No because I have never gotten a baby that young from the get go. I have dealt with rescues who came to me that young who had respitory infections but they also had tons of other problems. However I have talked to many people on the forums, some in private messages, who had babies who were only a month old or so who started out with the wrong enclosure or who had to much water in their enclosures in general and had to deal with Uri. In my opinion it's not good for any animal no matter how old it is to have constant water in its enclosure with bad air flow.
On the surface, what you are suggesting makes sense but I suggest you look a little deeper rather than just repeating what you have heard. I know you and others think I am just being argumentative when I question some of your and others' "common sense" advice but I am hoping that my challenging and questioning standard husbandry practices will spark a quest for science-based knowledge within the pet-keeping chameleon community because from my perspective, we seem to be doing a very poor job at keeping chameleons in captivity.
First, look at the humidity levels of where the animals came from. Many chameleons come from places where humidity stays at 100% for weeks and months at a time, where it rains every day and all day and night for weeks or months at a time. My own species of interest comes from the mountains of Cameroon where rainfall is in the range of 400 inches a year. That's a lot of water! So, for many species, humidity and wetness isn't the problem. Most chameleons thrive with very high humidity.
There are many reasons why a baby might have a respiratory infection or appear to have one. I think you will find that Vitamin A deficiency is a big one. Respiratory infections, skin disorders, egg binding, and a host of other problems are directly attributable to Vitamin A deficiency. Most chameleons are fed a diet deficient in Vitamin A and it is compounded as they are further removed from wild caughts. An egg should contain enough Vitamin A and calcium to supply the neonate with those nutrients for months. If the baby starts deficient and doesn't get enough through its life, how can it produce healthy babies? There is a reason veileds hatch with MBD.
Many think that feeding crickets a diet high in Beta Carotenes or a vitamin supplement high in Beta Carotene will solve the Vitamin A deficiency without the worrying aspect of a toxic dose. However, carnivores are notoriously poor at converting plant-based Beta Carotene into usable Vitamin A and there is no evidence that chameleons are capable of converting Beta Carotene to Vitamin A. (Beta Carotenes are the precursors of Vitamin A.) Vitamin A is stored primarily in livers and crickets have no livers. Crickets have about 1 IU of Vitamin A per gram. In Mader's veterinary text book, it was suggested an adult panther needs a daily dose of 37.5 IU of Vitamin A, which would translate to 37.5g of crickets which is never going to happen.
Vitamin A deficiency is not diagnosed using tests for the simple reason a blood test for it requires too much blood (maybe things have changed since Mader's book was published) or a liver biopsy. In general, a Vitamin A deficiency is diagnosed based on the response to treatment and history. Here is an example of a case study in Mader's text: Jackson's had oozing mucus from the lips. Antibiotic therapy proved ineffective. One injection of 5000 IU Vitamin A solved the problem in two weeks. Biopsies were also done that suggested skin changes typical of Vitamin A deficiency. Very few keepers are going to go to all that trouble and expense to diagnose a Vitamin deficiency. They will bring a sick animal with what appears to be a respiratory infection. The vet will prescribe antibiotics and the animal might get better, but the underlying condition might still be present.
I've had a couple of babies that seemed to have respiratory infections. Remember Runty? She didn't eat because her lung function was so compromised by lack of space. I've had a necropsy done on another baby that didn't thrive and ended up dying and the lungs were severely underdeveloped. How many keepers or breeders bother to necropsy any animal, let alone a baby that failed to thrive? You often don't know what you are dealing with without a necropsy or extensive veterinary care by a vet who is interested in delving deeper than the surface. Many vets are quite lazy when it comes to looking for tricky diagnoses--they just can't be bothered.
There are all kinds of conditions that can look like a respiratory infection that aren't.
Rather than humidity being the culprit in poor health, your contention that poor air circulation and stagnant air has some merit based on my own experience and a discussion with a respected reptile vet. When I've kept animals in small cages with poor air circulation I've had problems but they haven't been respiratory infections, rather skin infections. By the way, these animals never showed any symptoms of a respiratory infection.
I just think we all need to be very careful offering advice on keeping animals we have no experience with or at an age, especially a neonate, that we have no experience with. You have never kept neonates and your only experience with them is through PMs with others. That was not made clear when you posted your original advice and it should have been.
I can't stress enough the importance of understanding the animal's natural history and the climate where they are thriving and trying to to mimic that in captivity. Be aware, it is not just the current climate, but the climate from thousands of years ago before man deforested Madagascar for panthers and the Arabian Peninsula for veileds.
Mader,
Reptile Medicine and Surgery, Second Edition, 2006
