bedding

I have been informed by another member that the bedding I have in my cham's cage could be harmful to him.

*I attatched a picture to get an idea of what bedding I currently have. Forgive me, I am not at home and do not know the specific name*

It was suggested that I have no bedding at all in the bottom of the cage. This may sound a little selfish but I would like to have some kind of cover on the floor of the cage for appearance purposes.

Any suggestions on a safe "bedding" material I could use on the bottom of my cham's cage?

None.. there have been reports of almost every type of bedding being ingested. You could have big river rocks on the bottom, but that would just make the clean up very tedious. Other than paper towels, there is really nothing safe. Bare bottoms are the best.

IMO, what's best for the cham outweighs anything that I may think looks cool in the cage. My chams ALWAYS come first.

Momma Lauren said:

I have been informed by another member that the bedding I have in my cham's cage could be harmful to him.

*I attatched a picture to get an idea of what bedding I currently have. Forgive me, I am not at home and do not know the specific name*

It was suggested that I have no bedding at all in the bottom of the cage. This may sound a little selfish but I would like to have some kind of cover on the floor of the cage for appearance purposes.

Any suggestions on a safe "bedding" material I could use on the bottom of my cham's cage?

Click to expand...

95% of the people on this forum will tell you that no substrate, or flooring is the way to go. Chameleons require large volumes of water, either for drinking or to raise the humidity in thier enviroment. Because of the amount of water you use to saturate the cage, any type of substrate you use becomes damp very quickly. Making it a breeding ground for bacteria.
Also feeder insects will hide in the substrate, which brings us back to the topic that was brought up in your other thread about impaction. If your cham decides to venture to the bottom where the feeders are hiding, which they will do, it could possibly latch onto some substrate and in turn digest it, causing impaction.
I understand that it may look aesthetically pleasing. But like you said, it's selfish, and what is more important, the way your cage looks, or the health and hapiness of your animal?
An alternative here that some people will use if they do not have an elaborate drainage system is paper towels to absorb the moisture from misting, these would be replaced daily or as needed.

Most of us do not use bedding, or use paper. Get a nice potted pothos vine in there and you won't even miss the bedding...

Agreed. The health of my cham is definitely more important than the appearance of my cage. I just assumed there had to be something safe out here.
Thanks for your input! The bedding is coming out this afternoon : )

What you could do is to cover the bottom with alot of smaller nontoxic flowerish plants in smaller flower pots

what do you guys think of reptile carpet? Its pretty thin and clean up it a breeze. All you do is rinse and wring it out and its perfectly dry. I have it in my 4month old chams cage and theres no way the cham could eat it.

This is a picture of the thing im talking about

you can cut out the perfect shape to fit in the bottom of your cage.

for me paper towel would be hard because the crickets would love to crawl under it and if i had to perfectly fit the paper towel to make sure none could get under it every time i changed it i would go nuts