Eating Out of My Hand

Austin.Hopson

Austin.Hopson

Member
Hey guys, I just joined the forum! I have a question though. I got me Veiled Cham a couple of weeks ago, and the pet store owner wasnt sure how old he is. He is about 13 inches long including the tail. Can anyone give me a guestimation to how old he is? Also, I keep reading online that some Chams are easier to "tame" than others. By tame i mean to get them to be used to your hand and you being around. I dont know if Smaug ( thats his name by the way) is just a little grump or if he is just taking a while for him to get used to me. anytime i try to hold him he tries to get as far away from my hand as possible and when i try to get him to eat from my hand he doesnt want anything to do with it. Can anyone give me any advice?
 
Austin,

Welcome to the forum. Congrats on Smaug. You might post up a few pics of him so that we can get a good look and make a better guess at his age. BTW, how's you husbandry? What does your set up consist of? All things that you should be looking at as you make your journey through cham keeping.
 
image.jpeg
image.jpeg
 
by they way, the gunk on the walls of the aquarium are stains from the previous owner, did everything i could to get them off before i bought Smaug, but i could not get them off.
 
Austin,

Thanks for posting a few pics. He looks to be approx. 5 mo. old. +/-. Your set up needs some tweaking, but tell me more about where your veiled is at in the house? What are the ambient temps? What is your humidity like in the house? With you enclosure, you need more foliage and vines/branches to give him cover and things to walk along. Remember that these creatures are arboreal and make their home I the trees. You should set up you aquarium (hopefully temporary) vertically. Take out the hammock, water dish and carpet flooring and start looking at getting him an enclosure with more circulation. By taking a look at the questionnaire and care sheets below, you will have a better idea about how to better your set-up and husbandry.

Take a look here:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/the-official-enclosure-picture-thread.49688/
 
Also with him getting to like you. I have had my cham for about a month and today is the first day I put my hand in his cage without him hissing at me, it takes patience, but with enough work the most grumpy of chams can become baby's that will willingly walk on your hand.
 
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SmokeJoker said:
I don't know if he is just stretched out but he looks a bit thin to me.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/

Pls fill that out so people can help you fix your setup, and go look at pictures of other people's set ups. Ur gonna need a 24x24x48 screen cage, and way more plants. I'm not to sure about the age because I am also new to owning a cham.
Click to expand...
He is just stretched in the picture, he just ate earlier today, and he ate plenty.
 
MSMorgan said:
Austin,

Thanks for posting a few pics. He looks to be approx. 5 mo. old. +/-. Your set up needs some tweaking, but tell me more about where your veiled is at in the house? What are the ambient temps? What is your humidity like in the house? With you enclosure, you need more foliage and vines/branches to give him cover and things to walk along. Remember that these creatures are arboreal and make their home I the trees. You should set up you aquarium (hopefully temporary) vertically. Take out the hammock, water dish and carpet flooring and start looking at getting him an enclosure with more circulation. By taking a look at the questionnaire and care sheets below, you will have a better idea about how to better your set-up and husbandry.

Take a look here:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/the-official-enclosure-picture-thread.49688/
Click to expand...
Yeah i new my setup would need some work, im looking at a caage online, right now to see if i can change it.
this is the one im looking at: http://www.ebay.com/itm/XL-30x16x16...-SHIPPING-ALUMINUM-NEW-/111869229306#shpCntId
And the cage is in my room, which only i go in and out of. The house in general is set to be just above 70 degrees during the day and down to 68 ish at night but my room is in a spot on the house that gets the most sunlight so it is significantly warmer than the rest of the house, even before i got Smaug and his cage.
 
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SmokeJoker said:
Also with him getting to like you. I have had my cham for about a month and today is the first day I put my hand in his cage without him hissing at me, it takes patience, but with enough work the most grumpy of chams can become baby's that will willingly walk on your hand.
Click to expand...
Hey, thanks for the advice. Smaug will sometimes hiss at me but sometimes he will let me pick him up. But he hasnt really started to willingly walk out onto my hand.
 
#1 - Take out the green substrate. It will get all nasty and soggy from the water you spray in there (you DO mist him with water DAILY, right?) and that will create bacteria, which is bad. So take that out.

#2 - What kinds of lights are you using? Do you have both a UVB bulb and a basking heat bulb? It's a bit hard for me to tell from the pics

#3 - The standing water dish...Is that a water dish or a waterfall? It looks like a waterfall because I believe that is the power cord to it that the cham is hanging onto ya? Chameleons don't typically drink out of a water dish, and you would be super lucky if you found your chameleon will do this at all. It looks like that is his only option with his cage though. Not good. Standing water dishes collect bacteria, so do you ever clean it? You need a dripper or a misting machine to put water into his cage to drink, not just a water dish. There needs to be water running down the leaves of plants and such, as this is the best way for chameleons to drink. They are attracted to moving water running down plants. Which brings me to number 4....

#4 - Where are all your plants yo? You NEED plants in there. These animals live in the jungles where there are lots of trees and plants. All you have is two rocks which he will probably never crawl on, and a single vine. That is literally the only thing for him to climb on. That's like parking you on the couch for your whole life and that is the only place you are allowed to be. You'd hate that. Add more horizontal vines. Add plants. Lots and lots of plants. Otherwise, there is nothing for the water to collect on for your chameleon to drink. And without more branches or vines, there is nowhere to explore or nowhere to go to regulate his body temperature. He is probably hiding up on that cord because that is the only other place he can go besides that single vine.

#5 - How are you monitoring his temperature and humidity in the cage. Or should i ask..... ARE you monitoring his temperature and humidity? I don't see a gauge for either one in his cage. It's essential to know what the humidity is, because you need to be spraying his cage each day to keep up the humidity. For the love of all things holy, please tell me you ARE misting his cage every day?

#6 - What do you feed him? Like, what kind of insects? Do you dust your insects with a the proper calcium supplements and vitamins? Do you know HOW to dust your insects?

#7 - Honestly probably shouldn't have him in a cage that has gunk on the walls. You have no idea what that gunk is or what it will do to the cham if he ingests it. To each his own I guess, but that's my honest opinion...
 
trickedoutbiker said:
#1 - Take out the green substrate. It will get all nasty and soggy from the water you spray in there (you DO mist him with water DAILY, right?) and that will create bacteria, which is bad. So take that out.

#2 - What kinds of lights are you using? Do you have both a UVB bulb and a basking heat bulb? It's a bit hard for me to tell from the pics

#3 - The standing water dish...Is that a water dish or a waterfall? It looks like a waterfall because I believe that is the power cord to it that the cham is hanging onto ya? Chameleons don't typically drink out of a water dish, and you would be super lucky if you found your chameleon will do this at all. It looks like that is his only option with his cage though. Not good. Standing water dishes collect bacteria, so do you ever clean it? You need a dripper or a misting machine to put water into his cage to drink, not just a water dish. There needs to be water running down the leaves of plants and such, as this is the best way for chameleons to drink. They are attracted to moving water running down plants. Which brings me to number 4....

#4 - Where are all your plants yo? You NEED plants in there. These animals live in the jungles where there are lots of trees and plants. All you have is two rocks which he will probably never crawl on, and a single vine. That is literally the only thing for him to climb on. That's like parking you on the couch for your whole life and that is the only place you are allowed to be. You'd hate that. Add more horizontal vines. Add plants. Lots and lots of plants. Otherwise, there is nothing for the water to collect on for your chameleon to drink. And without more branches or vines, there is nowhere to explore or nowhere to go to regulate his body temperature. He is probably hiding up on that cord because that is the only other place he can go besides that single vine.

#5 - How are you monitoring his temperature and humidity in the cage. Or should i ask..... ARE you monitoring his temperature and humidity? I don't see a gauge for either one in his cage. It's essential to know what the humidity is, because you need to be spraying his cage each day to keep up the humidity. For the love of all things holy, please tell me you ARE misting his cage every day?

#6 - What do you feed him? Like, what kind of insects? Do you dust your insects with a the proper calcium supplements and vitamins? Do you know HOW to dust your insects?

#7 - Honestly probably shouldn't have him in a cage that has gunk on the walls. You have no idea what that gunk is or what it will do to the cham if he ingests it. To each his own I guess, but that's my honest opinion...
Click to expand...
Hey thanks for the help, and yes i am misting the cage a couple times a day. And ive been meaning to change to a different cage and adding a butt load of plants.
For the lighting, i have a UVB light and a heating light. AS so a temp guage though....The pet store owner never told me that i would need one and that the heating lamp would be okay.
i feed him crickets and i do dust them with the calcium that contains D3. When i go buy the crickets, they come in a little bad, and when i get home, i just tap the base of the container that has the calcium in it, like if you were tapping a katchup bottle, and them gently shake the crickets around to make sure they are all dusted.
 
The crickets should be dusted with calcium without d3 dailie, and every Sunday you should switch off with calcium that had d3 and multivitamin (Sunday 1 - d3, Sunday 2 - multivitamin, Sunday 3 - d3, Sunday 4 - multivitamin)
And how many crickets does he eat a day? He should be getting around 10 a day.
 
SmokeJoker said:
The crickets should be dusted with calcium without d3 dailie, and every Sunday you should switch off with calcium that had d3 and multivitamin (Sunday 1 - d3, Sunday 2 - multivitamin, Sunday 3 - d3, Sunday 4 - multivitamin)
And how many crickets does he eat a day? He should be getting around 10 a day.
Click to expand...
I have been going off of what the pet shop owner has told me and have been giving him 2-3 dozen at a time every 2-3 days
 
To be honest Austin.Hopson, petstores does not give very proper information. I would advise you to just forget about everything he said and read caresheets and threads here on the forum instead. We get way too many threads about sick chams bought from petstores with corrupt husbandry information
Smaug is probably very stressed in his current enclosure, I am sure your "taming" will move forward when he got time to settle in in a proper enclosure as described in some of the links above.
Good luck!
 
GrimCamel said:
To be honest Austin.Hopson, petstores does not give very proper information. I would advise you to just forget about everything he said and read caresheets and threads here on the forum instead. We get way too many threads about sick chams bought from petstores with corrupt husbandry information
Smaug is probably very stressed in his current enclosure, I am sure your "taming" will move forward when he got time to settle in in a proper enclosure as described in some of the links above.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Hey, thanks for the reply. Yeah so far that's what I've seen. I'm in the process of getting an entirely new husbandry setup
 
GrimCamel said:
To be honest Austin.Hopson, petstores does not give very proper information. I would advise you to just forget about everything he said and read caresheets and threads here on the forum instead.
Click to expand...

EXACTLY. Big chain pet stores like Petsmart, Petco, Uncle Bill's, and others, will tell you what they WANT you to think if you don't know any better. And sadly, a lot of people go out and buy a pet without researching ANYTHING about them at all. Pet stores are there for one thing: to make $$$ off of people, and succeed in business. In order to do that, they will try to sell anything they can, and sometimes, that info they provide or the items they suggest are wrong. I strongly believe that if people decide to buy/own a pet, they should educate themselves to the fullest extent before doing so because that is not only a pet, but a part of your family. It is a living, breathing creature who deserves the best for them, just like any parent would try to provide the best for their children (or at least I'd hope). Too many times have I seen people neglect their animals due to misinformation.
 
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