first cham

[doaflip21]

hey guys I just got my first chameleon today!
Hes a male Jackson and the guy at the pet store said that he thought he was around a year old.

He had a somewhat brownish color in the pet store, on the ride home he got a lot darker, but as soon as he came to his new home he brightened up a lot and is already munching away on several powdered crickets. (forgot to add that hes already pooping also lol)

So far he hasn't moved from his one vine but he seems to be pretty happy, and a little confused.

The tank he's now in is larger than the one in the pet store, hes now by himself, there's ventilation fans, live plants, two drippers, and an upstairs compartment which adds a ton of space for him. ( I gutted, cleaned, and attached a hamster cage that adds about another foot and a half to his vertical space). These are all things he didn't previously have.

I'm very excited about having my new pet and he seems to feel the same way

 

[pssh]

Make sure to cover the hamster cage with a mesh or he could get his tongue wrapped around the wire. That would be bad.

 

[Julirs]

If this is your first chameleon-Jacksons are a bad choice to start with. THey are a pretty difficult cham all around. They need higher humidity and high ventilation. Screen cages are meant for chameleons. Hamster cages are meant for rodents.

 

[doaflip21]

Before I got the cham I made sure that the tank conditions were right.
day time goes from 65-75 degrees with 60-70% humidity
night is 60-65 degrees with 70-80% humidity
There's lots of air circulation from the fans as well.

pshh thanks for the advice. I did not realize that this could happen. Why would they put their tongue through the bars though? Trying to catch a fly or something?

thanks a lot for the replies and any advice is much appreciated!

 

[dragongoddess]

It seems we have already gone over this a couple times in another post but:
If you are keeping him in an aquarium with a hamster cage stuck on top, please review proper husbandry and buy him the proper equipment. Fish tanks are made for fish, hamster cages are made for hamsters.

You can keep him in a glass cage is you buy him one that is made for reptiles (ie Exo Terra glass Terrariums). I like to keep mine in full screen enclosures which provides complete ventilation.

You have also not mentioned the UV light (you absolutely need a UV light for your chameleon or he can develop MBD). Your lights can heat up the metal of the Hamster cage which could cause burns for your chameleon. You also need to buy him vitamin and mineral supplements if you have not already done so.

You have two dippers. What are you doing about drainage in a tank? I hope you know that in addition to the dripping you also need to mist your chameleon.

This is just friendly advise from people who already keep and dearly love chameleons. Please heed our advise and feel free to ask more questions.

 

[doaflip21]

thanks for the reply dragon..

I have a reptisun 5.0.

The bars of the cage have a rubber kinda coating on them so they do not conduct heat.

As for the drippers, there is a tray which is catching the water, a couple plants that are using this drip as their primary water source, and about an inch of gravel underneath everything

 

[sandrachameleon]

Congrats on the new chameleon.

Glass bottoms with screen tops (or wire cage topper) are a common, and acceptable, housing arrangement. I kept chams in large bird cages for years and wrapping a tongue around a cage bar is as unlikely as wrapping it around a branch. Coated wire is safer for feet and toenails than screen. Jacksons do like higher humidity, if I recall correctly, so an all screen cage might actually be a bad idea (depending on the relative humidity of your home).

 

[dragongoddess]

For the time being (until you get a screen cage or Exo Terra Terrarium) you need to cover the gravel with something. If he accidentally ingests some he can become compacted and die. I suggest river rock. Chameleons should not have any substrate because of the compaction risk but you are using it for drainage. You might even want to just cover them up with paper towels for now as a precaution. If you are staying with glass (such as a Terrarium) you will want to layer the bottom for drainage. Look in the pygmy enclosure section for examples. I keep pygmies in terrarium and the layering helps greatly with drainage and humidity.

Also, I keep many montane chameleons in screen cages and have no problems maintaining humidity.

 

[doaflip21]

Thanks Sandrachameleon,

I was starting to feel skeptical about my arrangement because of a lot of constructive criticism lol, but you definitely made me feel more comfortable with my set-up and owning a cham.

He finally discovered the "hamster" section of his living quarters and I have a feeling hes going to be attached to it. At first he seemed very shy and was looking pretty brownish but now hes green and moving around happily. (not sure if green means happy) He also seems to start to warm up to me, he doesn't seem at all threatened by my presence, and hes even already starting to kinda walk over to my direction when I go near the cage. Is this unusual? However, I'm still going to make an effort not to handle him for a while until I'm positive that hes comfortable with my presence.

I put out a couple super worms but he doesn't seem too interested... Is it because their not moving or is he just not hungry? Do they sell live super worms?

Thanks for reading and thanks for all of the input everyone!

