Introducing JJ

[RGWilby]

When I found this forum page, I was looking for answers more than support.
JJ is my first experience with a reptile but my goodness I truly feel like a papa bear as much as I stay worried about his health. For this reason and understanding, I need to look past my self-centerness and not be oblivious that this kind of help is the best for him.
So I was hoping to get some opinions on
1.) His enclosure and some possible ideas about the problems I need to address.
2.) His diet and any suggestions as to what I might need to introduce to him.
And 3.) Overall advice on what I might be lacking or what might be too much with his lifestyle and environment. Maybe some of those things can be knocked out altogether and it's something simple I'm not thinking of. That tends to happen more than I'd like to admit.
I'll post some pictures of his enclosure and him and I'd love some feedback, Cham Fam.

 

[RGWilby]

 

[Kaizen]

When I found this forum page, I was looking for answers more than support.
JJ is my first experience with a reptile but my goodness I truly feel like a papa bear as much as I stay worried about his health. For this reason and understanding, I need to look past my self-centerness and not be oblivious that this kind of help is the best for him.
So I was hoping to get some opinions on
1.) His enclosure and some possible ideas about the problems I need to address.
2.) His diet and any suggestions as to what I might need to introduce to him.
And 3.) Overall advice on what I might be lacking or what might be too much with his lifestyle and environment. Maybe some of those things can be knocked out altogether and it's something simple I'm not thinking of. That tends to happen more than I'd like to admit.
I'll post some pictures of his enclosure and him and I'd love some feedback, Cham Fam. View attachment 257936

I’d love to share some of my experiences, but I’d like to know some more about your husbandry...could you please fill out the following form:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/

 

[RGWilby]

I’d love to share some of my experiences, but I’d like to know some more about your husbandry...could you please fill out the following form:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/

For sure!! Thanks for that.
He's a male veiled Cham and Petco really didn't know how old he was. My wife got me him as a Christmas present and they guessed about 2 months. Been in my care since then so about 6 weeks??
We try not to handle him too much. I've read that chams need a little more space than other reptiles do or pets for that matter. But I'd be dishonest if I said I hadn't handled him once a week.
Initially, I was keeping small crickets in a carrier that my wife bought as well. I would feed them apple slices and orange slices back & forth. As well as the fluker brand dry cricket food that's brown and granule like and give them the Fluker brand yellow water substitute. I've been trying to research on breeding crickets but just started and haven't had a tested yield yet. But they're now in larger totes with some busted spots in the top for air. I've been filling them with paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, egg carton that I receive with the crickets and try to place food away from the breeding area. They've had a mixed diet of apples, oranges, kale, and sweet potatoes. I was dusting the baby crickets from the beginning pretty regularly for the first 3 weeks with D3. I read that I shouldn't do that so stopped and do it about every other day or two now. 1 day wait 1 or 2, repeat. I've also fed him 1 or 2 wax worms on occasion but haven't really made them part of his diet so much as a treat if he would eat them. He also really enjoys mealworms and I keep a couple slices of apple in their enclosure. I work about 10 hours a day mon-fri but get home at noon on Sat. I usually just put about 10-12 crickets in his cage and it's very large so some usually get out of his feeding dish via a vine I've led into the bowl but it does a good job of keeping the worms in. I only put worms in if I know I'm gonna substitute them for crickets. So instead of 12 crickets, I will put about 5-6 crickets with about 3-4 mealworms. The dish is porcelain but I feel pretty certain there's little chance of it falling and breaking unless he gets older/heavier and climbs on it maybe? But he stays away from climbing on it for the most part because it's slick.
I've recently bought a MistKing but it hasn't arrived yet. Instead I had been spraying his enclosure down manually with a spray bottle. All filtered water. And I bought a 2 litre plastic jug of water and rigged a dripper with an airline hose from an aquarium with a rubber band wrapped around the hose doubled up. It worked until the hose would pinch up but it took some constant puddle clean up with constant readjustments to the hose and rubber band. I always take his feeding dish out when I mist his cage because I feel like it's a little unsanitary and it's wiped daily. Sometimes twice. There were a couple times where I really got his dripper going and he practically ran to it to get a drink from some water running off leaves. So I've been a little skeptical that he may not be getting enough water with the system that I've got set up right now.
Fecal color stays pretty dark brown to almost black. There's been a couple times where it's been a little more mushy looking and light brown. As far as I know he hasn't been tested. PetCo didn't tell us whether he did or didn't.
He's in a 24 x 24 x 48 mesh aluminum cage and it's sitting off the ground. He was basking pretty low and in some shade today this afternoon. That's not a norm. But I didn't think it was something to be too concerned with just to keep an eye on.
He's got a zoo med naturalistic terrarium hood with a 60W UVA and UVB. It sits on the top of the screen and is set on a 12 hr timer from about 6:30 AM to PM.
Temp range never really gets above 75. Usually hangs around 71F. The temp gauge at the bottom has gotten down to 61 before but we moved him into a warmer room since then because it was so hard to keep his temp regulated. He is now in the corner of the house in our bedroom and it stays pretty warm. Every now and then we hang my clothes to dry in the room to bump his humidity level up but that stays at around 43%. Hygrometer is zoo med brand.
There's 3 Golden Pothos on the column at the bottom. He rarely crawls by them. There's an air vent pretty close to his cage that's blowing heat for now since it's winter but we pull the curtains back and give him a little sun if he wants it sometimes. It doesn't hit all of his cage though so it's kinda his choice but he loves the natural sunlight. Not sure if it's normal or not but he climbs all over the cage. Even on the cage away from vines sometimes. And I live in NorthEast Arkansas so it's been pretty humid here lately with all the rain but it's also been cool so if it's not too cool outside I'll prop a window and let the humidity in a bit.

