a full draining system would be a must. They have very picky drinking habits. So for now the solution is still to shoot water with a hand sprayer in front of them, it eventually triggers them and they start drinking.

The pair is now separated as the male would shoot his tongue at the female and stress her our, i have gotten this behaviour on video a few times with my webcam. Weird!

Feeding:

They now only eat crickets and refuse anything else, even silk moths. So no cheating on gut loading. Everyday i put a new batch of crickets in a pot with fresh food, Sometimes pollen and sometimes superload. Apparently cockroaches are gonna soon be legally available in Canada, can’t wait!


As for general health, they had a heavy load of parasites (specifically the male) and I went ahead and treated. Went very well.
After 4 weeks of treatment, they have gained some weight.

Pre vs post treatment weight:

Female 118g -> 154g
Male 105.8g -> 163g

They have shed twice since i got them in April, the males « horns » are starting to show.

It summer and its hot here in Canada! They currently spend time outside in the lilac tree when I’m home. Here are 2 very recent pictures! Cheers!
 

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Thanks for the update 👍🏻 They’re beautiful 😍

And some very recognizable behavior with the drinking and the crickets.
I went for heavy fogging at night, work pretty good and urates are perfect, still they don’t refuse a hand spray drink session. Mine finally went for other food and eats almost everything, till medium / sub adult dubias.
 
Love the updates, also agree with the drinking , my girl does not drink in the morning but fogg for 4 hrs at night , afternoon misting runs for about 15 to 20 minutes (but I have 5 gallon drainage Bucket ) she usually won’t drink the first 5 to 10, and then lapse water dripping off her head .🤷🏽‍♂️ not eating much. Was taking Dubias horned worms and grasshoppers from tongs now refuses .The way I have feeders free rangeing in the habitat I have only seen her Take one . Only put on 1 g in the last week .
 
Thanks for the replies 😀

As for the fog, are you guys using screen cages, hybrid or glass? How large are the enclosures and what fogger are you using?

My fogger, This one , runs all day and pretty much just keeps the entire room around 65-70. I have 5x160w powersuns that make it very hard to go higher.

Since I watched This video from Bion, I’ve been intrigued about trying the fog method, Petr Necas saying he’s never seen a chameleon drink.

On another subject, in the video there are also claims that chams have been able to grow into sexual maturity and bred without UVB or supplements perfectly healthy 😱. This another thread itself, but pretty interesting.
 
Glass hybrid side doors open up with screen’s 4 x 5x 34 deep , i’m using a house of hydro three head fogger in a 24 gallon HD tub ,
I also draw off the bottom of it for my Miss King . IMO The Foggers part of my success . My panther doesn’t drink at all am I Parsons only drinks in the afternoon
 
SO, after this setback. Let's continue this thread, I will focus on husbandry changes I applied within the last year

I decided to control the entire room temperature. Below is the set up and current weekly highs, lows. It gets a little high at peak, but I have no heat lights in the Parson cages. I have some Panthers too, so I need to find middle ground then personalize needs with lighting within the cages. The room is in the basement, our air exchanger has an air duck in the room plus I run an oversized Hepa air purifier 24-7. The air quality is excellent.

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In another shot of good luck this year, I had a flood and was forced to rip off all the floor and empty the room. I decided not to replace it and simply turn the entire room into Cham central. I now have a little workstation. Man is it useful! Really the best change I made. I got a microscope and am now learning about parasites; I would like to be able to one day do my own basic fecal tests.

This is the SUN

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The large male cage is doing OK, but now that I know how much water these guys need, it was not the way to go. So, for my new female, I decided to work elevated, use reptibreeze substrate bottom trays, drill them and put buckets under. Works great, once a week I empty the bucket and she gets dripping water all day.

Here is the new set up and the new female

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For food, I always give the maximum variety: Silks, Horns, crickets, roaches, butters, wax, supers, meals and phoenix. My gut load changes, mix of fruit and veggies and repashy superload, I like superload because it contains actual vitamin A. Not much makes it into the animal, but im not sold on beta-carotene long term.

Started a death head roach colony, these are great!!! They get really big so I can feed different sizes of animals, reproduce at OK speeds and they don't climb, not sure why they aren't more popular.

here is a video of the girl enjoying one!



Alright that's it for today!
 
Just to give you an idea of what I’m working with this is one of my new set ups
 

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Just to give you an idea of what I’m working with this is one of my new set ups
That looks amazing, i had a lot of success with planted glass cages in the past with African species. way more control, specially here in Canada when winter gets really dry indoors. i went back to screens simply due to « peer pressure » I guess, but I always loved glass with proper intake and exhaust. It just hits different when you open the door and stick your head in there.
 
That looks amazing, i had a lot of success with planted glass cages in the past with African species. way more control, specially here in Canada when winter gets really dry indoors. i went back to screens simply due to « peer pressure » I guess, but I always loved glass with proper intake and exhaust. It just hits different when you open the door and stick your head in there.
Yeah, I started out in screen cages but could never get humidity and temperatures, right now everything I have is a hybrid . And these big cages give you total control.
 
Im more interested in this "sun". Even if its not UVB, if OP found a full spectrum bulb(not just red/green/blue spike led) in the camera world, that might help alot of us that had SAD chameleons in the winter :)
 
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