Help with my mellers

Can you post a pix on color usually light green is relaxed colors such as the one I posted 1040673_519316054790602_1722114073_o.jpg
 
Those colors are extremely stressed ..how hot is his basking area, Melleri get stressed at temp at 83 and over , are u giving him a lot of water, they need more water than the typical veiled or panther ..check out The Melleri Discovery ,there's a lot of good info and fill out the how to ask for help sticky so everyone can help u better
 
Yea, he doesn't look super happy. They do ok with a warmer basking spot as long as the ambient temperature is much cooler, so they have control of their thermoregulation but he looks stressed.

Would it be possible to fill in these answers? Meller's are one of my top favorite species and I'd love to help make sure yours does great. More importantly are the questions about lighting, water, and caging.

Your Chameleon - How long has it been in your care?
Handling - How often do you handle your chameleon?
Feeding - What are you feeding your cham? What amount? What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders?
Supplements - What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule?
Watering - What kind of watering technique do you use? How often and how long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking?
Fecal Description - Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites?
History - Any previous information about your cham that might be useful to others when trying to help you.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions?
Lighting - What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule?
Temperature - What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps?
Humidity - What are your humidity levels? How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity?
Plants - Are you using live plants? If so, what kind?
Placement - Where is your cage located? Is it near any fans, air vents, or high traffic areas? At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
Location - Where are you geographically located?
 
Please fill out Olimpia's form, it appears your Mellers is in trouble.

Where are you located?

Nick
 
Hi Every body!!! thank you!! for your help!!!

Your Chameleon - How long has it been in your care? 7 months

Handling - How often do you handle your chameleon? 2 times a week

Feeding - What are you feeding your cham? What amount? What is the meal
worms, crickets

schedule? morning 5 meal worms 7 crickets left in cage

night around 6:00pm 5 crickets sometime 2-4 mealworms

How are you gut-loading your feeders? buy at local store

Supplements - What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule?dust only morning REPTI CALCIUM and once a week HERPTIVE REP CAL

Watering - What kind of watering technique do you use? How often and how long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking? morning warm water in sprayer drinks like a fish, 6:00 same as above


Fecal Description - Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites? not tested for parasites, eats like a pig, brown color nice medium solid


History - Any previous information about your cham that might be useful to others when trying to help you. no info, given to me and did all the research
on the net to take care of him are her


I just took him or her to the vet on sat good bill of health!


Cage Info: screen cage 24" x 24" x 48"

Cage Type - Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions? screen
Lighting - What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule? zoomed 5.o fluoresent basking 75watt

Temperature - What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? floor 70 degrees top 78 degree

Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps? 70 degree

Humidity - What are your humidity levels? 60 to 70

How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity? mister every 3 hours 15 sec

Plants - Are you using live plants? If so, what kind? NO LIVE

Placement - Where is your cage located? converted bedroom

Is it near any fans, air vents, or high traffic areas? At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor? I have a fan in the room low


Location - Where are you geographically located? los angeles

Dale
__________________
 
With our guy he requires a lot of space & a lot of water. We have had him 2 years he is a picky eater so gut load is everything but we are very careful not to over supplement him . He spends the morning outside while I gauge temp cause I am in LA also any change can stressthem his comfort temp is 73 with basking about 82 night drops to 65 .he has been very happy and healthy but yellow coloration stress so has there been changes
 
He looks a bit better than earlier but still stressed..alright u should watch the mealworms do not use them as a staple , crickets are ok but u should give him some variety ,i use dubia roaches , butterworms ,mantis and hornworms, which are great for hydration ..u but ur crickets from pet store , u need to supply ur crickets with fresh fruits and veggies before feeding them to him(as well as other bugs u may feed him) I cannot stress how very important this is ..my Melleri were sensitive to supplements so gutloading is essential in providing them with what they need to thrive ...use stuff like oranges , butternut squash, carrots, turnip greens, romaine lettuce , mango, etc..As far as supplementing goes i gave mine plain calcium once a week and rephashy calcium plus about 4 times a month and this worked for me , but I always gutload very well ...u mentioned the brown fecal matter , but what about the urate? There will be another piece that should be white , if it has an off white or yellow tinge to it then he's dehydrated so up ur mistings ..u should get some live plants for him and provide cover so he can hide if he wants , I'm not sure what ur setup is like , but maybe he's feeling too exposed ..u absolutely need to get a bigger enclosure for him ,or even free range him ....what are u measuring ur temps with?i noticed u have a 75 watt bulb for basking and that seems like it would make it hotter than 78 ,I used a 40 watt on mine ...good luck I hope he turns around for u
 
Thank you for all your support
Will take all the advice and put it to work
This weekend..

