newchammommy
New Member
My juvenile cham (with me for one week now!) has started opening her mouth several times a day - just hanging out with her mouth open sometimes. This just started a couple of days ago (about the same time I chopped up collard greens really small and started leaving some in her enclosure). On one occasion she was almost "yawning" and swallowing and I thought perhaps she was choking on the collard greens so I cut them even smaller.
Her urates are good (all white although three days ago they looked a little orange so I got a dripper in addition to misting her - and things look fine now). Her enclosure temp is 78-82 in the day and around 65 at night, no light at night, no substrate (I did get a "reptile carpet" yesterday because the paper towels seemed to camouflage the dusted crickets! pic also attached). I have a "little dripper" that I keep on about 2 hours a day plus I mist the enclosure several times a day (every couple of hours). The humidity goes up and down but is usually around 40-50%. It gets lower over night.
She eats like a PIG - 20-27 small crickets a day - served 1/2 at around 8:30am and 1/2 at around 1:30 to give her plenty of basking time before the lights go out (as a side not, this is another question I have - should I cut her food back even though she is constantly looking for it?)
My husband got her at PetSmart and also got a glass enclosure with a screen top (12*12*24) but I just ordered a full screen enclosure (24x24x36) for her. I was worried that she might be opening her mouth because of poor ventilation so I've started to leave one door of the enclosure open when I'm in the room (I work at home and she's in my office - mostly pretty quiet) - she's nosed the door a couple of times but so far she hasn't tried to escape.
I've only ever picked her up once - mostly I just admire her from a far
Any advice? Is it normal for her mouth to be open a lot?
Her urates are good (all white although three days ago they looked a little orange so I got a dripper in addition to misting her - and things look fine now). Her enclosure temp is 78-82 in the day and around 65 at night, no light at night, no substrate (I did get a "reptile carpet" yesterday because the paper towels seemed to camouflage the dusted crickets! pic also attached). I have a "little dripper" that I keep on about 2 hours a day plus I mist the enclosure several times a day (every couple of hours). The humidity goes up and down but is usually around 40-50%. It gets lower over night.
She eats like a PIG - 20-27 small crickets a day - served 1/2 at around 8:30am and 1/2 at around 1:30 to give her plenty of basking time before the lights go out (as a side not, this is another question I have - should I cut her food back even though she is constantly looking for it?)
My husband got her at PetSmart and also got a glass enclosure with a screen top (12*12*24) but I just ordered a full screen enclosure (24x24x36) for her. I was worried that she might be opening her mouth because of poor ventilation so I've started to leave one door of the enclosure open when I'm in the room (I work at home and she's in my office - mostly pretty quiet) - she's nosed the door a couple of times but so far she hasn't tried to escape.
I've only ever picked her up once - mostly I just admire her from a far
Any advice? Is it normal for her mouth to be open a lot?
