I need some answers!!!

[leopardboy193]

Okay, I am new to chameleons and I will be getting one very soon. I built a cage for it and bought a ficus tree. I have the ficus tree in the cage and I had some questions. How does the chameleon get up to the tree? I have a foot tall pot its in and I didnt know if i had to get a branch or vine. Also the ficus is kinda bushy But a lot of branches and I was wondering if they can just climb through it? Do they go to the bottom of the cage to get crickets or do i need to make a dish that is up in the top of the cage that i can put crickets in? I may have questions down the road. Thanks for the help!!!

 

[Breeze]

Like all the members said to me, do research, do you have all the required stuff and the right temperature for whatev cham you are getting? I myself dont have one yet either but for feeding, I'm going to do handfeeding and hand some sort of cup near a plant and he/she can eat from there. Chams usually dont go on the bottom of the cage, but they can climb on the side of the enclosure but you need lots of foliage for the cham to be happy and hide. Im pretty sure hopefully
edit: I forgot, What kind of Cham are you getting?

 

[Fearaffect]

Ficus is fine, they will get up there on their own....whether its climbing screen or reaching and will navigate it just fine.......crickets will go where they wanna go....and the Cham will hunt them down.........mine can barely contain themselves when they see I have crickets.

 

[thealissa]

Don't worry about the cham or the crickets being able to get anywhere. Both will climb the sides of a screened cage. I just dump my crickets at the bottom of the cage and let my cham handle it from there.

 

[leopardboy193]

I am getting a veiled.

Like all the members said to me, do research, do you have all the required stuff and the right temperature for whatev cham you are getting? I myself dont have one yet either but for feeding, I'm going to do handfeeding and hand some sort of cup near a plant and he/she can eat from there. Chams usually dont go on the bottom of the cage, but they can climb on the side of the enclosure but you need lots of foliage for the cham to be happy and hide. Im pretty sure hopefully
edit: I forgot, What kind of Cham are you getting?

 

[thealissa]

Will you be getting a male or female?

 

[xanthoman]

you will need some sort of climbing arraingement other than the plant(s), or your cham will just climb it to death, you could use a fake vine , and it would work perfectly fine, but i prefer to use a natural climbing branch like madrona ,or mansanita, to name a few , you can just stick it in the dirt & twist tie here & there, as far as getting to the pot, you can just break a few branch sections and lay them against the pot, usualy with one end stuffed in the base of the plant so it doesnt just slide off of the pot , as far as feeder cups go, i would highly recomend using them from early on , some chams have a problem adapting to them once they have gotten used to cage floor feeding , a feeding cup offers several advantages , when placed properly you are less likely to get you feeders crapped on, and you dont want him eating right next to, or possibly off of, his pooh, its easier to keep track of how much they ate, feeders are less likely to escape the cage, and easier to clean, you dont want to use clear cups, but you can use white or opaque deli cups that many feeders come in , also yogurt cups or small disposable kitchen ware, although i will say this , with all due respect , of all of the issues of cham keeping , vines & deli cups are the least important of the things to know, (compared to lighting, supplementation,gutloading,parasites, hydration, and other general husbandry practices). it is in your best interest to learn all you can , not only about the species you are interested in , but in chams in general, my advice before you get too far into things, would be to take a little extra time to view as many of other peoples setups as you can , and not just the good ones, but the bad ones too, that way you not only learn what works, but what doesnt, you often learn more from the help pages, and other peoples problems, /responses they get, than you do from just asking a couple of specific questions in the general discussion pages, good luck and welcome to the cham community , if you run into problems we are here to help , but you still need to research all you can on your own, / the branch pictured is about 3' tall, it is madrona, silkie smooth, with lots of little 1/8" branches at just the right angles, you can find em wherever you find madrona trees, ps generally speaking ,the bottom of the cage is not a good place to be , if not feeding, it usually indicates the onset of a problem , so i try to discourage hanging out on the bottom of the cage (or learning to) whenever possible. but all of this is just a matter of personal opinion , and you will have to form your own. and oh! i guaranty you will have other questions !

 

[Carlton]

Some Ficus trees you get are trained to be really bushy. To open the bush up a bit you can prune some of the little twigs on the inside of the bush away so there is a bit more room for the cham to climb through it. Ficus has a milky sticky sap from cut branches or leaves. Take the plant outside, do whatever pruning or shaping you want (the twigs and leaves in the inside of the bush won't get much light in a cage setup and may die back anyway), let the sap finish oozing, then hose the plant off. Let it dry and put it back in the cage before you get the cham in there. You can create lots of climbing paths for a cham with either dry naturally barked branches from your yard (scrub them with a water/bleach solution, rinse well, and dry thoroughly). The more paths you offer the less the cham may climb on the cage mesh...and possibly pull out a claw.