Humidity and Temps for a veiled?

[stevenelvin]

Hey everyone. Today I bought a roughly 5-6 month old veiled chameleon. Just need to know what the humdity and temps should be at.

Right now I'm keeping his humidity around 50% and the temps are 84 at the basking spot and mid 70s around the cage.

 

[carol5208]

The basking temp could be a couple of degrees lower like 80-82. Other than that you are good to go!

 

[stevenelvin]

kool, thanks

 

[kinyonga]

IMHO, the basking temperature is fine for that age.
If you make sure that the chameleon is misted and drinks it will make the humidity less crucial.

 

[Ace]

if you can handle a K. mulit, then you will be ok......veileds are easier.....as long as you water regualry. and have the temps like you do now....he will be fine....congratz...any pics?

 

[stevenelvin]

Thanks and I'm gonna make a thread tommorow with pics after I get batteries for my camera.

 

[summoner12]

IMHO, the basking temperature is fine for that age.
If you make sure that the chameleon is misted and drinks it will make the humidity less crucial.

Agreed. At this age he'll be OK.

Automated misting and drippers are a good idea to keep chameleons hydrated correctly.

 

[kinyonga]

So glad you agreed wth me summoner12! (wink)

 

[summoner12]

So glad you agreed wth me summoner12! (wink)

It's pretty hard not to!

 

[kinyonga]

If you say so.

 

[Chris Jury]

Basking temps of 84 F, to me, seem like the lower end of a good target to me. For exmaple, see the pdf below that shows some body temperature data for a few chameleon species that have similar habits to Veiled. Most of them, given the opportunity, are maintaining a mean body temperature in the mid to upper 80's F (low 30's C), but occasionally are maintaining body temps in the 90's and even up around 100 F.

Access to lower temperatures and the ability to thermoregulate is absolutely critical. If any species can't get away from the heat easily and cool down, they're in trouble, but I can't help feel that by providing basking area temps onlyy in the low 80's F, it could make it more difficult for the animals to maintain preferred temps. When they bask they can easily reach body temps higher than the ambient air temp in their basking area, but still, 80 F as a max air temp seems awfully low relative to where these animals come from.

When I used to have and breed Veiled chams, a number of years ago, I'd usually shoot for basking area temps in the low 80's for babies (though if when they basked, I'm sure their could get their body temps higher than that) and maybe 90 F for adults a temp of ~70-75 F in the cooler parts of the enclosure. That worked well for me. A key always is a temperature gradient. The chams need to be able to get warm when they want to, and cool down when we want to, and they only way they can do that easily is providing a slightly wider range than they'll generally want for their mean body temp.

Anyway, you can see a bit of data here: http://www.naturalsciences.be/institute/associations/rbzs_website/pdf/abstracts_130_s1/130_s1_14.pdf

Chris

 

[Chris Jury]

Wow my grammar is terrible above. Sorry about that--jet-lagged.

cj