My First Chameleon! Advice?

Maria13739

New Member
hi! i purchased my little Lucille just last Saturday. She is my first, so i tend to worry constantly about her. Especially since i am still in high school. My original plan was to buy a baby male veiled chameleon at the beginning of the summer in order to have my full attention on him. Unfortunately for me, my parents were having a small economic crisis, but it didn't matter ( i understood that i had to wait a little) i slowly prepared his habitat (starting in February), the only things i was missing were the two light bulbs and few crickets.

Last week, i guess my dad had a bit of guilt and surprised me with the news that i was getting a chameleon the following day. i was scared especially since i was missing the most important materials!
as worried as i was, i couldn't wait to pick my chameleon. i know the swapmeet isn't the best place. it was not my intention to get one there, but as soon as i saw little Lucille, i really wanted her. She was the only one there, and she was female. the vendors mentioned that she was around 2-3 months.

When i first got home, i put her in her screen cage (36x18x18), and i found a FLOOD bulb of 120 Volts and 45 Watts. i know 45 watts is not enough but the box said it was "an improved 60watt bulb-energy saving"). The cage is always around 80-85 degrees F in day. and at night it is around 73-75. There's plenty of places to hide. i do spray her habitat. never directly at her. i have the water cup with the needle hole at the bottom as a dripper. the first 3 days i fed her around 15-20 house flies daily. She stopped eating them on her own, and i powdered them with multivitamins (ZooMeds Reptivite with D3) on Monday...On Tuesday-Friday, i powder them with Calcium (ZooMeds Repti Calcium with D3). Starting on Tuesday, i got some small crickets for her and she loved them! Her feces is usually dark brown and she has white "feces" too? is that okay? i clean her cage in the morning before school, i place her cage in the center of my room to get sun from my window, and as soon as i get home, i place her in my backyard. Usually in a position where there is both shade and sun incase she's lacking in one of them. SHE IS A LOT FATTER NOW. i guess thats a good sign. When she sleeps i turn off the light for better sleep. Should i leave it on?
I felt sad when i realized that holding them often is stressing. I guess i'll have to control myself haha. i make sure she drinks, although she drinks very little. i dont have a humid-detector thingy. that i will purchase ASAP. but she's always green and sometimes she turns black when in the sunlight outside. i heard that's normal..?

-she is around 3.5 inches when she walks around. not including her tail
-she is a Veiled!
MORE QUESTIONS:
-is she suppose to be eating more?
-is it ok to feed her wild bugs?! i heard it is dangerous, and yet again i heard its perfectly normal.
-is there a way i can make her like me?

please, any advice will help thank you :)
i can paste some images of her if it is necessary
 
Hi and welcome to the forum! Congrats on the new family member. If you have any questions feel free to pm or post away! Please be sure to read through this(https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/chameleons/), it sounds like you've done some research already which is really good. The one thing I see that your missing is a source of UVB light, it is good you take her outside some to get some of that but jsut so you know windows with block the uvb rays coming from the sun. Yes holding especially at first can cause a lot of stress, each chameleon will have different stress levels. Some will never like to be held and want to have nothing to do with you, others will run onto your hand as soon as the cage door opens. However I'd advise you to let her get properly settled for a month or two before really "trying" to handle her. Once she's a little older and more settled, a good way to get them used to you and climbing on your hand is to slowly start to hand feed them. I noticed you said that you spray her, that is good but make sure you have some sort of constant water drip going on in case she gets thirsty throughout the day. The reason a lot say to stay away from wild bugs is you never know if they have pesticide on them, which would be harmful to your chameleon if she ate one. One thing you should change as well is your powders, any multi vitamin/calcium with D3 should only be done a couple times a month, you will want to get calcium without d3 for every other day feedings. If you don't have any live plants, I'm sure she'd love a few of those in her enclosure, look around on our site for some safe plants to get as Veileds are known to eat some leaves from time to time. A good plant to start with is a pothos, they are very hard to "kill" compared to a lot of other plants. Yes you want her poop to be those two colors. I think I answered pretty much everything, please ask away if you have any more questions.
 
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