Help me.

[dodolah]

Today, when i went home, I saw my veiled going to the bottom of the plant and start eating dirt. and he munch on a large wood bark (I use supersoil brand planting soil- kammers' recommendation).
Luckily I manage to grab that wood bark out of his mouth be4 he swallow it.
that was too close.
I need something to cover my pot so he won't be able to eat the wood bark that are scattered on the soil..

I'm going right now to homedepot or walmart, can you tell me what to buy?
please, he is a naughty chameleon. He probably will go back to the bottom if
i left.
So, I have to make it stop now.
Meanwhile, i don't have time to repot the soil..
So maybe a quick solution.. like covering the pot with screen or something.
Can you suggest me an idea or a product to buy?

Thanks

 

[PardalisGirl]

Bad Boy

I use smooth decorative river rock. Rocks that are too big to pick up in their mouth but small enough not to leave big gaps for the cham to get it's snout in. Some of your crickets may hide under the rock. My chams like the game of waiting until they come out during misting. Then they snap them up. All my plants are covered with these rocks. You can find them in the chain hardware stores like Home Depot. You can find them in the plant/pot section. People also put them in fountains to make the water ripple.

 

[bg77]

Go to the dollar store and get some rocks....That is what I use and they are great, and look good to.

 

[dodolah]

do i need to wash it or can i just dump the rock there?

 

[bg77]

rinse it off too be safe......

 

[dodolah]

I use smooth decorative river rock. Rocks that are too big to pick up in their mouth but small enough not to leave big gaps for the cham to get it's snout in. Some of your crickets may hide under the rock. My chams like the game of waiting until they come out during misting. Then they snap them up. All my plants are covered with these rocks. You can find them in the chain hardware stores like Home Depot. You can find them in the plant/pot section. People also put them in fountains to make the water ripple.

can you tell me which size and what brand is good to buy. I will be going to home depot then.
My veiled cham is 4 months old.

 

[dodolah]

i went to home depot and walmart..
and could not find the rock.. guess what they say..
they all said:
"We used to carry them but rock is not in the season today."
"you can get them in the summer"
I did not know that rock is seasonal...

so, i went to a fish petstore and buy the aquatic garden polished tiger rock.
They are about 2 inches or larger in diameter.
good enough?
I was panicking so i just went ahead and buy a bunch of them.
Sure enough as soon as i get home, there he is looking angry while munching another wood barks..it seem stuck on the side of his mouth.. so I pick him up and take it out again/ he's asleep right now. so I won't bother putting the stone tonight. i'll wake up early tomorrow and start covering the pot.

 

[Kent67]

Hi, I was just discussing this very thing with another very experienced keeper here a couple days ago. Hopefully she will chime in as well. Although your cham could have been chewing on the results of a missed strike at a bug, it is possible he was intentionally trying to eat dirt or leaf litter. If that's what it was, it is our speculation that this is their instinctual behaviour to ingest some material that may contain something that is missing in their diet. Could you describe what his normal diet is, just in case?

 

[dodolah]

Hi, I was just discussing this very thing with another very experienced keeper here a couple days ago. Hopefully she will chime in as well. Although your cham could have been chewing on the results of a missed strike at a bug, it is possible he was intentionally trying to eat dirt or leaf litter. If that's what it was, it is our speculation that this is their instinctual behaviour to ingest some material that may contain something that is missing in their diet. Could you describe what his normal diet is, just in case?

hmm ok..
i gave him about 20 small crix perday.
i dust him per kammer's caresheet.
Herptivite MTH, Repcal with D3 TF, Miner-all O WSat. sun no dusting.

I alternate his feeder once every 3 days to avoid hunger strike reaction.
I currently have 3 type of feeders:
Crix, Silkies, and house flies.
When I gave him silkies and house flies, I don't dust the feeder.
I gave roughly about 30 house flies per feeding due to its size.
Silkies usually about 6 medium size as my cham tends to ignore the rest if I happen to put more than 6.

I don't give my chameleon any veggies and fruits.

here is the gutload i'm using for crickets:
for water i used fluker orange cube
for food i used some cricket food that i bought from amazon reptile shop (once it's gone, i'll start buying the cricketfood.com product).

For silkies: i use mulberry farms' ready made chow
For House Flies: I used Kammer's gutload recipee:
1 boiled egg+baby cereal+Honey+Plain Yogurt blended into
mush consistency.

