You have a wonderful free range set up, you will see more of Donahue's colors this way. He looks like a very happy guy. How are you going to empty the water bin under the plants? I use a rack that goes to the floor so my drip bucket slides out. I use 5 gal buckets cause I am a wimp and like handles to empty them with.
Thanks Laurie! The plants just move right off of the bin, and then its pretty much ready to dump. Its only a slight pain in the.. but Im planning on building a planter box with wheels to take its place.
Wow, looks sweet! I bet he loves it, you've given him so much space to roam.
That was the idea!
Really good looking range there, Donahue is a very lucky fella to have such a jungle, even if he will have to share it soon
Cham cages and free ranges are never finished, hey?
Thanks man! No I suppose not
I really like working on them though, so its ok
That is a sweet set up, when I make my free range I'm copying hahaha
Thanks! I "copied" from sdheli420's free range. At least, it inspired mine.
Awesome FR dude! You should get him a little sign that says "welcome to the jungle"
I bet he is lovin it!
LOL! I am actually making a sign for the door that says: Caution: Beware of Wild Panther. (or somthing like that)
Where did you get the branches and the other pathways (the chams roads)??
i would like to start building my FR, but dont know where to start... any tips??
what can you tell me about lighting, could i use the same light i use for my cham in his cage or does it has to be a stronger one?? where i live we have nice weather so i dont think a lot of heat would be needed..
Everything but the live plants I grabbed from my backyard and the surrounding woods. There are vines all over the place here, they were introduced in the 1930's to help with how loose the soil is. They are considered a nuisance now, and pull down trees like hedra helix (english ivy) does. So you can just walk outside here, and there are whole trees covered in vines already "picked" for you.
I just grab one I like(I found a bunch of cherry blossom trees that had fell down, the wood is black and silver, so it looks cool, its also fairly flexible, so it wont break when being climbed, Donahue seems to like it best
) then I take off all the fragile bits and clean it up, and pop it in. There is only one small bracket holding them all up, everything is basically tangled and wedged together. It makes it easy to put up and tear down.
Donahue gets lots of sunlight from his window and outdoor cage, but on colder days(like today) he will use his regular lights. I just use a 75w reg bulb for basking, and I have a 5.0 reptisun in his fixture along with a 6500K light(not sure how much of its reaching the plants
). I just took his cage lighting and mounted it to the ceiling ;/
Seems to work fine though.
If you have nice weather I would try to put it near/in front of an east facing window, that way the chameleon can bask in the window in the morning.
Water can be an issue. My mistking sprays onto the foliage, which in turn falls straight down into the bin. This works, you just have line it all up.
My MK runs for 2.5-10 min at a time, and there is no water on the carpet.
It can be a bit more challenging creating an actual temperature gradient in a whole room on colder days, but most of the time I find the larger space easier to control. (I havnt experienced the summer here yet though).
If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me.
