Chameleon rescue, free ranging

So i find myself rescuing an adult giant male veild chameleon, now, the person cannot care for it anymore, And right now she has it in a free range set up, And she said if i put it in a screened enclosure, it will die day by day? Is it true, if so, can anyne give me some pointers on free range?
 
Hey there, I free range allot of me Chameleons, I just finised my latest today, so I'll go back and post some pic's for Ya, and can answer other questions you may need.
 
This will be a small post compared to the one I plan for Free Range setups, but, here is abit of info. Also note, there are many, many varieties and ways to set these up to accommodate YOUR needs. Some do not need to be that big or that involved, Its all about what you want and how you want it to look. sometimes where and how its located in your house is how it will turn out visually, pending on how appealling you want it to look.

Ok in free range, misting can be difficult, pending on your location. If I was to mist any in my, lets say good rooms (not my Garage) I would use a very fine,I mean fine mist and for very short intervals. Only directed to the plant leaves. Just to get a trickle or 2 on the leaves. I almost always use a humidifyer in that location as our normal humidities only range max 20% most of the time here. Ok, with that said, now I mainly use drippers and "profesional" rain systems that I custom build and are completly exchanged of water every 3 days, This water also is ran through a series of filters in the event somehow, something foreign gets into the system.
My Chameleons are very well hydrated under these setups and have (I lost count) many Chams living to very healthy long lives!
Anyhow here are some pic's, of a sort of elaborate setup I just allmost finished. (need to complete the Lighting part of this setup), right now what you see is temporary (lighting), as I like to Put Chams into it and see how they move and where they like to be, before I set up any permanant lighting. As I stateed above Im going to Post a huge thread In time,or should I say when I have time! ;) for all the Free range possibilities for all you Cham lovers out there. Here are the Pic's as of the end of today.

Well Hell! :)
for some reason My comp runs ultra slow at this time every night, so Its kind of late and I wanna watch a movie. I'll get back on here and post my pic's at a better Time,. Right here on this post. Sorry I'll be back!:cool:

Edited in here my Pictures I didnt get in last night:

OK here is a very large setup complete with Humidity, Water purified rain system & a hand made dripper till I see how the Chameleon moves about.
Just this morning I just missed my Cham from Drinking out of the rain system,
he was heading back away from it all wet. NOTE: the size of this setup- as that is a standard height 4' x 4' window, and a room height of somewhere around 14'
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Here the next shots- will slowly get you closer to the rain/ drinking area
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Abit closer with wide angle
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Tall shot, look close. the catch pan for water is clear plexiglass, fashioned into a funnel returning the water back into a filter, before it goes back into the pump reservoir. and returned back up through a second set of filters before it comes back out as Imaginary rain drops.
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Ok This is just one of many ways you can set up free range, But there are so many ways to build these to your desired needs. any more help Id be glad to post here. I'm just not able to be on this comp all day. but I'll keep checking in on this thread.
 

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I am not convinced that housing a formerly free-ranged chameleon in a large, well set-up enclosure where all his basic needs are met would cause it to "die day by day". Are not wild caughts always taken from the ultimate free-range environment, and housed in cages successfully? If you can and want to free-range, great. But if you want to keep him contained, get a nice big cage and do so.
 
This is true, a big enclosure will do fine, espesially if set up well. And most definatly I would recomend to do this instead of free range if there are other free ranging children and pets in the house. Even a caged bird across the room can cause a Cham undo stress. In higher traffic areas a well set up enclosure also provides the Chameleon a sence of hidden security. This is all about HOW you do it.

I will hopefully get some time after abit today, to post the free range pics for you above. So you will have a better idea on Free Range if you choose that rout.
 
Thats how I set the free range up when the whole room is availaible. But you can still contain it to just a corner. Which in a sence makes it an open free range. But is still contained as far as The Cham having to stay within its designated area.
 
This depends on the Chams. All our chams are free range and have been their whole lives. One lives in a cage because he's young and there's just so many rooms and trees available. However, as soon as I open his cage door practically slingshots out of the cage and starts his roaming.

Right now we have all Panthers but previous we had all Veils. The veils can be aggressive when free ranged. We lost a son of our big Veil because he went into the other room and beat the crap out of his little brother. The father then went and beat the crap out of the bad son from 2 rooms away. That son was ok although he was not so aggressive after that.

The Panthers are much more forgiving. At least ours are. The young one visits all the other panthers and their trees and they could care less.

On your topic. Several of the Panthers are ok when we put them in sunning cages outdoors however two of them including the young one cannot handle it. They rub their noses raw on the screen trying to get out of the cage. We've had to give up and never cage one of the adult Panthers. He just can't handle it. I even borrowed a giant cage that I could walk into and he still rubbed.

Keep an eye on your new Cham's reaction. An alternative would be to put him in a tree and put that bird proof netting around it. That way he's in a good size tree with the appearance of free range. That said it didn't work for our problem Panther I mentioned above although the little guy goes out into such a setup for sunning and its ok.

I hate seeing Chams in cages but I understand why this has to happen. I work at home so I'm lucky that I can check on them.

I've given up and run humidifiers on all the trees. Veils can take lower humidity but Panthers suffer so I keep it at 50% and above. Cup feeding and I train mine to drink from eye droppers. Although a couple of the guys are stubborn about it.


HTH
 
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Ok for anyone concerned with Free Rangeing Chameleons, I finished posting my Pic's on my post here, on the first page. Remember this is an elaborate one. As there are many simpler ways to set these up if so desired.

Lizardboy Hope this gives you some Ideas
 
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Titan. Nice. I want to live in there. :p

Can you show more details of the dripper. This is an issue for me. I don't want something that doesn't scream dripper and one that droplets can be caught somewhere in the pots rather than flooding the soil or the hardwood floors.
 
Yea, I'll make a complete pictorial of how all the parts work in the Drip & Rain system. and then everyone out there can modify it to their needs. Making it smaller or larger. Im adding to the system today since its Sunday and cold here.
 
Thanks, Luckykarma & Jannb.
I really want to promote free range setups for those that have a house or a place to set them up. I wouldnt be as forward for these setups if I didnt see, through years of doing this for me, how WELL the Chameleons adapt and thrive in these! Most of my setups are not even contained at the bottom. and the Chams are so happy right in there, they never wanna leave. If you do have a wanderer there are cool ways to contain them to the area.

As for water containment from just drippers I got clean ways to catch all that falls and does no harm to your floors.
 
Thanks, Luckykarma & Jannb.
I really want to promote free range setups for those that have a house or a place to set them up. I wouldnt be as forward for these setups if I didnt see, through years of doing this for me, how WELL the Chameleons adapt and thrive in these! Most of my setups are not even contained at the bottom. and the Chams are so happy right in there, they never wanna leave. If you do have a wanderer there are cool ways to contain them to the area.

As for water containment from just drippers I got clean ways to catch all that falls and does no harm to your floors.

Slight thread jack, but titan at what age do you begin to free range at?
 
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