Does my chameleon look healthy?

Beman · May 6, 2020

pascal1415 said:
So does that mean no more treats for him for a while? And this is a picture of his entire setup. I’m still trying to look for more greenery for the top of his cage. If you have any cheap suggestions please let me know!

So you do not have the long T5HO light fixture for UVB correct it is the screw in compact bulb?

Cut out waxworms they are all fat. Kinda like you eating cake. If he has reduced his feeding on his own to every 3-4 days that is fine. Just reduce down to about 5 feeders if your feeding every 3-4 days. The occasional superworm is fine.

@Ares05 will go over the cage and what is in it with you as well.

pascal1415 · May 6, 2020

Beman said:
So you do not have the long T5HO light fixture for UVB correct it is the screw in compact bulb?

Cut out waxworms they are all fat. Kinda like you eating cake. If he has reduced his feeding on his own to every 3-4 days that is fine. Just reduce down to about 5 feeders if your feeding every 3-4 days. The occasional superworm is fine.

@Ares05 will go over the cage and what is in it with you as well.

No I use this uvb bulb and blue bulb. And gotcha thank you!

Beman · May 6, 2020

pascal1415 said:
No I use this uvb bulb and blue bulb. And gotcha thank you!

Ok you need a T5HO fixture that runs the width of the cage with a 5.0 linear bulb for it. With the bulb you have he would have to be sitting right on the bulb to get the correct Uvb level.

If you have a cage that is not 2x2x4tall then I suggest upgrading that as well. Males should not be in the smaller cages.

Ares05 · May 6, 2020

Pascal info:

He is a male veiled chameleon and has been in my care for a little over a year.
In the beginning he was handled a lot, he used to LOVE getting out of the cage or just chilling on my shoulder and then as he got older he just decided he didn’t want to be handled as often. Now I rarely handle him.
I feed him crickets as a feeder and I gutload them with food from josh’s frogs. Now a days he only eats about 5-8 every 3-4 days.

What is the gutload called?

How are feeding? Are you letting the crickets roam around or are they contained in a cup?

He should eating 3-5 cricket every other day or 3 times a week at this age. I would cup feed so he can find his food a little easier.

I dust crickets with calcium 3 times a week, then calcium with d3 once a week, and his multivitamin once every other week.

Make sure your multivitamin doesn't have d3. What brands are you using?

Calcium w/o d3 every feeding, calcium w/d3 ONCE every other week, and then your multivitamin w/o d3 ONCE every other week.

Basically, one feeding each week you will rotate between the no d3 multivitamin and the d3 calcium.

For water he has a dripper that goes off regularly throughout the day and I mist two to three times a day.

I would mist for 2-4 minutes the in the morning, and then 2-4 minutes in the evening, and then run your dripper for a couple hours in between. I would automate your lights with timers. I would also invest in an automatic mister.. in will make your life so much easier.

You should mist after your uvb comes on, but before your heat comes on.

My schedule: Uvb and grow light on at 7am, mist at 7:30 for 3.5 minutes, basking light on at 8, basking light off again at 12pm, mist for 45 seconds at 12:15pm, basking light back on at 12:30pm, basking light off for good at 6pm, mist for 4.5 minutes at 6:30pm, and then uvb an grow light off at 7pm. Fogger is on from 10pm to 5am.

I have a short midday misting, as I don't use a dripper. Though he normally doesn't take much interest in drinking from the midday mist.

Everything except feeding is controlled with timers and systems.

His poop has always looked the same but his pee lately has been a little yellowish.

Describe his poop.. poop is important lol. Runny, mucus, undigested food, formed but soft etc?

I have the repti breeze chameleon kit, screen

Yikes. The chameleon kit is not good. The only acceptable thing is maybe the cage itself (while the Chameleon is young), but even that will have to be upgraded. Your cage is much too small for him. A more acceptable size would be the reptireeze XL, or the diycages 2x2x4. If you want to go bigger a dragonstrand small or medium atrium would be good too.

For lighting I use a 60 watt blue bulb and a 5 uvb light 13 watt. I use the light kit from the repti breeze. His lights are on from 8am-8pm.

Okay so your lights are no good.

For your basking bulb you can just use a household 60-70 watt bulb. Be sure to raise your basking light off the screen a a few inches so he cannot burn himself if he decides to screen climb.

For uvb you will want the T5HO reptisun 5.0 linear uvb. If you go on amazon the T5HO fixture comes with this bulb already. Its about 50 bucks. You will want it to be long enough to run the span of your enclosure (they have lots of different lengths). Keep in mind what size cage you are upgrading to, and get that length so you don't have to upgrade again later.

The highest branch should be at around 10-12 inches away from your lights.

The temperature in there is usually around 80, the lowest it will get is about 72 degrees.

So your basking temps should be around 90-92 degrees, since he is an adult now.

Ambient temps should be 70-75. Nighttime temps should be around 69-65. No lower than 55.

His humidity is around 70 to 80 usually, I measure this with a humidity gauge. I try and maintaining this by spraying his cage often.

You will want a digital humidity gauge as the one thats come with the reptibreeze kit are no good. Same goes more temperature gauges.

Humidity during the day should be 30-40, and then 80-100 at night. Nighttime humidity can be achieved with a fogger.

I have one love plant in there to catch the water from the dripper, it’s some sort of pothos plant.

I would chuck your fake plants, and grab some nice live ones. Veiled chameleons are known to eat vegetation, and you do not want him ingesting a fake plant.

So you should have a 10-12 inch area at the top with little to no foliage.

You have lots of sticks and branches horizontally all over the cage . Think of them as highways to get from one spot to the other. Natural sticks from outside are best. Just clean with soap and hot water well, and let them dry out in the sun for a couple days. A variety of diameters and and shapes is best, to exercise their feet.

As for plants, you will want an area with sparse foliage, and then an area that is very dense in foliage so your boy will be able to hide. Foliage should be a more sparse towards the top, and a bit more dense in the middle.

I would focus the basking light on one specific branch, whereas the uvb light should be running the whole length of the cage as I said before. The reason we put the basking light in one general spot is so they have a 'basking spot'. You do not want to whole cage to be overly warm. But we do want UVB covering the span of the cage.

Safe plant list: http://veiledchameleon.com/safe-plant-list

Good chameleon cage examples: