Baby chams gaping mouths! Help!

stapleton33

Member
So my 2 new veiled babies (1 male, 1 female) are doing something i've never seen. They're keeping their mouths open for a few seconds several times a day. they are just under a month old, usually a strong neon green. The enclosure is 3 ft high by 19" wide by 19" deep. i mist them 3 times a day. i keep a red lamp on 24 hrs to maintain 80-ish degrees. the enclosure sits by a window and gets a few hours of direct sun a day. a basking bulb is on during daylight as well as a full UVB bulb. i'm feeding them med-large crickets, calc. dusted. Turds look good - no orange, not a lot of undigested cricket parts. so...what's the story here? or am i just being a paranoid new parent. Also, neither of them bask in the direct light. ever. por que?
 
You are right to be a little paranoid. There are a few things you should change. They are over heating. The basking bulb should be the only thing providing their heat during the day. They don't bask because the temps all around are high. The warm up under the light then move out to cool down and repeat the process.

The red lamp should go. At night they need to cool down. As low as 60F But not lower is ok for them. No heat source unless it falls below 60 in you house.

During the day, There also needs to be an area they can escape maintained int he 70-75F range . They will bask under the heat lamp (Basking area should be at about 95F).

Also Large crickets for babies seem too big. How old are they?
 
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They are under a month old. That cricket is way to big for them!!! You need pinhead size crickets!!! Get some fruitflies too! Again the crickets you are feeding them is way to big!!!! Switch now or they will choke..
 
They are under a month old. That cricket is way too big for them!!! You need pinhead size crickets!!! Get some fruitflies too! Again the crickets you are feeding them is way too big!!!! Switch now or they will choke..
 
i have a 3 month old cham and i dont even give him med/lrg crickets yet.. those are extremely to big for them. they say the width of their mouth is what size to feed them.. feed them pin head worms or fruit flies. they even have flightless fruit flies to give them.. but the width of their mouth is the size you need
 
Merci!

thanks for all the help. i was pretty sure the heat was the prob. the house stays pretty cool (60's) so i was making sure that wouldn't affect them, but as we speak the HE of the pair is sound asleep with no heat source (just under 70). the SHE, it turns out, was reacting to the male. apparently that line about "don't house chams together" on EVERY CARE SHEET is true. so all you other newbs, take heed. now they're apart, and she's still got all kinds of 'tude, but at least she's not gaping and rocking at him all day stressing out. she IS still hostile. but i guess all little girls have attitude. speaking of little, i bought them from an independent source who posted them for sale at a month old. i don't know how old the ad was, so i don't know the exact age now. the male is exactly 4 inches with out-stretched tail. she's about 5 and a half. any experienced veiled-owners got a good guestimate of age? fyi, we're back to small-med crickets instead of colossal ones. again, thanks to everyone. expect more posts!
 
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