 

[RGWilby]

He loves climbing faces and hair but I don't like to just let him do it all the time because I'm not sure if any oils from hair are damaging to him..? But my friend also owned a ball python at one time who was super friendly even with strangers and we introduced him to several different people at a young age so I thought maybe there's a similar concept just less handling..?
But these are pictures from today. I felt bad about the flash after I took it first but it gave me a clear shot of his side.
The rest is his enclosure. I'm open to any constructive criticism.

 

[Kaizen]

Thanks for this! I’ll comment in red below.

He's a male veiled Cham and Petco really didn't know how old he was. My wife got me him as a Christmas present and they guessed about 2 months. Been in my care since then so about 6 weeks??
We try not to handle him too much. I've read that chams need a little more space than other reptiles do or pets for that matter. But I'd be dishonest if I said I hadn't handled him once a week. Handling a nice a week is probably fine. Just make sure you know when he’s had enough.
Initially, I was keeping small crickets in a carrier that my wife bought as well. I would feed them apple slices and orange slices back & forth. As well as the fluker brand dry cricket food that's brown and granule like and give them the Fluker brand yellow water substitute. I've been trying to research on breeding crickets but just started and haven't had a tested yield yet. But they're now in larger totes with some busted spots in the top for air. I've been filling them with paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, egg carton that I receive with the crickets and try to place food away from the breeding area. They've had a mixed diet of apples, oranges, kale, and sweet potatoes. You could add some more greens such as collard or mustard greens. I was dusting the baby crickets from the beginning pretty regularly for the first 3 weeks with D3. I read that I shouldn't do that so stopped and do it about every other day or two now. 1 day wait 1 or 2, repeat. There are two main dusting regimes that have proven track records for veileds. 1) Dust every feeding with plain calcium (with no d3 and no phosphorus); every two weeks, dust with calcium that has D3; every two weeks dust with a multivitamin (the latter two on opposite weeks.). 2) Use an all-in-one supplement such as “repashy calcium plus LoD” at every feeding. I've also fed him 1 or 2 wax worms on occasion but haven't really made them part of his diet so much as a treat if he would eat them. He also really enjoys mealworms and I keep a couple slices of apple in their enclosure. With feeders, most experts recommend as varied a diet as possible. That being said, meal worms are generally discouraged as feeders, so use crickets, silkworms, hornworms, black soldier fly larva, roaches, and superworms (the latter comprising max. 15% of diet). I work about 10 hours a day mon-fri but get home at noon on Sat. I usually just put about 10-12 crickets in his cage and it's very large so some usually get out of his feeding dish via a vine I've led into the bowl but it does a good job of keeping the worms in. I only put worms in if I know I'm gonna substitute them for crickets. So instead of 12 crickets, I will put about 5-6 crickets with about 3-4 mealworms. The dish is porcelain but I feel pretty certain there's little chance of it falling and breaking unless he gets older/heavier and climbs on it maybe? But he stays away from climbing on it for the most part because it's slick.
