Husbandry review

Ollie&Chami

New Member
  • Your Chameleon - 9 month old female veiled chameleon named Chami and she’s been in my care since June of 2025
  • Handling - I don’t handle her, she lets me touch her now and then either physically pet her or touch her nose through the screen cage. Something I learned recently is I have to build trust with specific actions. So I will do that.
  • Feeding - I am feeding 4 large crickets now every other day and Saturday treats: 1 hornworm or 2 super worms
  • Supplements - I use cricket gutload powder from petsmart. I supplement with zoo med calcium powder without d3 everyday, and zoo med reptivite vitamin with d3 every Monday
  • Watering - I had a mist king mister for awhile then I broke the controller :(. So now I mist about 4-5 minutes a day once before lights come on, and after I get home from work. I do a light 2 minutes misting before I go to work, I also use a reptisafe water conditioner. I see Chami drinking almost everyday, she will often drink as I spray her enclosure or gather from leaves after she ran away from the mister as soon as it barely touches her… haha
  • Fecal Description - her poop and pupate look good, white with some orange or yellow. Pupate used to be all white with the mist king, but I heard that was not good for it to be all white, so I lowered my watering a tad bit, just a tad bit… she drops I wanna say once a day, once every other day, to once every 3 days. I’ve never actively seen her poop since my husbandry, but i do see poop. I have not tested for parasite or have taken to the vet. I know… im sorry… i feel bad about it too… I will be taking him to the vet consistently since I’m stable now…
  • History - she is chill, has a bold personality, sometimes does not like being handled (might have to do with trust). Gives you the side eye only a woman can give😭
Cage Info:

  • Cage Type -
  • Cage is currently too small and I hate it… imma upgrade her to a 2x2x4 hybrid bioactive setup. Got her when I just started getting my life back together and wasn’t as researched, so I bought what I could. It’s the reptibreeze chameleon screen enclose, the small one with the bright red panther chameleon on the cover (not even the xl 2x2x4) as they only had that smaller one :(

    Dimensions are 16 :( x 16 :( x 30 :(:(:( january 2025 to April 28 2026)


    New enclosure dimensions for 2 years will be 2 x 2 x4 & bioactive :) (1-3 years old) when I got him


    Then will upgrade him to a 4 x 2 x 4 when she is (3-5 years old)
  • Lighting -
  • I use a heat lamp, with a 75w heat bulb, I use a reptisun uvb light bar with t5 bulb, I use Arcadia jungle dawn light for my plants, Light schedule was 7-7. They are Currently at 9-9, but have been slowly changing it to 2pm to 2am.
  • Temperature -
  • Temp is usually around the 82 (now) basking, 75 ambient and a nightly 63-65, I measure using a Hygrometer and thermometer.
  • Humidity - Humidity has been harder to keep for me but it’s stays around a 35%-45% with the screen cage and at night is a little higher at 55%-65%. Misting, humidity soil, reptibreeze fogger (getting a different one)
  • Plants - I am using live plants, pothos and philodendron plant and pothos plant. Might add hibiscus to both their enclosures
  • Placement - same as Ollie
  • Enclosure is Located on a 4 x 2 x 4 stand cabinet, No fans, a window that stays closed, and it’s a light-medium traffic area(my bedroom) Height is probably around 5 feet 5-7 inches off the ground from top of enclosure to bottom of cabinet
  • Location - I am located in Sparks, Nv
Cleaning enclosures today and tomorrow, so I’ll upload photos of them soon.
 
Chami!

Gives you the side eye only a woman can give😭

😍🤣 The females are known to be much sassier than the males.

It sounds much like Ollie's set up; so I'd recommend much of the same I did for him in your previous post. Except there are some slight changes you'll need to make, because it's female.

But, first I want to show you some ways to make a divider between the cages. Chameleons are solitary pets and get super stressed if they see each other.

You can put a garbage bag on the outside held with magnets, or hang a peice of plastic on the side.

You can also add fake plants to the outside, or make a screen that your cat can't reach.

Like this: garbage bag trick with magnets.
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Garbage bag and fake plants:
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Home made privacy screen with curtains:
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If you're looking for a cheap and easy fix, I'd recommend putting them side by side and using the the garage bag trick until you're able to come up with a permanent solution. It will help keep your humidity up too. It's especially important to give the female privacy when she's ready to lay eggs, or they can become egg bound if they don't feel safe. This is why my girl's cage has the bottom 1/2 blacked out.

