Hi guys & gals! I'm new to the forum. We just got our baby Chameleon right before Mother's Day. It turned out to be my Mother's Day present because I totally fell in love with her.
Here's some back story... My family has 2 dogs, a 100 lb female solid white Great Pyrenees that we adopted & an 8 yr old Chihuahua. The day before we got our Chameleon, I found a young Texas Spiny Lizard outside while watering the grass. The next day we decide to go over to a Petsmart to get some goodies to raise this young baby and..........
I wander over to the reptiles, I was interested in looking at Bearded Dragons and Chinese Water Dragons & the Petsmart associate was misting them. I just happened to ask her if I could see the Veiled Chameleon. She was actually VERY knowledgeable (that was nice) and as soon as she gently scooted the Cham out of her enclosure onto her hand-Dear Lord, I fell in love.
So...... while in Petsmart hubby decides that we should let the Texas Spiny Lizard go when we get back home & we buy things for the Baby Cham. I think she's about 2/12 months to 3 months. The lady at Petsmart said they had had him about a week.
We were going to purchase the all-screen enclosure but they had sold out THAT morning, the associate is the one that mentioned them. And she even went back to the store room to look for more. So we got an Exo Terra Glass Terrarium with the vent flow to keep the air from getting stale. (I had concerns about a glass enclosure but after reading a lot and seeing how the air does go in at the bottoms and lifts up and out the screen top and how it can hold the humidity better since it's in our house, I'm better with it.)
The sales associate also made sure we got the terrarium liner and told us not to use substrate and that Chams love to climb. So we got some bendy limbs with a fake ivy to wrap around it (washed it all down in the shower and let dry before we used them.).
Exo Terra Terrarium is 18"L x 18"W x 24"H (45 cm x 45 cm x 60 cm)
Use a Exo Terra Combo Thermo & Hygrometer
Temperature ranges from about 85 basking to 72ambient
Humidity: as in her terrarium of this moment 62% (outside here in Louisiana... TOO much)
Lighting: Zoo Med Combo Deep Dome with Repti Glo 5.0 UVB and 100 W InfraRed Basking Light
We do have the lights on a timer, UVB 12 hours basking light goes on and off.
Also, I've read that we should not use the red light at all during the 12 hour night/lights out. Right now we have it coming on for 30 min for every 1 1/2 hour.
Water: I mist about 7 times a day... She does drink a good bit. I also bought a Little Dripper (for a slow, slow drip) to use with a water catcher at the bottom of the terrarium. She seems well hydrated & can definitely poop.
Live Plants: small Dracaena and small Croton that were washed and wiped down prior to placing in the terrarium.
Food:
When we purchased the Cham we got feeder crickets. Which we were giving the Fluker's Cricket Food and water gel (I've seen read that the Fluker's cricket gutload is not the best, so will replace that.) I also have been reading up on what foods I can use to gutload the crickets with. I dust the feeder crickets every other day with Calcium (4 medium crickets in a bag, shake & bake style). I also give the crickets some chopped carrots and fruit.
Our Cham LOVES (stress on loves) Mealworms. I bought a container of them at a small local petstore. And I warmed them up in my hand. I've never seen her move so fast to get near the front of the terrarium to eat them straight out of my hand. For the past 3 days, she won't eat ANY crickets. Zero. She actually looks like she frowns at them. Before she was eating about 3-4 medium to small crickets a day and about 4 mealworms. She looked well-fed.
I was free ranging the crickets and she'd catch them, sometimes I'd offer her one by hand and she'd snarf it down. (After reading more on here, I have let two crickets free range and 2 in a cup feeding. Each night I take them out and put them up with the other crickets.) But lately...nothing. Unless I offer her meal worms....
We've had a show down the past couple of days. I was only offering crickets because I know she needs the nutrients... and I broke down and gave her meal worms when she still had not eaten any crickets. I'm a mom and worried about her not eating at all. I have dusted the meal worms with calcium in order for her to get her calcium.
*So, how do I get her to eat some? The closest Petsmart & Petco is an hour away, but the local pet store does offer great medium-sized crickets and gets them in fresh each week & they also offer the meal worms and super worms. But the super worms look too big for my Cham. Any suggestions? If I order online I know it can get pricey and not even sure if I should try to get silkworms or horned worms and would they only last 2 weeks? I've thought about going through our field with a net...
(Also, we have not named our Cham. She was small & we weren't sure if she was a male or female. I hate to say, but I was hoping she was a male because reading about females going into egg-laying really scares me.)