That's about it.
Please tell me what should I do..
I am very worried as I start having a feeling that he might try to shoot the wood barks on purpose.. as if he develop an affinity toward eating it..
I am very concerned with impaction problem..
I'm pretty sure he has eaten some of the barks...
So, i am on high alert for any signs of him stop pooping.
This morning was the huge alert for me..
He did not poop for 2 days..
I increased the misting to 5 times a day. 7 minutes/misting (thank God i bought a misting system with a digital timer).
and i introduced him to shower method (he's roughly about 4.5 months or less)..
I know it's a bit to early.. but i am desperate..

He seemed to enjoy the warm mist and he pass a huge poop.
and I use a paper towel and start squeezing the poop.. I found some hard
small chip in the poop..
And after the shower, he's been very active and here's where he get naughty
again and start shooting at the dirt.. he almost swallow 2 large wood barks (I manage to get it away from his mouth)..

so, there something that has to be done.
I do NOT want him to get an impaction.

I'm ready with all the tools needed to cover the pot soil.
I have the rocks.
I also have a small plastic screen mesh that i am going to cut and cover the pot and then put the rock ontop.

O also i notice 1 thing:
It might be a coincidence.. but i notice that this dirt eating behavior is almost always start during the misting or soon after the misting while the dirt is wet.

So any help and advice is appreciated.
I am very confused...

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Yeah, I'm all for letting them eat dirt as well.
Just sift the soil so no larger pieces of bark, etc. are present.
My veiled will go down and physically move rocks out of the way to reach the dirt. I don't give him this challenge anymore....just let him have at it.
Incidentally I MIX 1/2 TOPSOIL AND 1/2 PEAT ....no fertilizer, pesticide or perlite.

-Brad

by the way....why is there bark in your enclosure???

 

[Vibrant Chameleons]

Yeah, I'm all for letting them eat dirt as well.
Just sift the soil so no larger pieces of bark, etc. are present.
My veiled will go down and physically move rocks out of the way to reach the dirt. I don't give him this challenge anymore....just let him have at it.
Incidentally I MIX 1/2 TOPSOIL AND 1/2 PEAT ....no fertilizer, pesticide or perlite.

-Brad

by the way....why is there bark in your enclosure???

I totally agree. I let my chams have the opportunity to do what they may do in the wild, eat dirt and leaves. I also make sure the soil is pestiside free and no peralite or vermiculite mixed in it. to be totally safe, you can layer the very top of the pot with 2 inches of sifted topsoil only. That's just my method. Others work as well.

 

[Dyesub Dave]

I saw another post on here where they used some kind of plastic canvas for their pots. I've attached the post below. I'm sure that you could also use some sort of screening or plastic grid cut to fit your pots!!

Dyesub Dave.

I'm using plastic canvas that someone recommended in a previous post. It allows water into the soil while keeping out the feeders from the soil and prevents Cham from having impact with river rocks in case of a miss . You can buy it at craft stores and are really cheap.

 

[dodolah]

Yeah, I'm all for letting them eat dirt as well.
Just sift the soil so no larger pieces of bark, etc. are present.
My veiled will go down and physically move rocks out of the way to reach the dirt. I don't give him this challenge anymore....just let him have at it.
Incidentally I MIX 1/2 TOPSOIL AND 1/2 PEAT ....no fertilizer, pesticide or perlite.

-Brad

by the way....why is there bark in your enclosure???

it come with the soil.
I ask kammers what kind of soil they use when they repot the plants.
they use "supersoil" brand potting soil. (it uses organic fertilizer -hence the wood bark, i guess- and it's pesticides free).

 

[Brad Ramsey]

So sift out the big pieces and be done.
You don't need to cover the soil.

-Brad

 

[dodolah]

So sift out the big pieces and be done.
You don't need to cover the soil.

-Brad

well, for now, i need an instant fix.
So, i use a plastic canvas and topped with large polished river rocks (no way he can even accidentally eat one of the rocks) to cover the soil for a while.
I will sift out the big pieces during the next major cage cleaning which is coming this weekend or so.

I am leaning toward letting him eat dirt too as long as i do not need to worry that he will get an impaction or parasites from it.

 

[Dyesub Dave]

Well some of my plants I've repotted and some I haven't. The one's I've repotted I don't worry about and let them eat the dirt if they want to. My first ficus tree I just cut up a plastic coated paper plate that fit perfectly in the pot. I don't think that you would need the plastic canvas AND the rocks ... one or the other should suffice. Your other option is to repot the plants using appropriate soil.

GOOD LUCK!

Dyesub Dave.

 

[dodolah]

thanks guys.. o Ken lemme know if you figure out there is something i do wrong with the food.
Maybe i can improve the quality of the gutload or the supplement to make my cham no longer feel the need to eat dirt.

 

[SierraNevada]

Dodolah...you can get nice river rocks at Michael's craft stores, if you can't find them at a nursery or some other place.