I've previously given you the link to her blog on egg laying; but I'm going to tag @MissSkittles because she's super knowledgeable of keeping multiple chameleons, female needs, and bioactive set ups. There is a way to make your reptibreeze bioactive, but I've never tried it.

To help keep the humidity there are also cheap tricks to make the reptibreeze a hybrid (I've used window film on mine).


The xl reptibreeze often goes on sale at petsmart, I'd recommend getting one and turning it into a hybrid/bioactive as an affordable solution to buying the hybrid cages. This way they can move into a bigger home sooner.

If you're able to make the cage bioactive, there's no need for a lay bin, and it will save space in her cage.

  • Temp is usually around the 82 (now) basking, 75 ambient and a nightly 63-65, I measure using a Hygrometer and thermometer.

In addition to feeding a female less, to help further prevent egg production, it's recommend to keep their basking area slightly cooler than the males. I keep mine around 77f in the basking area, and 62 ambient.

I'd use caution if you're swapping plants from one cage to another. It's best if each cham has their own feeding dishes and plants. This helps prevent spreading worms, or any other thing that can cause the other cham to get sick.

Looking forward to seeing photos, reach out if you have more questions!

This is my female. 🙂
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Hi and welcome! 🙂 Gonna start out with admitting my brain is too tired to read both of your husbandry posts atm. It’s been a long weekend/week. 😵‍💫 You’ve been given some excellent advice already. I’d like to see some more pics of your chameleons and their enclosures. You most definitely need to block Ollie and Chami’s views of each other other asap. They get stressed by seeing other chameleons and even other species of animals. My male veiled gets totally obsessed if he can see one of my bearded dragons and will do nothing but glare at it non stop. It’s made for some interesting and creative draping of bed sheets in their room. 😂
I too work night shift, but I keep my critters on their natural day shift rhythm. While we can alter their wake/sleep patterns with lighting, I don’t believe we can trick their circadian rhythm and I don’t know how it might affect their health and well being. It’s one of those systems that’s built in to the living body of all creatures.
Most definitely upgrade to larger enclosures as soon as you can. I’m fortunate to be able to have each of mine in double wides and love seeing them have and use more space. I wish I could give even more. All of my chams have bioactive set ups in full screened enclosures. I use layers of plastic tarp beneath as extra insurance against excess water escaping. Then inside I have the ReptiBreeze substrate tray, sitting on that is a felt type root pouch like this. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Root-Po...th-Handles-Planter-1-Pack-BB900-65H/306677198 Standard bioactive set ups inside with a good drainage layer - clay balls in some and lava rock in others. It’s been rare that there have been any excess water leaks and those were caused by a hole in the misting tubing (no idea how that happened) or my overwatering the plants. This is what I used to guide me when I started bioactive. https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/intro-to-bio-activity.2429/
To hang branches, vines and plants, there are Dragon Ledges https://dragonstrand.com/dragon-ledges/ which are fantastic. I’ve used garden trellis in a couple and it’s worked out better than I expected. I’ll add pics below. Keep in mind they are from when I had just set up and everything was at its prettiest. Some plants just haven’t done well for me, and they are usually the ones that add pops of color. 😕 Also, keep in mind that veiled girls are very likely to eat their plants and can strip them of all leaves. I’m always taking clippings from pothos (and others) and starting new plants for my little green destroyer of plants. Hibiscus is nice, but it can be challenging to fully clean it of all pests. No matter how thorough I’ve been, somehow they always bring in ants or other bugs I don’t want and then have the challenge of getting rid of. I would instead suggest schefflera. Add lots of branches of varied diameters to exercise little mitten feet muscles fully. I have everything from just thick enough to bear cham weight to almost as thick as my wrist.
Ok, I think I’ve babbled enough for now. Keep asking questions and learning. It’s a process and journey. 😊
**Almost forgetting - My females used lay bins before I set up bioactive. When it came time to lay some eggs, she rejected the bioactive floor and everything else. After a week of anxiety and trying a couple of things, I finally had to put her old lay bin inside and she went right to it and laid her eggs. It looks/seems kind of stupid, but I’ve had to keep her big plastic lay bin inside of her bioactive enclosure. 🤷‍♀️

Freshly set up using garden trellis. So many of the prettier plants didn’t survive.
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Different enclosure. Pothos took over and that was fine.
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Fresh set up using Dragon Ledges. Not bioactive.
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