I've recently bought a MistKing but it hasn't arrived yet. Instead I had been spraying his enclosure down manually with a spray bottle. All filtered water. And I bought a 2 litre plastic jug of water and rigged a dripper with an airline hose from an aquarium with a rubber band wrapped around the hose doubled up. It worked until the hose would pinch up but it took some constant puddle clean up with constant readjustments to the hose and rubber band. I always take his feeding dish out when I mist his cage because I feel like it's a little unsanitary and it's wiped daily. Sometimes twice. There were a couple times where I really got his dripper going and he practically ran to it to get a drink from some water running off leaves. So I've been a little skeptical that he may not be getting enough water with the system that I've got set up right now. That is an astute observation; good job! Yes, if your Cham comes running for water, you’re probably safe to assume he’s thirsty. The mistking will definitely help with hydration, but you’ll still have to figure out a drainage system. Hydration is a hot topic right now, and we don’t have room to address all the finer points. Until you have exhausted yourself on the hydration debate, set your mistking to go off for a few minutes before lights on, maybe once in the last afternoon for like 30 seconds, then again for several minutes just after lights out. Keep your dripper going throughout the day.
Fecal color stays pretty dark brown to almost black. There's been a couple times where it's been a little more mushy looking and light brown. As far as I know he hasn't been tested. PetCo didn't tell us whether he did or didn't.
He's in a 24 x 24 x 48 mesh aluminum cage and it's sitting off the ground. He was basking pretty low and in some shade today this afternoon. That's not a norm. But I didn't think it was something to be too concerned with just to keep an eye on.
He's got a zoo med naturalistic terrarium hood with a 60W UVA and UVB. It sits on the top of the screen and is set on a 12 hr timer from about 6:30 AM to PM. I could use some more info here. This sounds like a mercury vapour bulb. What most people recommend is a T5, high output linear fluorescent bulb with a uvb output ranging from 5-12%. The two most recommended brands are: zoomed’s reptisun 5.0, or 10.0; or Arcadia 6% or 12%. Uvb exposure and how to achieve good levels is a very complicated discussion, but one of the most important facets of chameleon husbandry. Please consider getting one of the above mentioned lights.
Temp range never really gets above 75. Usually hangs around 71F. The temp gauge at the bottom has gotten down to 61 before but we moved him into a warmer room since then because it was so hard to keep his temp regulated. He is now in the corner of the house in our bedroom and it stays pretty warm. Every now and then we hang my clothes to dry in the room to bump his humidity level up but that stays at around 43%. Hygrometer is zoo med brand. The most recommended advice here is to have different zones in your set up. At the basking area, where heat and uvb are the strongest, the temp can hover anywhere between 82 and 90. As you move lower in the cage, the temp can drop to as low as 70 during the day, and the whole cage can drop down to the 60’s at night. Again, humidity is a big topic, but 43% during the day is fine, but there should be an increase at night...up to 99%. There are several ways to accomplish this, but using your mistking will be advantageous here. I’m going to have to start a new post, as we’re getting close to 10000 characters.
There's 3 Golden Pothos on the column at the bottom. He rarely crawls by them. There's an air vent pretty close to his cage that's blowing heat for now since it's winter but we pull the curtains back and give him a little sun if he wants it sometimes. It doesn't hit all of his cage though so it's kinda his choice but he loves the natural sunlight. Not sure if it's normal or not but he climbs all over the cage. Even on the cage away from vines sometimes. And I live in NorthEast Arkansas so it's been pretty humid here lately with all the rain but it's also been cool so if it's not too cool outside I'll prop a window and let the humidity in a bit.

