Hi everyone!
We are new chameleon owners here. We’ve had male juvenile, veiled chameleon for about a week now. In the week he’s been with us, I’ve only seen him eat maybe 3-4 crickets and about 4 worms in total. I’ve only seen him drink a few times, but he always opens his mouth when the misters are on.He doesn’t move around his enclosure much, tends to stay in the top back corner, and the last few days he just lays on his branch and usually lets one or two of his arms hang off.
I’ve done SO much reading and I understand it’s common for chameleons to take a while to adjust to their new environments, but at what point do we need to worry or take him to the vet?
A little about his setup: he has a 2.5’ screen enclosure, ficus trees, a mister system that goes off every 3 hours, and his temp at the top of the enclosure is always at about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. His UVB and daytime lamp are on for about 12 hours during the day and then at night just one UVB bulb for warmth (his enclosure was getting too cold without it). We’ve been gutloading his crickets and sprinkling both the crickets and mealworms in calcium, but he never seems to want to eat. He gets very dark and stressed whenever we’re near his enclosure so we’re trying to respect his space and give him time to acclimate.
Any suggestions/words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!
We are new chameleon owners here. We’ve had male juvenile, veiled chameleon for about a week now. In the week he’s been with us, I’ve only seen him eat maybe 3-4 crickets and about 4 worms in total. I’ve only seen him drink a few times, but he always opens his mouth when the misters are on.He doesn’t move around his enclosure much, tends to stay in the top back corner, and the last few days he just lays on his branch and usually lets one or two of his arms hang off.
I’ve done SO much reading and I understand it’s common for chameleons to take a while to adjust to their new environments, but at what point do we need to worry or take him to the vet?
A little about his setup: he has a 2.5’ screen enclosure, ficus trees, a mister system that goes off every 3 hours, and his temp at the top of the enclosure is always at about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. His UVB and daytime lamp are on for about 12 hours during the day and then at night just one UVB bulb for warmth (his enclosure was getting too cold without it). We’ve been gutloading his crickets and sprinkling both the crickets and mealworms in calcium, but he never seems to want to eat. He gets very dark and stressed whenever we’re near his enclosure so we’re trying to respect his space and give him time to acclimate.
Any suggestions/words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!