Free Roaming Set-ups

Jordan

New Member
Just curious if anyone has or is using a free roaming set-up for their chameleons? I have been thinking about this for my male. He is not shy and can careless about my presence in the room. I was looking over some past thread and found this picture posted by Jerm.
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I like the planter type bottom he went with and with something similar I think I could work in some sort of drainage. I was also considering adding a back wall to keep the mistings of my dry wall. Any thoughts, different ideas, pictures of free roaming set-ups. I have tried this with a chameleon before but it was rather disasterous. I think I am willing to try again he has a much different personallity.
 
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Free-ranging is great when it works for the individual cham. My free-range pix and article are on the Melleri Discovery site, sorry I don't have them in this post- not on my photobucket!

In general, if you provide enough dense foliage and perches above human eye level, and you meet all their humidity, watering, prey, breeding, warmth, and light requirements, they just stay in their territory. Chams are drawn to light fixtures, so you have to build small screen enclosures for your incandescents, heat lamps, and ceramic heat emitters. I believe ZooMed makes a metal mesh protector for their dome lamp, but be aware that the solid dome of the lamp can still burn the cham that perches on it.

To keep mist off the wall behind the free-range, I hung a sheet of 6 mil clear plastic "dropcloth" behind the trees. It extends past the range, but does not reach the floor.

Free-ranging is great for acclimating large WC chams that are not used to ceilings and walls. I have free-ranged chams for years. It's one of those advanced tools in the ol' keeper bag of tricks- you have to use it safely and correctly to get good results.
 
Hi Jordan,
I still use that setup, that is an old photo though. In that house I had concrete walls on the interior and exterior of the house so I didn't have to worry about overspray. I also had lanoleum flooring. I kept a humidifier in the room too. The plants are in a tupperware tub that has been cut down with a dremmel tool so it didn't have tall sides. I used to use a similar setup with the tub only I left the sides which i used as the barrier to keep the cham in. That way only worked for small chams though. I had the dirt level low enough in the tub that they couldn't escape if they cam down from the tree. You definately have to cup feed with this method. I think that they enjoy it more because of the openness of it. I have had "jumpers" that would lunge out of them so it doesn't work for all chams. Good luck if you decide to try one.
 
A shower curtain hung around the walls would stop the walls from getting wet. If you arrrange it so that the ends of the shower curtain overhang a planter, the water will drip into the planter.

I have seen people use a kiddie's plastic wading pool (empty, of course) with the tree in the middle of it. It makes it less easy for the chameleon to "jump" out of the set-up and if the pool is tall enough the chameleon shouldn't be able to escape if it does "jump" to the floor.

Just a thought or two...
 
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