@Brodybreaux25
Chameleon Info:
◦ Your Chameleon -
Female Veiled chameleon, guessed to be 6-12 months old. I adopted her from a reptile rescue in early June 2018.
◦ Handling -
She is handled about twice a week. Once when it’s time to do the “deep clean” of her cage, and occasionally brought out a second time to have outdoor time when weather permits, or explore my bedroom.
◦ Feeding -
I vary her staple feeders—crickets, superworms, hornworms, black soldier fly larvae. Crickets are the “main” feeder. Wax worms given as an occasional treat (1-2 worms every other week.) Crickets and supers are gutloaded daily with vegetables and fruit (usually includes turnip greens, kale, collard greens, sweet potatos, some kind of squash, carrots, strawberries, cauliflower, zucchini, and orange slices.) Hornworms are given tomatoes and commercial “hornworm food.” As for my schedule, I’ll give my cricket stats as the example: when I first brought her home in June, she was being fed 5-10 crickets every day. Since August, she gets 6 crickets every other day. (If it’s a superworm day, she gets 3-5 worms. If it is a hornworm day, she gets 1 large worm. If it’s a soldier fly larvae day, she gets 5-10 worms.)
◦ Supplements - ReptiCalcium without D3 every feeding; Reptivite with D3 on the 15th and 30th of every month. I very lightly dust 1-3 bugs per feeding (depending on which feeder I am giving.)
◦ Watering - I manually hand mist the enclosure, focusing on her plants. I mist 4-5 times a day for 5-10 minutes each time. She drinks from her leaves after I walk away (when she doesn’t think I am looking at her.)
◦ Fecal - Medium brown, solid but not dry/desiccated bowel movements. Moist but not loose or shapeless. She has a bowel movement every day to every other day. She tested negative for parasites before being adopted, and I believe was proactively given two doses of Panacur anyway.
◦ History - She is a rescue that was surrendered to a herp facility in June 2018. Nothing about her life prior to that was given at the time of surrender.
She was last examined by a herp vet in mid-September 2018; I was told she was very healthy.
Her eating habits have not faltered, nor has she changed her water intake. She has lost 2 grams since the beginning of last month, but since I have had her, she tends to fluctuate 1-3 grams from week to week. (Might be my scale, but might also be related to her most recent bowel movement activities at any given time.) The only changes I have noted are that her colors are much brighter almost all the time, she is extra aggressive when I have to be in her cage, and she paces up and down the cage, digging at the walls and floor.
Today I gave her a 12”x12”x10” laying bin filled with washed, moist/malleable play sand. I made the beginning of a small “tunnel”, but so far, she hasn’t paid any attention to it that I can see. I have made a curtain/privacy screen that starts an inch up from the floor and goes to about 5” below the top of the cage.
I have tried to palpate her belly for the last couple days, but she just feels normal. I sometimes feel like I can see some lumps just in front of her hips (see picture attached), but when I feel that area, the visible “lumps” seem to disappear and I don’t feel anything unusual.
Cage Info:
◦ Cage Type - Aluminum frame, mesh screen sides/top 18”x18”x36”.
◦ Lighting - Fixture is a ZooMed deep double dome that covers almost the entire top of the cage; the basking bulb is 75watts (I don’t remember for sure which brand it is, but I have a feeling it is also ZooMed), and the UVB bulb is Reptisun 10.0. Both bulbs last replaced in early September. Her lights are on a timer to come on at 8am and turn off at 9pm.
◦ Temperature - Ambient is around 75-81, basking is 85-90, and floor is around 70-75. I have a thermometer 12” under the light, right at her basking spot, and a second halfway down the enclosure. Lowest overnight temp is 65.
I had borrowed a temp gun when I last put new bulbs in, and it reflected similar temps to the thermometers kept inside the enclosure.
◦ Humidity - Average humidity is around 40-45%. After a misting, it starts at 75-80% for about 10-15 mins and levels back down to the 40-45% range within an hour. I mist five times a day for 5-10 mins at a time. I have a hygrometer Velcro-d to the upper middle rear screen on the enclosure, but have moved it around to different places to check humidity percentage when I’ve been curious. She mostly hangs out in the upper middle quadrant during the day, which is why I put the hygrometer there. I have two sides of the outside of her cage wrapped in cellophane to hold the humidity in longer (before doing this, the humidity levels would drop into the low 30’s within a half hour of misting.) The cellophane “panels” are 5” down from the top and about 6” up from the bottom, to allow additional airflow.
◦ Plants - She had an incident about a month ago where she took a nice bite out of a plastic leaf, so since the second week of September 2018, she has had two medium golden Pothos plants and two small Jade succulents.
◦ Placement - Her enclosure is at the far end of my livingroom. It’s just me and my boyfriend living here, and we are rarely walking around or making any commotion in that room. I would classify it as low-to-medium traffic levels. Her cage is on a table that is 3 feet off the ground.
◦ Location - I am in northeastern Ohio, USA.
Current problem - I can’t tell if my female Veiled is going to lay eggs.
