New veiled care questions (asked correctly this time)

Speelman

New Member
Hello ! I recently made another thread and while I found the responses very very helpful I thought I would make another with all of this information filled out and with better, more specific questions.
  • Your Chameleon- The species, sex, and age of your chameleon. How long has it been in your care?
    • He is a male veiled chameleon that I would say is between 3-5 months old I do not know. (body+head is roughly 5 inches) I have had him for almost a week and a half now.
  • Handling- How often do you handle your chameleon?
    • I have only handled at the reptile expo and moving him into this new enclosure.
  • Feeding- What are you feeding your cham? What amount? What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders?
    • I am feeding him a mixture of crickets, dubias, and a few hornworms. So far I have been feeding him every single day, but other than the first day where he ate about 15 crickets I don't think he has eaten more than 4-5 crickets or dubias + 1 hornworm in a day. I have been trying to feed him as early in the morning as I can so he has time/heat to digest but I am worried about the last few days. He seems very excited for the first couple and then just seems to loose interest. So far I have been gut-loading with a bag of Lugarti cricket food that I bought just for ease of access these first few weeks but want to switch purely to greens.
  • Supplements- What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule?
    • The last 4 days I have been dusting with zoo med repti calcium without D3 every day.
  • Watering- What kind of watering technique do you use? How often and how long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking?
    • I have been hand misting between 3 and 5 times a day. I have been making sure once before bed and right after I wake up, and have been doing a few throughout the day to make sure he is hydrated. I have been misting for around 30 seconds each time, I am mainly trying to make sure there are water droplets on all of the leaves. I try to mist longer and specifically try and not mist straight at him but he acts like I am spraying him with a fire hose I feel terrible. I have seen him drink multiple times, I switched up a lot of the cage today so I was trying to leave him a lone so I did not see it after the most recent rearrange.
  • Fecal Description- Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites?
    • I have only seen two droppings so far, the first one looked great, very solid and dark brown with dry very white urate. The more recent was much more liquid and slightly brighter brown and the urate looked slightly more liquid as well with just a tint of orange. He has not been tested.
  • History- Any previous information about your cham that might be useful to others when trying to help you.
    • I purchased him at a reptile expo and he came with a much younger female chameleon, both housed in a very small very poor glass enclosure. I quickly moved both of them into this new screened enclosure but had both of them together for a few days before I could find somewhere to rehome the girl. Obviously they did not get along the best and I do not know if at all or how long they were housed together before. I was mistakenly assured that they would be fine together and fine in the enclosure and feel very bad about stressing them out in such poor conditions for the time I did. Since the separation he seems much less stressed then when I originally got him.
    • Just today I completely reorganized and switched everything around in his cage. I was worried about doing to much to soon and stressing him out even more while he was still getting accustomed but decided it would be better to make sure the enclosure was better first. I had a lot of fake leaves and other vines and sticks, while providing hiding spots and water collection it felt like I was robbing him of greater health and enjoyment when I could easily fix everything. As of today I took everything out and the enclosure is now just sticks/branches for climbing and basking, two fake vines so that there is better maneuverability around and to keep things in place, one large ficus and one large dracea, a smaller for shrubby ficus that he has enjoyed eating, and one shoot of bamboo in the back that I got for free.