Any more advice will be happily accepted considering that I want to provide the greatest life possible for my chameleon

 

[Carlton]

(not sure if green means happy) He also seems to start to warm up to me, he doesn't seem at all threatened by my presence, and hes even already starting to kinda walk over to my direction when I go near the cage. Is this unusual? However, I'm still going to make an effort not to handle him for a while until I'm positive that hes comfortable with my presence.

I put out a couple super worms but he doesn't seem too interested... Is it because their not moving or is he just not hungry? Do they sell live super worms?

Thanks for reading and thanks for all of the input everyone!

Any more advice will be happily accepted considering that I want to provide the greatest life possible for my chameleon

Green is "happier" than brown, but very intense green with lighter colored diamonds on the sides mean stress/excitement. Chams are not really social and I doubt he's actually coming over to interact with you. He may be getting more comfortable with his space and naturally moving around more. The best way to get a cham more comfortable with your presence is to hand feed favorite foods. They don't particularly like to be handled, but occasionally won't hurt. Watch his color. The more stressed or upset he gets the darker and more intense his color will be.

All his feeders need to be live. Chams are almost completely visual and locate prey by movement. Live insects gutloaded carefully with fresh leafy greens, fruit, fortified cereal grains, a little flake fish food, and (I like this) bee pollen will be the basis of the diet.

The hamster cage can work...just watch that he can't get his head wedged between the bars. If you want to offer him flying prey such as houseflies or moths you can keep them in the cage if you make a cover for it with window screen. That way he can climb on the bars without getting his claws caught in the smaller screen, but the bugs can't get out.

The lower tank needs some way to drain or be cleaned easily or you can end up with a soup of stagnant water, feces, dead insects, etc. Your vent fans are a good idea but may circulate the bacteria around too. When conditions are drier in your house he may end up spending more time down in the tank and being exposed to bacteria or mold. You may find this setup is hard to keep clean over time and that a terrarium-style part glass part screen cage works better.

 

[doaflip21]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yeah I figured that he'd only want to eat live animals but thanks a lot for confirming this for me.

I designed it so that the hamster cage can easily be removed by a clip and brought to a floor or table and serve as a reliable temporary enclosure.

Because of your posts I realized that i will have to clean the tank more regularly than I thought. thanks again, and as always advice is nice. lol

 

[serenitystarlite]

I've already posted my experience with my cham in that type of setup in your other thread. I'm sure some more experienced keepers have used this setup with success. If you want to chance it, just make sure you have some emergency money set aside in case you need to take your cham to the vet.

Currently I have a chinese tree dragon in an aquarium with a screened addition and it is really annoying and hard to clean. She was supposed to be going into my veiled's baby cage, but my baby jackson's will be using that when he gets big enough. I hate the setup and will probably end up building her a cheap and non fancy screen cage when I get my chams all situated. She has a water dish, but I've never seen her drink from it. She drinks water from the leaves and from the spray bottle, so she would probably benefit from a dripper. I may end up just ordering her a small cage because she doesn't need a large cage like the chameleons do (she's like 3in not including her long tail).

So again, I would definitely recommend using a screened cage, especially to a beginner with a new chameleon. I custom built my screen cages and I love them. They work great and are 100 times more convenient to clean and keep nice than an aquarium. Plus you can build it to the size you need. When I had Kami in the aquarium, I started with a reptile carpet and then switched to nothing at all on the bottom. I tried to keep the tank as clean as possible and had her dripper going into her hibiscus. I emptied the plant saucer almost everyday and she still got sick. I would think gravel would be really hard to keep clean and would breed bacteria if constantly wet. Another thing to think about is that moving the screened section off of the aquarium is a lot more stressful on the cham than just opening the door and wiping off the floor of the cage because you're disrupting the whole cage.

Good luck with whatever you choose to use.

 

[OOOst16]

people have reviewd everything and givin there opinions....RESEARCH should have been done before purchase. keep researching everything on jacksons ....and chameleons in general. there is alot to learn.

 

[doaflip21]

Oost, I've done my RESEARCH and am asking questions about mixed opinions and little things I've been confused by. If I've offended you on the chameleon forum I am sorry but I am just trying to take the as good of care for my new pet as possible by confirming information and taking advice from experienced chameleon owners instead of random online sources.

But besides the point, after talking about my chameleon to friends and family, somebody has a 75 gallon screened chameleon cage (haven't looked at it) that they are willing to sell me for $10. Obviously I will buy it, but will it be way too stressful for my cham to switch into a new environment once again?

Sorry for all of the nooby questions as I said before I'm just trying to provide a better life for my new Jackson.

 

[kinyonga]

You said..."day time goes from 65-75 degrees"...generally they need a place to bask to warm up. It doesn't have to be any warmer than the low 80's IMHO for a Jackson's.