Too much to climb on or not enough?

I saw my cham of 14 months climbing on the screen part of the cage the other day; He was upside down and I saw him fall a foot or so on top of a plant. Although he seems to be fine, because of this, I thought that maybe there were not enough branches or vines so I bought and added the really grippy vines one would get from petco or petsmart.

Havn't posted a pic of the enclosure in a long time so I wanted to make sure it was adequate. Thanks for any comments.

Looks Good!

That is a nice variety of climbing space. Your chameleon will probably not climb the screen as often. IF you can provide him a free range of some sort in order to let him get his 'climbing urge' out (If you know what I mean) just for a few hours a week or daily, if you can. A plastic tree could work from nearlynatural.com they have good deals.

Your enclosure looks great!

yep looks good to me. take my word for it they are clumsy. my veiled was free ranging the house one day and decided to go from the end table to the light (its the tall pole light you would stick in a corner) he had absolutely no grip and slid face down about 3 feet until he hit the metal foot of the light. He used his casque to blunt his fall. he was fine. His cage is jammed with vines and plants and he still climbs the screen, especially if he is shedding, he NEVER sits still. He also climbs the screen a lot when he wants out. I have caught him pushing his head against the cage door trying to see if it would swing open lol

Thanks for the feedback!

ChameLIonLover said:

I saw my cham of 14 months climbing on the screen part of the cage the other day; He was upside down and I saw him fall a foot or so on top of a plant. Although he seems to be fine, because of this, I thought that maybe there were not enough branches or vines so I bought and added the really grippy vines one would get from petco or petsmart.

Havn't posted a pic of the enclosure in a long time so I wanted to make sure it was adequate. Thanks for any comments.

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I think your sticks/branches are mostly too thick and too slippery. I also saw what looked like one of those green bamboo garden stakes. It is my understanding that those green stakes are preserved with whatever toxin they use for pressure treated wood. They certainly aren't natural.

Bamboo really isn't a very good perch because it is too slippery. Same with smooth dowels. I have one little girl who is a real mess from ripping her toe nails off on the screen (I hate, hate, hate screen cages). She needs something not much bigger than the size of her arm to be able to grab or she will fall. With nails, they can climb on a bigger branch, but they are designed to climbing things with bark and crevices that their nails can get a grip of.

Good luck getting him off the screen.

jajeanpierre said:

I think your sticks/branches are mostly too thick and too slippery. I also saw what looked like one of those green bamboo garden stakes. It is my understanding that those green stakes are preserved with whatever toxin they use for pressure treated wood. They certainly aren't natural.

Bamboo really isn't a very good perch because it is too slippery. Same with smooth dowels. I have one little girl who is a real mess from ripping her toe nails off on the screen (I hate, hate, hate screen cages). She needs something not much bigger than the size of her arm to be able to grab or she will fall. With nails, they can climb on a bigger branch, but they are designed to climbing things with bark and crevices that their nails can get a grip of.

Good luck getting him off the screen.

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Thanks for the input; I appreciate it. He uses the curly
Willow branches mostly for basking. What would you suggest I use instead? MOST of the bamboo is fresh from my backyard. I'm not so sure about some of it because I got some from mulhalls.

ChameLIonLover said:

Thanks for the input; I appreciate it. He uses the curly
Willow branches mostly for basking. What would you suggest I use instead? MOST of the bamboo is fresh from my backyard. I'm not so sure about some of it because I got some from mulhalls.

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Bamboo is really slick. They use their claws to grab and they can't with a smooth perch. Use anything from your back yard that isn't poisonous. I have a lot of live oak that always needs pruning so I use that. Use the terminal ends of the branches and just trim some off more for your ease of getting your hands in to service the cage than for the chameleon. Maybe if I had put a lot more branches in the cage, my little wild caught wouldn't have used the screen and she would have her toes and claws. I'm worried she will actually die because of these injuries.

Some people try to sterilize their branches, but I don't. I've brought in the odd insect that is a wood chewer that lives inside the branch. I'm not worried about anything else. If I saw something like bird droppings, I would not use that branch, but if I did, I would wash and bake it.

Haha ok, so anything but bamboo in other words. It is indeed quite slick. Darn, I have so much of it too :/ I noticed that when I added the really grippy vines from Petco that he uses those a lot more and prefers to sleep on those since its a better grip. I'll definitely replace the majority of that bamboo. Thanks again JJP!

ChameLIonLover said:

Haha ok, so anything but bamboo in other words. It is indeed quite slick. Darn, I have so much of it too :/ I noticed that when I added the really grippy vines from Petco that he uses those a lot more and prefers to sleep on those since its a better grip. I'll definitely replace the majority of that bamboo. Thanks again JJP!

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something you might want to try until you can replace the bamboo is to just take some corse sandpaper to them and rough them up a bit. I have the same issue and will be doing this this weekend to help until I can find some suitable sticks.

I ruffed up my bamboo sticks a lot. He has no problems with them.

How do you rough it up? I normally see has sandpaper as something used to make things more smooth. I'll definitely try it out though; thanks dog.

ChameLIonLover said:

How do you rough it up? I normally see has sandpaper as something used to make things more smooth. I'll definitely try it out though; thanks dog.

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You can use a Dremel as well.

Just another thought. In avian medicine we can see foot problems from too small perches. I would make sure you have a variety of widths to help exercise those feet.

Yup I used sandpaper. Comes in all different grits use a roof one. I have all different sizes in mine. In fact I'm redoing the cage to add more, my boy is just growing so fast.

I feel like my Cham has a pretty good variety of things to climb on. There's the schefflera, the 2 pothos, a few good sized curly willow branches, a bit of bamboo, and jungle vine. All different shapes and sizes that range from sorta slippery to super grippy and climbable