Cage Info:
  • Cage Type- Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions?
    • Large reptibreeze full screen enclosure (18",18",36") I have one side facing most of my room/bed/desk covered with blanket for humidity and just so he cant see me while im doing homework/being lazy, and another 1.5 sides sort of covered in press and seal (seran rap?) to try and trap some humidity in. If I am up much later than when his lights turn off I have been putting a very thin flag I have over part of the front to try and reduce the lamp light.
  • Lighting- What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule?
    • I have a 22" reptisun 10.0 UVB in a biomed cover and a 75 watt heat flood in a deep dome light for basking from scales and tales that are both on from 9am to 9pm
  • Temperature- What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps?
    • I have one of the reptile control center things they sell at scales and tales that has 6 plugs, two heat sensors, and a humidity sensor. basking spot during the day is ambient 80-85 F and cage floor is between 65-70 normally. Just this week it started getting warm and our ac has been funky so they have shifted a little day to day but almost always within those ranges. I have a secondary ceramic heat bulb I have been turning on for just a few minutes, pointed mid level of the cage, if I notice much lower temperatures during the day. Night time temperatures have been 65-70 at the top and usually 50-60 at the bottom. watching today after switching all fake to live plants the bottom is 63 which is the highest I have seen so far. I have seen 51-53 sometimes at the bottom but never under 50.
  • Humidity- What are your humidity levels? How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity?
    • I have been changing this a lot recently because of reading more and more different information, but day times between 30-50% (normally around 38-40), after misting I obviously jumps up to crazy numbers for around 5 minutes and then slowly decreases again. At night I have been trying to get as high as I can but have simply had no success maintaining anything above 50%. During the day it is purely misting and recently with the help of live plants, but at night I have not been misting and running a reptifogger overnight as soon as the daytime temps drop. Humidity is also measured through the control center.
  • Plants- Are you using live plants? If so, what kind?
    • I have a large ficus tree, larger dracea tree of some sort, small ficus shrub, and one stalk of bamboo. Up until today there were a lot of fake leaves but they are now all gone.
  • Placement- Where is your cage located? Is it near any fans, air vents, or high traffic areas? At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
    • It is in the corner of my bedroom in the basement, maybe 5 feet away from a ceiling vent that may or may not work. It is my bedroom and I am in college so I and roommates have been in and out, but I have been trying to limit interaction and he has been getting left a lone for as much as I can during the day. The cage is on a roughly foot and a half tall desk off of the floor.
  • Location- Where are you geographically located?
    • I am in northern colorful Colorado, US
Current Problem -
- Currently I am most worried about his eating. The first feeding he was voracious, and I have simply not seen that attitude in the last couple of days. After seeing the urate today I was worried about dehydration as well but with the live plants there is just so so so much more room for water to drop on leaves now I think he will get the memo.
- I really just wanted to post with all information again to see if there are any glaring missteps in my care so far. I think I am heading in the right direction but all I care about is his health and happiness I want to make sure I am doing the best.

