New Owner....well, kind of....

Thank you again everyone for your kind words and great advice. So Nathan and I were able to find a new Jackson's (Yellow Crested), he who shall not be named yet. I had a few questions that have actually be answered on their own but I'm going to go ahead and post them just to make sure I'm aligned.

He was delivered in the middle of the night. Needless to say he wasn't happy...put him in his new home and said goodnight. Next morning, provided 4 crickets and a couple of meal worms. No action but he did just wake up in a new home. Following day, no more crickets in the cage, and one worm missing. I take that as a great sign except he's dark, almost black all day. Again I take that as he's just pissed, nervous, both. 3rd day of ownership, he's still black. I start browsing the forums and other sites and determine he's still a little stressed from the move and maybe we should raise his cage.

Yesterday, his new light came in and we raised his cage as high as we could in my sons bookshelf, so now, he's got better lighting, and he gets to look down upon his worthless owners from above. Which brought him back to quite a dark shade of FU....sorry bud, your light was delayed.

Pause....with his new lighting, the ambient temp in the cage hovers around 80. When I turn on the little 25w heat lamp it pushes the ambient temp closer to 90. Do I keep the basking light or will he just move closer to the LED's to warm up? Or do I need to move the basking light further off the cage?

This morning....he's nice mix of greens, looks much less upset and generally exploring his cage. I fed him this morning and be blew through 4 crickets like nothing (Total cricket count about 15 in 4 days). But then I see it, he's got some white spots along his tail. So I jump on the interwebs and click down this dark hole of negativity, much like trying to find out whats wrong with myself on WebMD. Well, I'm out of crickets so I run to the store, by the time I get back, his skin has pretty much exploded off hahaha. He's shedding, which was like the first link when I searched white spots, and not those other morbid options that brought tears to my eyes. I've had snakes before so this shedding it very weird to me. Also coincidentally I got really sunburned on fathers day so we are on the same shedding schedule LOL! So from the looks of it, his grumpiness probably had a lot to do with all the crap we just put him through, and generating a new body suit.

So my last question... He still avoids my hand when I'm in his cage, so how can I help him shed outside of putting him in the shower? I upped the misting to every two hours to keep the humidity a bit higher. Should I spray him (I've seen advice for both for and against), I know he regrets being under the head when the mister comes on.

We're not out of the woods yet, thanks again!
 

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Thank you again everyone for your kind words and great advice. So Nathan and I were able to find a new Jackson's (Yellow Crested), he who shall not be named yet. I had a few questions that have actually be answered on their own but I'm going to go ahead and post them just to make sure I'm aligned.

He was delivered in the middle of the night. Needless to say he wasn't happy...put him in his new home and said goodnight. Next morning, provided 4 crickets and a couple of meal worms. No action but he did just wake up in a new home. Following day, no more crickets in the cage, and one worm missing. I take that as a great sign except he's dark, almost black all day. Again I take that as he's just pissed, nervous, both. 3rd day of ownership, he's still black. I start browsing the forums and other sites and determine he's still a little stressed from the move and maybe we should raise his cage.

Yesterday, his new light came in and we raised his cage as high as we could in my sons bookshelf, so now, he's got better lighting, and he gets to look down upon his worthless owners from above. Which brought him back to quite a dark shade of FU....sorry bud, your light was delayed.

Pause....with his new lighting, the ambient temp in the cage hovers around 80. When I turn on the little 25w heat lamp it pushes the ambient temp closer to 90. Do I keep the basking light or will he just move closer to the LED's to warm up? Or do I need to move the basking light further off the cage?

This morning....he's nice mix of greens, looks much less upset and generally exploring his cage. I fed him this morning and be blew through 4 crickets like nothing (Total cricket count about 15 in 4 days). But then I see it, he's got some white spots along his tail. So I jump on the interwebs and click down this dark hole of negativity, much like trying to find out whats wrong with myself on WebMD. Well, I'm out of crickets so I run to the store, by the time I get back, his skin has pretty much exploded off hahaha. He's shedding, which was like the first link when I searched white spots, and not those other morbid options that brought tears to my eyes. I've had snakes before so this shedding it very weird to me. Also coincidentally I got really sunburned on fathers day so we are on the same shedding schedule LOL! So from the looks of it, his grumpiness probably had a lot to do with all the crap we just put him through, and generating a new body suit.

So my last question... He still avoids my hand when I'm in his cage, so how can I help him shed outside of putting him in the shower? I upped the misting to every two hours to keep the humidity a bit higher. Should I spray him (I've seen advice for both for and against), I know he regrets being under the head when the mister comes on.

We're not out of the woods yet, thanks again!
Just leave the shed alone. In the wild they have to deal with getting they're own shed off. Ive seen mine rubbing their shed on their vines when shedding. I was 11 when i got my first cham (coincedentally, my names nathan) and the cham was pissed the first day she was here. the next day she was fine although it took a few weeks to get her to come on to my hand. A tip for handling is to just give them time. put your hand in there and like come from below and put it like under there stomach sort of. give him time and he'll probably become tamer
 
OOOooOo congrats, look at that little cutie :D Setup is looking like it's coming along well. If he's eating and pooping you're in a pretty good state, especially after a move. Also shedding makes my lady pretty grumpy too, so he could just be having quite a week.

Do I keep the basking light or will he just move closer to the LED's to warm up? Or do I need to move the basking light further off the cage?
Regarding this question, I can't speak specifically to Jackson's temps (you can find that here on the site though) but in general, you want the basking spot to be the warmest spot (for that species), then then you want a temperature gradient down the rest of the enclosure (so cooler at the bottom, and cooler in shady spots). For my Panther, we keep her basking spot in the high 80's low 90's and then the "downstairs" area in the mid 70's in the summer depending on the ambient temp in the room. My I strongly recommend one of these little dimmer switches, you can attach this to the heat lamp, and dial it up and down to get just the right basking spot temp. I appreciate this on warmer days here when it looks like it's getting too hot, I can just push the dial down a little bit :) You could consider adding a little bit more foliage to create more shade in one of the top corners, so he has a place to retreat from the heat/UVB, but still be up higher (but that's just my personal opinion of course).

For building trust to lead to handling, food is of course a primary motivator, also Bill Strand's podcast has a nice episode on this: https://chameleonbreeder.libsyn.com/handling-your-chameleon.
His whole Chameleon Academy website is an amazing resource in general, if I haven't already linked to it I should have, it gave me a lot of confidence when we were trying to learn about getting started. I never help Peach shed unless it looks like something is super wrong, and in that case I take her to the Vet. They should be able to manage on their own, and the handling it more stressful than the help in many cases :)

Congrats again, super exciting for you all. Keep us posted :)
 
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