New chameleon owner.
- Thread starter Sally13
- Start date
Heika
New Member
Hi Sally,
Welcome to the forum!
Pointers:
1) Have lots of time.
2) Start with a male cham, so you don't have to deal with reproduction before you have regular husbandry perfected.
3) Buy a captive bred animal over three months old from a reputible dealer so you won't have to struggle with acclimation and worms.
4) A healthy cham drinks a bunch of water. When you build or purchase a cage, consider drainage to be one of the very important aspects of caring for him properly.
5) Either have the time to mist 3-4 times a day for 15-20 minutes each time, or buy/make an automatic misting system.
6) Safe, live plants make for a better environment than silk and plastic plants.
7) Bug variety keeps your cham interested in eating. Roaches, crickets, silkworms, butterworms, superworms, mealworms, waxworms, grasshoppers, moths, mantids, a few others. You might want to start establishing colonies of insects now.
8) UVB lighting is really important. Do your research when selecting your bulb. I like the reptisun 10.0 made by Zoomed. Remember that UVB can't penetrate plastic, so those slimline units with the plastic cover over the bulb are useless.
9) Don't try to save money because you will regret it in the long run.
10) Have lots of money available, because these guys are expensive. Expect to spend $1000 plus in your first 6 months.
11) Find a vet that specializes in exotics, and then call and ask the staff the last time they saw a chameleon. Find the most experienced person in your area. In my town, there are no experienced chameleon vets, and my cham has been suffering because of it.
12) Research, research, and more research. Good places to start:
http://www.chameleonnews.com/
http://www.chameleonsdish.com/
http://www.adcham.com/
http://www.chameleonjournals.com/
Good books to own:
Nature's Hidden Jewels- Petr Necas
Chameleons: Their Care and Breeding- Linda Davison
Thoughts for Food- CiN publication
Understanding Reptile Parisites- Roger Klingenberg
I am sure I am missing some stuff, but there are lots of people on this list with lots of knowledge who will add to it.
Heika
Welcome to the forum!
Pointers:
1) Have lots of time.
2) Start with a male cham, so you don't have to deal with reproduction before you have regular husbandry perfected.
3) Buy a captive bred animal over three months old from a reputible dealer so you won't have to struggle with acclimation and worms.
4) A healthy cham drinks a bunch of water. When you build or purchase a cage, consider drainage to be one of the very important aspects of caring for him properly.
5) Either have the time to mist 3-4 times a day for 15-20 minutes each time, or buy/make an automatic misting system.
6) Safe, live plants make for a better environment than silk and plastic plants.
7) Bug variety keeps your cham interested in eating. Roaches, crickets, silkworms, butterworms, superworms, mealworms, waxworms, grasshoppers, moths, mantids, a few others. You might want to start establishing colonies of insects now.
8) UVB lighting is really important. Do your research when selecting your bulb. I like the reptisun 10.0 made by Zoomed. Remember that UVB can't penetrate plastic, so those slimline units with the plastic cover over the bulb are useless.
9) Don't try to save money because you will regret it in the long run.
10) Have lots of money available, because these guys are expensive. Expect to spend $1000 plus in your first 6 months.
11) Find a vet that specializes in exotics, and then call and ask the staff the last time they saw a chameleon. Find the most experienced person in your area. In my town, there are no experienced chameleon vets, and my cham has been suffering because of it.
12) Research, research, and more research. Good places to start:
http://www.chameleonnews.com/
http://www.chameleonsdish.com/
http://www.adcham.com/
http://www.chameleonjournals.com/
Good books to own:
Nature's Hidden Jewels- Petr Necas
Chameleons: Their Care and Breeding- Linda Davison
Thoughts for Food- CiN publication
Understanding Reptile Parisites- Roger Klingenberg
I am sure I am missing some stuff, but there are lots of people on this list with lots of knowledge who will add to it.
Heika
Drake
New Member
Congrats! 
Get them pics up ASAP hehe.
Now the hard part, what are you gonna name it? I still haven't named mine yet and I had them for over 3 weeks. If your looking to buy alot of crickets, mealworms or wax worms, I recently ordered www.cricketfactory.com, and they where excellent in terms of packing and shipping and quality.
Good luck with your new pet!
Get them pics up ASAP hehe.
Now the hard part, what are you gonna name it? I still haven't named mine yet and I had them for over 3 weeks. If your looking to buy alot of crickets, mealworms or wax worms, I recently ordered www.cricketfactory.com, and they where excellent in terms of packing and shipping and quality.
Good luck with your new pet!
Hi Sally13, welcome to the Chameleon Forums 
Heika posted some excellent advice above. How old is your new veiled cham? Generally, any food item should not be larger than your cham's head. Larger food items could possibly cause choking or internal blockage. I always recommend adding silkworms to a cham's diet. They are one of the best feed items you can get commercially and are high in moisture.
Heika posted some excellent advice above. How old is your new veiled cham? Generally, any food item should not be larger than your cham's head. Larger food items could possibly cause choking or internal blockage. I always recommend adding silkworms to a cham's diet. They are one of the best feed items you can get commercially and are high in moisture.
He is about 2 months old and the crickets are really small.
hes been eating them with ease.
hes been doing great. Hes eating and drinking. i was just concerned when he turned brown while he was eating the crickets from the cup.
when do you think i should start eeding him worms?
hes been eating them with ease.
hes been doing great.
Hes eating and drinking. i was just concerned when he turned brown while he was eating the crickets from the cup.when do you think i should start eeding him worms?
JonathanF
New Member
Sally13 said:He is about 2 months old and the crickets are really small.
hes been eating them with ease.
hes been doing great.
when do you think i should start eeding him worms?
Chameleons change colors mostly because of their moods. If your chameleon changes to a darker color, either hes really irritated or maybe hes just basking. They will turn darker colors when basking to absorb more heat...odds are this is whats happening to yours. Is he eating under his basking spot?
Are you dusting your crikets with a calcium/vitamin supplement? I you arent, you should, I use repcal. check this link:
http://chameleonsonly.com/Supplements.htm
good luck with everything.
sally:
Sorry I missed your question earlier. It is always best to start a new thread for new questions. About the white spots, are these spots on the skin or small salt like deposits? I assume you are looking at small salt deposits on your cham's nostrils (let me know if this is incorrect). These are somewhat normal. Chameleons excrete salt through their nostrils. How is your humidity? I am not sure of the correlation, but I usually see the deposits more when the humidity levels are not ideal. Have any pics?
Sorry I missed your question earlier. It is always best to start a new thread for new questions. About the white spots, are these spots on the skin or small salt like deposits? I assume you are looking at small salt deposits on your cham's nostrils (let me know if this is incorrect). These are somewhat normal. Chameleons excrete salt through their nostrils. How is your humidity? I am not sure of the correlation, but I usually see the deposits more when the humidity levels are not ideal. Have any pics?
jvillereptile
New Member
veiled chameleons have salt deposit that come out of there nose it is completely normal. i had the same question about that when with my first chameleon and i found that out
