Expensive supplies for a chameleon

[Chameleons Lover]

HI Iam moving these days and i may not be able to stay updated on the CHAMELEON FORUMS but i will be back soon so i have one last question for me so i can get the chameleon after i move to a new home

1-what would i do if i went to the pet store and its may be the only pet store that sells chameleon supplies

i found a bird cage for the price of 55$ us dollars and i was thinking is the bird cage is OK?

then i asked the pet store manager about the UVA UVB bulb they said that the reptisun 5.0 is 49$ us dollars and its online for 15$ us dollars but no one ships to my country because its too far and the small pack of food is 5$ us dollars and will go enough for only 3 days i asked about the live food they said its 0.13$ per each small meal worm the mini size what should i do??

help me and iam appreciating your help to me and THANK YOU ALL

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Bird cages are really not the ideal cahm cage. Your going to have problems keeping feeders in the cage unless you cup feed only. I would buy or build my own screen cage. Its not hard and you can customize it too suit your space and the chameleons needs. As far as feeders go most people buy bulk to save $$$. But thats not really practical with only one chameleon. Either way find about 3 feeders you can supply him with primarily and then incl some different choices now and then. Great staples are: dubia roches, crickets, super worms/NOT MEAL WORMS, Horn worms, silk worms, and grasshoppers.

 

[Psi]

But thats not really practical with only one chameleon.

Dunno if I necessarily agree with that.
If you buy bulk and 1/2 die off, you may think that sucks that you have all that waste, but you still were able to feed off the other half.

If you buy 1000 crickets for 25$ (average around here), you're spending 2.5c per cricket.

As long as you're able to feed off around 125 crickets, you'll at least break even. And it should be rather easy to keep enough crickets alive long enough to come out ahead.

I was buying 500 or 1k crickets when I only had 1 cham and getting multiple weeks out of them. Now with my army of reptiles 1k is barely manageable for a week .

 

[Clifford]

i found a bird cage for the price of 55$ us dollars and i was thinking is the bird cage is OK?:confused

I use a large bird cage. I have found it to be an ideal cage, far superior to screen (doesnt rip toenails, provides a great climbing surface, doesnt block any UVB from the tube above, easy to mist, easy to clean, easy to attach branches and vines wherever you like, etc) with only one draw-back - you pretty much have to cup/bowl feed anything that runs or jumps. Supers and silkworms will hold onto branches, but unless you want them all over your house you have to cup feed crickets and roaches. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It makes things easy. The cage will come with a bird seed dish, and you can easily add another (larger) bowl in a second location.

 

[Texas Panther Man]

Why buy bulk crickets for only one cham? If he feeds multiple feeders hes prob only going to feed crix like 2-3 days a week tops. That at most 30 crix a week. In a six week period hes only going to need 180-200 crix at most. And he's not going to have a full 6 week life span to feed them off. Also why deal with the mess of 1000k crix if you only have 1 cham. Too much cricket crap and too many feeders to feed every day for only one chameleon. Makes no sense? Besides that hes going to need at least one or two other food items on hand.

 

[Lovereps]

Sounds like it will be too small

A $55 bird cage must be quite small, compared to a chameleon cage.
UAE is loaded with pet stores in metropolitan areas, like Dubai and I'd be surprised if you couldn't locate a supplier of reptile cages (and food) anywhere in the UAE.
At least 3 forum sponsors ship supplies internationally.
Pangea Reptile Supply ships worldwide:
http://www.pangeareptile.com/store/reptile-cages.html
Josh's Frogs too:
http://www.joshsfrogs.com/category/167/caging
LLL also ships internationally:http://lllreptile.com/store/policies/international
Searching online, I've also found reptile supply stores which ship internationally, a couple of them even specifically mention that they ship to the UAE.
You mentioned in an earlier thread that you can get a cage locally.
International shipping costs and any import tariffs may make it the same price as buying your supplies locally.

 

[hun73r]

The other item of concern is what is being discussed when a "pack of food" is mentioned. There is not a packaged food item available that a chameleon will take as food. They eat live insects and in some cases plant matter but definitely not pre-packaged "lizard" food of any type.

Also as Panther Man states "Meal Worms" should be avoided as a regular food item. You can collect insects if you can find a place where there are no residual pesticides or large amounts of pollution, but I fear that being in the UAE it may be difficult to source a supplier for feeder insects of any type.

 

[sandrachameleon]

A $55 bird cage must be quite small, compared to a chameleon cage.

Depends where you live? My parakeets (birds) are in cages that are a suitable large size for a panther or veiled, and they each cost only about $70 Canadian dollars. Indeed that's what I originally used those bird cages for! My chameleons seemed happy in them. The only issue I had was they dont retain heat or humidity well (much like screen), so if the ambient conditions in the room are poor.... so I switched to more solid walled cages.

ChameleonsLover you dont have a lot of choice about the UVB tube unless you can keep the animal outside where it will get filtered sunlight. I dont know what the temps there are like, or whether this is at all feasible.

Hun73r is right - sounds like live insects is going to be a bigger problem than caging or lighting. You need live bugs. Crickets, Locuts, moths, larva, roaches....

 

[Lovereps]

His location is RAK,UAE which is very, very HOT

Here are the average temperatures:
http://www.worldweather.org/117/c01191f.htm#climate

For example, tomorrow and Tuesday, the expected LOW is 90, with an expected high of 115

 

[Lovereps]

Forgot to mention about Expensive bulbs

In my local stores, Reptisun bulbs sell for 40 to 50 US dollars--so your pet shop seems reasonable.

 

[Chameleons Lover]

In my local stores, Reptisun bulbs sell for 40 to 50 US dollars--so your pet shop seems reasonable.

ok thank you for ur help with that site

and i really appreciate ur help to me thank you all


and will a bird cage do fine ???

 

[Lovereps]

It will IF:
1)It's large enough for what your chameleon needs. (You can ask forum members about appropriate cage sizes, if you tell us what kind of cham and how old it is.)
2) You don't mind that insects will easily escape from it, possibly before your cham has a chance to eat them, unless you modify the cage with some insect screening.

If you look at this thread, at post #32, you will see that there is a forum member in Dubai , whose forum name is weezyboi94 :https://www.chameleonforums.com/find-members-near-you-45515/index4.html
You might want to send a message to him and find out where he buys his chameleon supplies and bugs