My new Chameleon seems to be always white

[Graanto]

My Chameleon: Male (supposedly) Ambilobe Panther; 4 months old; I have had him a week.

Handling: Have not yet. Really dislikes my hand.

Feeding: I have not had him very long but this is what I was going to do. I will feed him every day 8-15 Crickets since he is younger. Gut loading with high calcium cricket diet food and some kind of yellow jelly, which is supposed to be like water or something. I got both products from Flukers Farm. First couple days I tried to gut load with mashed up veggies but they didn’t seem to like it.

Supplements: Dust with Rep-cal w/ D3 every other day. Herptivite twice a week.

Watering: automatic mister: I have all the lights and the mister on a timer. When everything comes on the mister goes for 30 seconds every 3 hours, so the cage is misted 4 times a day.

Fecal Description: solid, black with white at the tip. Not sure what that means.

Cage Type: Screen cage, 18x12x20

Lighting: heat lamp, and UVB lamp

Temperature: basking area is around 90. Nighttime lowest it gets is 78.

Humidity: between 50 and 65

Plants: One pathos, than a bunch of fake braches wrapped with fake vines

Placement: 4 or five feet off the ground on top of a counter. No vents. I have an indoor pool, and the room never drops below 78 degrees because my mother has tropical birds living in there as well. The birds do not make a lot of noise and I put my chameleon far away from them.

Location: Midwest

Problem:

This is my first time with chameleons, which I think is making me a bit overly nervous, but I am worried. My dad had a couple of veiled chameleons but I was not involved with raising them. I just got my new panther chameleon last week and he (supposedly) always seems to be kind of an off white. Not like a ghost but almost bleached out even sometimes kind of gray. He seems to eat really well but I have never seen him drink water. I will post pics as soon as I can get some decent ones. He is pretty shy and really does not like to be bothered. Could the white color be a nervous response? I have also read that the bleach look could be caused by too much heat, but I have not been able to confirm that. Sorry if this topic has been discussed before, but I have not been able to find any post about this.

 

[jannb]

Welcome to the chameleon forums and congrats on your new panther. I keep veileds, panthers and a parsonii and each one is a pleasure to care for. My advice is to lower the temps in his basking spot. I keep adult panthers at 85 to 86 and young ones in the low 80's. I'm attaching my blog for new keepers below. Hopefully you will find it useful. Jann
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blo...-keepers-young-veiled-panther-chameleons.html

 

[Pilotman800]

Calcium with D3 every other day is too much D3. You're supposed to give calcium without d3 every day, calcium with d3 twice a month, and a muiltivitamin twice a month.

edit: You may want to check out sandrachameleons blog on gutloading. You can try to gutload apples, buttnernut squash, mango, blueberry, and much more.

 

[Cainschams]

My Chameleon: Male (supposedly) Ambilobe Panther; 4 months old; I have had him a week.

Handling: Have not yet. Really dislikes my hand.

Feeding: I have not had him very long but this is what I was going to do. I will feed him every day 8-15 Crickets since he is younger. Gut loading with high calcium cricket diet food and some kind of yellow jelly, which is supposed to be like water or something. I got both products from Flukers Farm. First couple days I tried to gut load with mashed up veggies but they didn’t seem to like it.

Supplements: Dust with Rep-cal w/ D3 every other day. Herptivite twice a week.

Watering: automatic mister: I have all the lights and the mister on a timer. When everything comes on the mister goes for 30 seconds every 3 hours, so the cage is misted 4 times a day.

Fecal Description: solid, black with white at the tip. Not sure what that means.

Cage Type: Screen cage, 18x12x20

Lighting: heat lamp, and UVB lamp

Temperature: basking area is around 90. Nighttime lowest it gets is 78.

Humidity: between 50 and 65

Plants: One pathos, than a bunch of fake braches wrapped with fake vines

Placement: 4 or five feet off the ground on top of a counter. No vents. I have an indoor pool, and the room never drops below 78 degrees because my mother has tropical birds living in there as well. The birds do not make a lot of noise and I put my chameleon far away from them.

Location: Midwest

Problem:

This is my first time with chameleons, which I think is making me a bit overly nervous, but I am worried. My dad had a couple of veiled chameleons but I was not involved with raising them. I just got my new panther chameleon last week and he (supposedly) always seems to be kind of an off white. Not like a ghost but almost bleached out even sometimes kind of gray. He seems to eat really well but I have never seen him drink water. I will post pics as soon as I can get some decent ones. He is pretty shy and really does not like to be bothered. Could the white color be a nervous response? I have also read that the bleach look could be caused by too much heat, but I have not been able to confirm that. Sorry if this topic has been discussed before, but I have not been able to find any post about this.

Do you notice him keeping his mouth open and/or breathing heavy for long periods of time? If so it could be from heat but it seems to me you are explaining normal colors for a young panther. Males tend to be gray and even a whitish color before they start to get any real colors to them.

A picture would really help.

 

[Graanto]

No. I have never seen him with his mouth open like that. I'll get a picture of him up as soon as possible. In reponse to Pilot, if im gut loading the crickets with a high calcium feed, do I need to dust them with calcium w/o d3? and why dont I want to give him rep-cal w/ D3 everyother day? I bought them from a reputable breeder and they suggested to give it to him every other day until he is like 9-10 months old and than start weaning down to like once a week or couple times a month.

 

[camimom]

No. I have never seen him with his mouth open like that. I'll get a picture of him up as soon as possible. In reponse to Pilot, if im gut loading the crickets with a high calcium feed, do I need to dust them with calcium w/o d3? and why dont I want to give him rep-cal w/ D3 everyother day? I bought them from a reputable breeder and they suggested to give it to him every other day until he is like 9-10 months old and than start weaning down to like once a week or couple times a month.

even if you are feeding with high calcium, you must dust the crickets.
and too much d3 can cause medical issues. thus why we all do it 2x a month.

 

[Thompson]

90 is to hot for a 4 month old panther. It should only be 85 degrees. What type of UVB lamp are you using? What's the wattage on your heat lamp? You need a normal calcium without the d3 that you'll use on most feedings and you'll dust with the d3 and multivitamins twice a month each.

 

[Olimpia]

Your chameleon will need D3 to aid in absorbing calcium, but this is a SUPPLEMENT to the vitamin D3 that he is producing naturally with his UVB light. Too little will not allow him to process the calcium properly, but too much will do the opposite, actually hurt his ability to absorb calcium! So you want to supplement very lightly, so long as you have a UVB light, but not over do it so you don't tip the balance towards harmful.

You could use a supplement like Rapashy calcium plus (which is an all in one) ever day because it contains very little amounts of D3. But other supplements might have a high concentration of it, so it'll be easy to OD.

Unless your breeder was recommending that brand of supplement, I'm not sure why they would offer such advice. It's waaay too much.

 

[Graanto]

Your chameleon will need D3 to aid in absorbing calcium, but this is a SUPPLEMENT to the vitamin D3 that he is producing naturally with his UVB light. Too little will not allow him to process the calcium properly, but too much will do the opposite, actually hurt his ability to absorb calcium! So you want to supplement very lightly, so long as you have a UVB light, but not over do it so you don't tip the balance towards harmful.

You could use a supplement like Rapashy calcium plus (which is an all in one) ever day because it contains very little amounts of D3. But other supplements might have a high concentration of it, so it'll be easy to OD.

Unless your breeder was recommending that brand of supplement, I'm not sure why they would offer such advice. It's waaay too much.

Thanks for the advice. I'll start backing off the D3. And ill get the basking temp down. Is the night temp ok. I was worried that it was too hot at night