 

[Kaizen]

There's 3 Golden Pothos on the column at the bottom. He rarely crawls by them. anything near the bottom of the cage will be ineffective. Generally, chameleon cages are set up so the top 6-9” are a network of horizontal branches at differing heights, allowing your Cham to choose his favorit basking area, and get exposed to uvb. The middle 2 feet should be densely planted with enough foliage to create not only a humidity pocket, but a place for your chameleon to retreat and hide in. The bottom foot can be let bare, and is where you will be cleaning up poop, and figuring out drainage. There's an air vent pretty close to his cage that's blowing heat for now since it's winter but we pull the curtains back and give him a little sun if he wants it sometimes. I’d think about redirecting the air vent. What you want is your chameleon to go towards the basking light to warm up, where he will be exposed to uvb in the process. Just note that sun through glass does not provide uvb. It doesn't hit all of his cage though so it's kinda his choice but he loves the natural sunlight. Not sure if it's normal or not but he climbs all over the cage. Even on the cage away from vines sometimes. This is often a sign that he doesn’t like his cage. Try the planting suggestions above. And I live in NorthEast Arkansas so it's been pretty humid here lately with all the rain but it's also been cool so if it's not too cool outside I'll prop a window and let the humidity in a bit. Good! Just be careful you don’t blast him with a huge temperature swing.

 

[RGWilby]

Wow! Thanks for the advice. I've got some serious reconstructing to do but do you have any tips on what to use to stabilize your branches with an aluminum cage? I've found that the wiring can be broken fairly easy. I've tried to keep from using anything that will pull tremendously due to weight in fear it would break apart from the cage. I had been using bead wire from the crafting section but I was just curious if anyone else has found anything more useful other than stripping the cloth from bread ties. Lol

 

[Kaizen]

Wow! Thanks for the advice. I've got some serious reconstructing to do but do you have any tips on what to use to stabilize your branches with an aluminum cage? I've found that the wiring can be broken fairly easy. I've tried to keep from using anything that will pull tremendously due to weight in fear it would break apart from the cage. I had been using bead wire from the crafting section but I was just curious if anyone else has found anything more useful other than stripping the cloth from bread ties. Lol

There is a product called “dragon ledges” from the Dragon Strand caging company, that works perfect. However, there are other diy options too. First, you can run thick branches vertically on each side of the cage that extend the full height of the cage. These can be strapped to the cage sides, as they won’t be adding any weight, because they’re touching the ground. The cage merely keeps them upright. Then, you can wire climbing branches to these. You could even use a pair of thicker vertical branches on each side so you can run branches in several directions. There is also a way of attaching branches to the aluminum frame, so that the frame takes the weight. I’ll try to post some pics

 

[RGWilby]

Last thing I meant to ask about, he's got some cracked spots on his sides and I wasn't sure if that's normal for chams or something I should have checked out. He's shed once so far since I've had him and grown quite a bit. I just would hate for it to be an unexpected surprise.

 

[Kaizen]

Last thing I meant to ask about, he's got some cracked spots on his sides and I wasn't sure if that's normal for chams or something I should have checked out. He's shed once so far since I've had him and grown quite a bit. I just would hate for it to be an unexpected surprise.

Post a pic

 

[RGWilby]

Post a pic

The best I've gotten is this one. Where his stripes stop there is white cracked like skin. Lack of hydration maybe?

 

[Kaizen]

View attachment 258016

The best I've gotten is this one. Where his stripes stop there is white cracked like skin. Lack of hydration maybe?

Normal.

 

[GoodKarma19]

any tips on what to use to stabilize your branches with an aluminum cage?

@Kaizen has you covered, but I thought I'd chime in! Dragon Strand ledges are fantastic, but if you love out of the states the shipping is really brutal. What I did for my ReptiBreeze enclosure was construct a lattice out of bamboo stakes and zipties. Very sturdy, and not just do they keep weight off the screen - they also provide vertical climbing branches!

Here's what I did for my little girl Lily:

 

[The Wild One]

@Kaizen has you covered, but I thought I'd chime in! Dragon Strand ledges are fantastic, but if you love out of the states the shipping is really brutal. What I did for my ReptiBreeze enclosure was construct a lattice out of bamboo stakes and zipties. Very sturdy, and not just do they keep weight off the screen - they also provide vertical climbing branches!

Here's what I did for my little girl Lily:

View attachment 258046

Every time I see it, it still amazes me!

 

[RGWilby]

@Kaizen has you covered, but I thought I'd chime in! Dragon Strand ledges are fantastic, but if you love out of the states the shipping is really brutal. What I did for my ReptiBreeze enclosure was construct a lattice out of bamboo stakes and zipties. Very sturdy, and not just do they keep weight off the screen - they also provide vertical climbing branches!

Here's what I did for my little girl Lily:

View attachment 258046

Thanks for this! I actually thought it was pretty genius and mimicked it for the most part. JJ seems much happier about it.