TwiceVeiled
Avid Member
Hello again! Personally, I think your size is close enough to the regular size and wouldn't focus on a rebuild right now. I think redoing the branching and adding easy care, decent in low lighting plants - pothos and spider plant - into your enclosure, and checking temps/humidity and making any necessary adjustments will make the huge changes (in addition to the supplementation changes that were recommended) in your chameleon's behaviour and comfort level in his enclosure. It might only take you a few hours and a quick trip to pick up plants but it will be worth it!Thank you for the advice and for recommending a hygrometer and thermometer! I've had mixed success with other ones I've bought from petsmart that just didn't seem to last. I can now find my heat temp measuring gun (hopefully) and at least measure his heat today at his basking spot, middle of his cage and bottom. I did at one point have a hanging fake plant in front of the branch were he basks but then he tended to not bask there so I removed it and he went back to basking. I've tried adding plants but I also am very bad at keeping them alive. So I will have to try again now that we aren't living in apartments.
We want to build him a larger enclosure but just don't have the time or money to do so right now unfortunately.
For branches, you can inspect branches you can inspect them and pick up from outside, create lots of horizontal pathways (some semi-horitzontal) and network branching - focus on the mid to upper area of your enclosure for plants and branches as a healthy cham spends most of his time in that area. If your basking area is the right temp and your uvb light is about 9 inches from your highest branches, and your cham can adequately grip and get his feet around the branches...
If you do that, I think you will see big changes in Richard's comfort - it may take some time before he realizes what he has, but once he does, I think the changes will happen... Just my two cents and hopefully people with more knowledge can put in some ideas! All the best!