Will check back in a few days to let you guys know
The status!

Thank again to all of you!!
Dale
 
Lazer image inc said:
Hi Every body!!! thank you!! for your help!!!

Your Chameleon - How long has it been in your care? 7 months

Feeding - What are you feeding your cham? What amount? meal worms, crickets. Schedule? morning 5 meal worms 7 crickets left in cage. night around 6:00pm 5 crickets sometime 2-4 mealworms

How are you gut-loading your feeders? buy at local store

Supplements - What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule?dust only morning REPTI CALCIUM and once a week HERPTIVE REP CAL

Watering - What kind of watering technique do you use? How often and how long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking? morning warm water in sprayer drinks like a fish, 6:00 same as above

Fecal Description - Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites? not tested for parasites, eats like a pig, brown color nice medium solid

I just took him or her to the vet on sat good bill of health!
Click to expand...

Like someone else mentioned gutloading your feeders is important. Try to buy them the day before you need them, for example, and let them feast on good, fresh fruits and veggies. The "Resources" tab on the top of the page has a section on feeding that covers high-quality and easily accessible ingredients to use.

He might appreciate a little more food variety - try getting a cup of silk/hornworms or a few tasty roaches, mine loves them and diet variety helps overall health.

Meller's love big chunks of watering, so instead of a couple sprits during the day I would set the misters to do a few 10 minute chunks several times throughout the day. At least twice, with smaller sessions in between. They're very much the kind of chameleons who don't start drinking the first minute that a mister is on, but will then sit there for a good 10-20 minutes drinking.

I would take his next poop back to your vet to have checked, just in case. It's really never a bad idea and if he has any parasites or whatnot it's better to take care of that.

Lazer image inc said:
Cage Info: screen cage 24" x 24" x 48"

Cage Type - Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions? screen
Lighting - What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule? zoomed 5.o fluoresent basking 75watt

Temperature - What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? floor 70 degrees top 78 degree

Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps? 70 degree

Humidity - What are your humidity levels? 60 to 70

How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity? mister every 3 hours 15 sec

Plants - Are you using live plants? If so, what kind? NO LIVE
Click to expand...

Like someone else also said, that's way too small for this guy. One good, affordable trick to making a much bigger cage but having a sort of free-range thing as well is to buy one of those metal shelving units that they sell at Home Depot/Target/Walmart etc. The largest one measures about 4' wide by 6-7' tall (and only about 14" deep, but bear with me here). So what you can do is buy one of those (they run about $80), take some chicken fencing and line the back 3 sides with it, securing it with something like zip ties. You want to have one shelf near the bottom as the floor and another right at the top, to hold your lights and mister. The front will be wide open.

Then you just get plants (and I really recommend live ones, something like pothos are cheap, widely available, and you can hang it from the top bars) and thick branches and make a cage/free-range hybrid. The idea is to have your lights and water more contained (with drainage and such) but have the option of bringing in fake ficus trees if you wanted to (like the 6' ones) and place them in front and then your free-range is really as large as you want it to be. But everything is more or less contained.

But I think giving him much more space is really going to improve his health and mood.

And then it's not as important having a cooler basking spot because he can move around as he chooses. And you'll see that some days he will want to bask at 80-something. But when they're in a small cage trapped under a hot light their mood and health just goes down the drain.

Hope that helps!
 
Hi, with a little work and change your big kid will be happier.

This is a good place for a understanding the care needs of chameleons in general. https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/chameleons/

Here is a site with melleri information http://melleridiscovery.com/

Some things i noticed right off the bat and i know i wont be able to go over everything.
1. More vines and live plants in the cage.
2. Replace the red light with a house bulb and provide proper temps. Monitor them with a digital therm with a probe.
3. Your misting schedule will need to go for longer duration. With this you will need to implement a drainage system. You make one for really cheap or you can go all out with a extravagant system. Id personally recommend 3 times a day: one in the morning for 30 minutes and then two more throughout the day for 10 minutes each. Melleri drink more than the usual chameleon and they also take much longer to get drinking than most.
4. I dont know the exact supplement you mentioned if it had D3 or not in it. Id recommend supplementing plain phos free calcium (without D3) at every feeding and using a multivitamin once a month.
5. Gut loading needs to consist of you bringing the crickets home from the store and feeding them atleast 4 hours before feeding them off to your animal. Things like bee pollen, spirulina, boabab tree fruit powder, alph alpha, dandelions, fresh fruits and vegetables are a good start. Id suggest reading this blog for a better gist of things. https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/823-august-2013-dry-gutload-mix.html
* In her blog she has more recipes.

Note: Its time to change your uvb bulb :)

Those were the main things that jumped out at me. Be sure to read those links. Follow them and you will see a change with your animal.
 
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