Here's some back story... My family has 2 dogs, a 100 lb female solid white Great Pyrenees that we adopted & an 8 yr old Chihuahua. The day before we got our Chameleon, I found a young Texas Spiny Lizard outside while watering the grass. The next day we decide to go over to a Petsmart to get some goodies to raise this young baby and..........
I wander over to the reptiles, I was interested in looking at Bearded Dragons and Chinese Water Dragons & the Petsmart associate was misting them. I just happened to ask her if I could see the Veiled Chameleon. She was actually VERY knowledgeable (that was nice) and as soon as she gently scooted the Cham out of her enclosure onto her hand-Dear Lord, I fell in love.
So...... while in Petsmart hubby decides that we should let the Texas Spiny Lizard go when we get back home & we buy things for the Baby Cham. I think she's about 2/12 months to 3 months. The lady at Petsmart said they had had him about a week.
We were going to purchase the all-screen enclosure but they had sold out THAT morning, the associate is the one that mentioned them. And she even went back to the store room to look for more. So we got an Exo Terra Glass Terrarium with the vent flow to keep the air from getting stale. (I had concerns about a glass enclosure but after reading a lot and seeing how the air does go in at the bottoms and lifts up and out the screen top and how it can hold the humidity better since it's in our house, I'm better with it.)
The sales associate also made sure we got the terrarium liner and told us not to use substrate and that Chams love to climb. So we got some bendy limbs with a fake ivy to wrap around it (washed it all down in the shower and let dry before we used them.).
Exo Terra Terrarium is 18"L x 18"W x 24"H (45 cm x 45 cm x 60 cm)
Use a Exo Terra Combo Thermo & Hygrometer
Temperature ranges from about 85 basking to 72ambient
Humidity: as in her terrarium of this moment 62% (outside here in Louisiana... TOO much)
Lighting: Zoo Med Combo Deep Dome with Repti Glo 5.0 UVB and 100 W InfraRed Basking Light
We do have the lights on a timer, UVB 12 hours basking light goes on and off.
Also, I've read that we should not use the red light at all during the 12 hour night/lights out. Right now we have it coming on for 30 min for every 1 1/2 hour.
Water: I mist about 7 times a day... She does drink a good bit. I also bought a Little Dripper (for a slow, slow drip) to use with a water catcher at the bottom of the terrarium. She seems well hydrated & can definitely poop.
Live Plants: small Dracaena and small Croton that were washed and wiped down prior to placing in the terrarium.
Food:
When we purchased the Cham we got feeder crickets. Which we were giving the Fluker's Cricket Food and water gel (I've seen read that the Fluker's cricket gutload is not the best, so will replace that.) I also have been reading up on what foods I can use to gutload the crickets with. I dust the feeder crickets every other day with Calcium (4 medium crickets in a bag, shake & bake style). I also give the crickets some chopped carrots and fruit.
Our Cham LOVES (stress on loves) Mealworms. I bought a container of them at a small local petstore. And I warmed them up in my hand. I've never seen her move so fast to get near the front of the terrarium to eat them straight out of my hand. For the past 3 days, she won't eat ANY crickets. Zero. She actually looks like she frowns at them. Before she was eating about 3-4 medium to small crickets a day and about 4 mealworms. She looked well-fed.
I was free ranging the crickets and she'd catch them, sometimes I'd offer her one by hand and she'd snarf it down. (After reading more on here, I have let two crickets free range and 2 in a cup feeding. Each night I take them out and put them up with the other crickets.) But lately...nothing. Unless I offer her meal worms....
We've had a show down the past couple of days. I was only offering crickets because I know she needs the nutrients... and I broke down and gave her meal worms when she still had not eaten any crickets. I'm a mom and worried about her not eating at all. I have dusted the meal worms with calcium in order for her to get her calcium.
*So, how do I get her to eat some? The closest Petsmart & Petco is an hour away, but the local pet store does offer great medium-sized crickets and gets them in fresh each week & they also offer the meal worms and super worms. But the super worms look too big for my Cham. Any suggestions? If I order online I know it can get pricey and not even sure if I should try to get silkworms or horned worms and would they only last 2 weeks? I've thought about going through our field with a net...
(Also, we have not named our Cham. She was small & we weren't sure if she was a male or female. I hate to say, but I was hoping she was a male because reading about females going into egg-laying really scares me.)
Btw... we named her Matilda.
