male or female? what age?

ksharp1991

New Member
Cage: 24x18x36? small screen cage, plan on getting a bigger one asap
Light: reptisun 5.0 bulb, and a ceramic heater in the mornings and nights, and a 24w daylight spectrum cfl (spare grow light)
Water: constant water drip, gets misted 3-5x a day
Feeding:6-8 crickets, occasional mealworms, also eats plant material(no live plants in the cage due to rediculous ant problems)
Humidity: stays in the 50's in our area

bought her off craigslist about 3 weeks ago, the owner told us aprox 10 months and that she was a she. the more we read and research, the less sure we are..

also, wondering if her crown is looking ok? it looks like she rubbed it against the top of her cage or something..
 

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Based on markings I believe it to be a male Veiled, although I have seen females with heavy banding. You can confirm this by checking the rear of the foot on the hind legs. If there is a tarsal bump or toe, then it is a male. If there is nothing, then it is a female. It could be 10 months, it could be more, it is really hard to say when they are around adult size. I am unsure of its length, but from the pictures I would imagine it to be around 10-12" which for a healthy male is about 10 months or so. The full banding has not set in yet, so it may still be growing, this further enforces the hypothesis of it being under or around a year in age. The veil or crest looks really damaged though, I wonder what happened. You're in So. Cal. and it is pretty hot right now. You do not need a heat ceramic at night or in the mornings. Temps can drop to as low as 40F and the chameleon will be just fine. It is actually encouraged to let temps drop at night. Up your wattage on that bulb to a 40W or even a 60W.

You need to read this:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/

Keep reading this forum, you will learn a lot.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum!

You definitely have a male veiled. His casque does look weird, but it's hard to say if he rubbed it off or if he perhaps burned it off.

The only thing that jumps out at me about what you've described is that he doesn't need a heater on at night, especially not now in summer. Chameleons benefit from cooling down at night, and unless it's getting to 55F or below in your home he won't need the extra heat. So it's totally ok and recommended to turn off all his lights and heat at night and to let him sleep in the cool and dark.

Here's the official forum veiled caresheet: https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/

It'll cover pretty much everything you need to know about raising a veild :) And anything that you still have questions about we are more than happy to answer.
 
just to clarify, the ceramic heater is only on in the morning when he is basking, and in the evening before bed, at night he is at room temp, which never drops below about 60 right now.

seems like his helmet has regrown some since we've gotten him, especially after he molted about 2 weeks ago.



as for his back feet, 90% sure we see bumps/ toes. guess I can take the laying bin out of his cage..
 
I can see the spurs in the first photo, that plus the very typical male coloration and I'm 1,000% sure you have a male.

Ok, I thought you had the ceramic heater on all night, but that's fine then. A lot of people think they need to be very warm day and night so that's why I assumed.
 
me and my girlfriend did about 2 months of research before we got our chameleon. it was her idea at first, but as soon as we got him I fell in love haha... we found him on craigslist, cage and lights included. the previous owner bought a pair but his kids lost interest, so we ended up with Vlad and they kept the other, who is apparently a girl
 
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