TheLybithian
New Member
Welcome, there are a lot of things that need to be gone over. Please fill this out
Chameleon Info:
Cage Info:
Current Problem - We are just concerned as he/she is looking very skinny after a day or two and it hasn't eaten at all today from what I can tell, even though we are doing everything we can. I've spent hours online researching. Here are some pictures of him/her. We just want to know if we should do anything different.
My buddy who has had panthers, veiled's and jacksons told me he is most likely very, very stressed since he just moved in, and we just had to completely rearrange and move the cage today. Told him the same that he/she had droppings yesterday and the day before so he won't starve in the next couple days and he (my chameleon friend) suggested we put a blanket around the cage and just totally leave him alone for the next couple of days except for feedings and waterings.
You can see the mason jar I've been putting crickets in. Using a more "salsa dip bowl" shaped glass now thats a bit more open, but the crickets still can't crawl up or jump because of the glass, just like scorpions out here can't climb glass.
Please remember, be kind and constructive we are literally doing everything we can and I've already spent over 700 dollars to make sure it has everything.
Chameleon Info:
- Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon, unable to tell, too young. Easily only a month or two old. Got it from PetSmart, however they did not know what they were doing. Been in our care 3 days.
- Handling - Never. It is obviously very young and stressed out about the move, as well as us having to rearrange the cage, remove the substrate we initially put in, and just getting the overall terrarium set up.
- Feeding - He is still so dang small, he/she really can't eat much more than crickets at this time. Will be getting squash, carrots, and zucchini to finely chop up and add to his food bowl. I have a bug gut loader feed bag I dump into the container with the live crickets. I use a calcium spray WITHOUT D3, as well as a multivitamin with D3.
I feed our chameleon by using a small glass mason jar, and dump the crickets in there so they can't escape since its glass and cannot climb the sides, and I have a moss vine wrapped around the jar so he/she has easy access and pickings to the crickets. However he/she hasn't shown much interest the past couple days. I cut up about a 1.5 inch hornworm into thirds a day or two ago and it looked like he/she ate a couple thirds of that and a couple crickets that day but since I can't tell if he's been eating or not, hence the mason jar.
Also the mason jar makes it much easier for us to remove the crickets at night so they don't bite at our chameleon.
- Supplements - Reptivite, will be using the multi-vitamin with D3 maybe once every week or two? Spraying the crickets with just a calcium supplement, however I haven't seen him eat in the past two days. Can't get him/her to at all.
- Watering - I have a large fake tree that's about 2 feet tall, with a pump that is supposed to replicate water on leaves for him to drink, but it's kind of garbage and turns off all the time and doesn't always work. We always microwave water until it is lukewarm, then spray the cage with it (not tap water) 2-3 times a day for about 30s-1m.
- Fecal Description - Light brown droppings, maybe a hint of white the past two days. First day he was here there was a healthy(?) and somewhat large looking dropping. Yesterday as well, but not as big. Don't have pictures as we already cleaned the cage. As far as I know, he/she hasn't been tested for parasites.
- History - Apparently he/she was very spunky, energetic and absolutely hated human contact and even bit the petsmart employee as she was trying to place him in the container to take him/her home.
We're somewhat worried he may have been bit by the couple baby crickets that were left in the cage overnight last night. PLEASE UNDERSTAND, we DID NOT KNOW to take them out until this morning when I saw a cricket crawling over the chameleon and instantly googled it and realized our mistake. However they are very small crickets and not full size.
Hence why I'm using the mason jar, so the crickets can't escape and we can remove them from the cage easily if he/she does not eat them. It can be harder to find these tiny baby crickets than the full size ones.
Cage Info:
- Cage Type - It is a terrarium, glass, however the front part of the cage has a large rectangle screened part at the top facing you of the terrarium and at the back, and the top is also screened. We plan on purchasing a bigger, even more screened cage within a couple months. For now we just keep a light small fan blowing around the cage to keep the air moving. 24"x24"x38" inches
- Lighting - We have a UVB 16 watt bulb in a dome, (a 12" linear UVB bulb and fixture is on its way from amazon) and we use a 150 watt heating bulb in the corner of the cage for his basking light. It is on a 12 on, 12 off schedule.
- Temperature - I have 3 thermometers in the cage. One right next to the basking spot, stays around 85F-95F. The "cool" side of the cage where he/she hangs at the top corner is around 74 degrees. Middle is around 80 degrees.
- Humidity - I have to hygrometers, one at the bottom of the cage, and one at the top of the cage. We use the reptifogger which makes fog/humidity and keep the cage around 50-80% humidity.
- Plants - No live plants just yet. Plan on creating a live soil base with real plants once we upgrade to the full size cage.
- Placement - It is located in the living room, next to the TV. However in my apartment myself and my roommate mainly keep to ourselves in our rooms in our own space without really ever using the living room where the Tv and cage is located. It used to be located on my dining room table when we first set it up, and it was about 6.5 feet in the air at the top of the cage. Today we realized the coconut fiber the pet store sold us was a terrible idea, and that they had no idea what they were talking about at the store. So we had to completely take everything out of the cage except for suction cup vines on the sides that he/she likes to hang out on during the day. I assume that stressed him/her out, since we had to scoop out like 8lbs of coconut fiber substrate that was all water logged for obvious reasons. Now we are just using paper towels and will be changing twice a week or so.
Now after relocating the cage to the top of an end table next to the TV in the living room where there is much less traffic. When he/she was on the dining room table near our kitchen and fridge it was very high traffic as we were constantly in the kitchen cooking etc, AND our cat Simba the table was his roost and hang out spot so he'd be up there on the table gently shaking the cage even by jumping on the table which is also why we resituated it. - Location - We live in the northern arizona mountains. However he/she is an inside chameleon. I keep my apartments A/C thermostat 70 AT THE LOWEST. So the temperature at night is around 70 in the cage at the top where he sleeps, because that is where the thermostat is.
Current Problem - We are just concerned as he/she is looking very skinny after a day or two and it hasn't eaten at all today from what I can tell, even though we are doing everything we can. I've spent hours online researching. Here are some pictures of him/her. We just want to know if we should do anything different.
My buddy who has had panthers, veiled's and jacksons told me he is most likely very, very stressed since he just moved in, and we just had to completely rearrange and move the cage today. Told him the same that he/she had droppings yesterday and the day before so he won't starve in the next couple days and he (my chameleon friend) suggested we put a blanket around the cage and just totally leave him alone for the next couple of days except for feedings and waterings.
You can see the mason jar I've been putting crickets in. Using a more "salsa dip bowl" shaped glass now thats a bit more open, but the crickets still can't crawl up or jump because of the glass, just like scorpions out here can't climb glass.
Please remember, be kind and constructive we are literally doing everything we can and I've already spent over 700 dollars to make sure it has everything.