"free range"???

[lisagr07]

Can someone explain to me what this is and "how" it's done? Do you literally turn your chameleon loose in your house or outside in a shrub?

if you turn it loose in the yard do you sit out there to guard it from wayward cats?? In the house do they get lost??

Thanks ,,, Lisa

 

[reptoman]

do a search on "free range" . There have been some really good threads with pics of how people have set up a free range for their cham.

 

[bigcappa]

Here are a few links:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/enclosures-free-range-35374/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/free-range-q-37430/

https://www.chameleonforums.com/who-else-keeping-their-chameleons-free-range-13878/index2.html

http://chameleonnews.com/?page=article&id=60

http://chameleonnews.com/?page=article&id=121

 

[Yessabub]

Its an indoor thing only usually if you have your cham outside it needs to be in a cage or somewhere where its closed in and you can watch it carefully if not you could risk losing it. In a house its good to have it in a room that has a door if your not gonna be right there watching, and you have to cham proof the room. If you want to talk to a pro in my eyes thats jannb

 

[JaxyGirl]

This is what I did with my Jackson's cham. I think I might be an exception with my cham though. My cham doesn't have a cage..he free ranges all day. He does have a special free range set up with his plants, heat lamp, UVB, dripper etc that he goes to and from at will. He pretty much roams around the living room when he wants to and then he goes back to his home base area when he wants. Really nothing bothers him not even the cats.

I do want to say that even though my cham now free ranges and pretty much owns the living room, he didn't start out that way. He started in a cage when he was a baby, he was more skiddish then and I didn't handle him as much as I do now. Maybe once a week at the most.

As he grew he seemed to prefer to be out of the cage more. So I hung a pathos plant above the cage so he could reach the plant from his cage climb up when he wanted and back into his cage when he wanted. And I always locked him in his cage at night. It got to the point where he wanted to be out more then in and he would litterally freak and stress out if I locked him in the cage. So I just started leaving him out and it progressed from there. And it has worked out for me and "my" cham..every situation is different.

But, I do want to make a strong point of saying it took about 6-9mos to get to where he is now. It just worked out that way and he pretty much did it on his own. I never forced him to do any of the above. If he stressed out from being out of his cage or handled then I definitely wouldn't have. I was just lucky like that way.
Natalie