Want to start free ranging

[Rosie42892]

My ambilobe panther is around a year old. I have always had him caged and I have recently moved and I am considering free ranging him in my apartment. Does anyone have recommended reading, and/or ideas of the best room to do it in, and how to set things up? Thanks!

 

[laurie]

My ambilobe panther is around a year old. I have always had him caged and I have recently moved and I am considering free ranging him in my apartment. Does anyone have recommended reading, and/or ideas of the best room to do it in, and how to set things up? Thanks!

You might send a PM to Jannb, she is the expert on free ranging chameleons.

 

[Olimpia]

Jannb is certainly a great person to ask, she'll give you a lot of excellent info.

Here one of my free ranges, although it's probably more extensive that you'd want it: https://www.chameleonforums.com/my-jungle-room-49654/ But it might give you some ideas. This site has a good deal of basic info to help get you started: http://www.freerangechameleons.com/

Chameleons need the same things the need in a cage (lighting, water, etc.) in a free range, so you just have to figure out how to provide that for your guy. And there's no one way to do it, it all depends on where you live, your space, and all that good stuff. For mine, I made them tables to support all the plants and to drain the water from the automated misting system. And then I built a PVC frame over the tables to hold the msiting system and give them more height.

Other people just put up fake frees with vines in their livingrooms and give them water by hand (via eye dropper, or something like that) and spend a lot more time with their chameleons so there are lots of different ways to do it. However, sometimes panthers will wander away from their free ranges so you want to make sure that you have a cham-proof room/area (same as you would for a puppy, but watch out for dangerous things to climb up on like kitchen counters or moving fans) or make a small wall to go around the free range. Of my 4 panthers, 3 are perfectly content in their free range area and only one has felt that he also wanted part of the livingroom for his territory lol.

If your house is not too busy then the livingroom is fine. I live alone so mine are pretty used to just me walking around. But if you have a lot of company over or have lots of activity in the livingroom then perhaps your bedroom would be a good place.

I'm sure I haven't said all I could about it, but if you have any questions then please ask.

 

[jannb]

Olympia gave you some excellent advice. Her free ranges are fabulous. Below is a link to some of mine, they ate not elaborate like Olimpia's but my guys love them.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/members/jannb-albums-free-ranges.html

 

[sdheli420]

if you have a corner in a smaller room like a bed room.and to be perfect if it had a window, put a large ficus tree with bio vines as horzontal basking and climbing branches, use a ( imo) uvb/uva self ballested 100w bulb in a ceramic fixture, and a dripper hung from the ceiling, keep all wires fastened to the walls away from the farthest branches.get a smal plastic carry cage for about 6-12 crickets to be in and get a nail with a flat head and tap it into the wall just a bit and hang the cage on it for feeding when yer gone,(p.s. for dusting i grab the crickes with my hand and dust the backs of them just for the few i leave in the cage) otherwise hand feed and get silk worms/hornworms and allow them to roam the tree...best solution for the humidity is the mist king installed up top(make sure it points away from the bulb, lol), and go to home depot and get a square of thick plastic( the thick vinyl stuff) for the floor and yer good, just observe the cham for a few days and see what happens, if he/she doesent roam yer good!!

 

[Rosie42892]

You all have beautiful free ranges! Now I need to brainstorm