Just a note also regarding the pictures, I do not know why in every photo the light looks so blue? I really feel as if it does not look like that at ALL in real life but if that is a sign of something please let me know.

Thank you so much
paschal_1.jpg

This is him today!
paschal_2.jpg

This is a terrible photo of what the enclosure looks like after I moved everything around.
IMG_3793.jpeg

For example this is what it looked like before, I have now removed all substrate/paper towels from the bottom it is empty now
IMG_3798.jpg
IMG_3796.jpg

This is everything else I have going on.
 
Hi. :) I’ll put my feedback in bold and since I tend to talk a lot, will break this into 2 replies.
  • Your Chameleon- The species, sex, and age of your chameleon. How long has it been in your care?
    • He is a male veiled chameleon that I would say is between 3-5 months old I do not know. He’s got his boy bars, so I’m going to guess that he is at least 4 months old. (body+head is roughly 5 inches) I have had him for almost a week and a half now.
  • Handling- How often do you handle your chameleon?
  • Feeding- What are you feeding your cham? What amount? What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders?
    • I am feeding him a mixture of crickets, dubias, and a few hornworms. Attaching feeder graphic. So far I have been feeding him every single day, but other than the first day where he ate about 15 crickets I don't think he has eaten more than 4-5 crickets or dubias + 1 hornworm in a day. I have been trying to feed him as early in the morning as I can so he has time/heat to digest but I am worried about the last few days. He seems very excited for the first couple and then just seems to loose interest. Are the feeders small enough for him? They need to be smaller than the space between his eyes. Are you putting the feeders in and leaving him or watching? He may be hesitant if you are too close as you are still new to him. Can he see and reach the feeders easily? You want them to be just lower than his basking branch. So far I have been gut-loading with a bag of Lugarti cricket food that I bought just for ease of access these first few weeks but want to switch purely to greens. Lugarti is good from what I hear. You’ll want to add a variety of fresh produce. I keep my bugs well fed all the time with various squashes, bell pepper, sweet potato, varied greens and just a little fruit (usually berries). Basically my bugs get the same stuff I make my bearded dragon’s salads with. Attaching graphic below.
  • Supplements- What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with and what is the schedule?
    • The last 4 days I have been dusting with zoo med repti calcium without D3 every day. Very good. You’ll want to lightly dust at every feeding with this calcium without D3 except for one feeding every week. That one feeding, you’ll alternate between a calcium with D3 and a multivitamin, so that each is given once every other week. OR alternatively, you can opt for a combination multivitamin/D3 which you’d use one feeding every other week (still dusting every feeding with calcium without D3). This is what I do and I use Reptivite with D3.
  • Watering- What kind of watering technique do you use? How often and how long to you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking?
    • I have been hand misting between 3 and 5 times a day. I have been making sure once before bed and right after I wake up, and have been doing a few throughout the day to make sure he is hydrated. I have been misting for around 30 seconds each time, I am mainly trying to make sure there are water droplets on all of the leaves. It would be better to mist for about 2 minutes, 2-3 times a day - right before lights go on and off and mid day is optional. You want the enclosure to dry out in between. I try to mist longer and specifically try and not mist straight at him but he acts like I am spraying him with a fire hose I feel terrible. I have seen him drink multiple times, I switched up a lot of the cage today so I was trying to leave him a lone so I did not see it after the most recent rearrange. If you have been making changes to his enclosure, that will stress him and may contribute to his poor appetite.
  • Fecal Description- Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites?
    • I have only seen two droppings so far, the first one looked great, very solid and dark brown with dry very white urate. The more recent was much more liquid and slightly brighter brown and the urate looked slightly more liquid as well with just a tint of orange. He has not been tested. Since parasites can be a cause for poor appetite, definitely suggest a vet wellness visit with a fecal check for parasites.
  • History- Any previous information about your cham that might be useful to others when trying to help you.
    • I purchased him at a reptile expo and he came with a much younger female chameleon, both housed in a very small very poor glass enclosure. I quickly moved both of them into this new screened enclosure but had both of them together for a few days before I could find somewhere to rehome the girl. Obviously they did not get along the best and I do not know if at all or how long they were housed together before. I was mistakenly assured that they would be fine together and fine in the enclosure and feel very bad about stressing them out in such poor conditions for the time I did. Since the separation he seems much less stressed then when I originally got him. Wow! The breeder said they could be kept together?! Either they didn’t know or didn’t care...chameleons can’t be co-habbed. They get stressed even if they can see another chameleon.
    • Just today I completely reorganized and switched everything around in his cage. I was worried about doing to much to soon and stressing him out even more while he was still getting accustomed but decided it would be better to make sure the enclosure was better first. I had a lot of fake leaves and other vines and sticks, while providing hiding spots and water collection it felt like I was robbing him of greater health and enjoyment when I could easily fix everything. As of today I took everything out and the enclosure is now just sticks/branches for climbing and basking, two fake vines so that there is better maneuverability around and to keep things in place, one large ficus and one large dracea, a smaller for shrubby ficus that he has enjoyed eating, and one shoot of bamboo in the back that I got for free. Let him fully settle in for a bit. Then replace all the artificial plants with safe live ones. Pothos is a staple plant. Attaching plant graphic. It is hard to hang plants, but Dragon Strand came up with Dragon Ledges which I love. https://dragonstrand.com/dragon-ledges/ Some have crafted their own style of these with sheet metal. Some use garden trellis, make ‘scaffolds’, etc. The main thing is that however it’s done, the weight needs to be on the frame of the enclosure and not the screen.

    • 57453E17-0EC8-43DB-9F2F-C26DD081AFFD.jpeg
      97FBBD40-1580-425A-8094-95600563349A.jpeg
2D6B365E-B020-42F3-8268-51B92FA3CDD5.jpeg
 
Part II :)
Cage Info:
  • Cage Type- Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions?
    • Large reptibreeze full screen enclosure (18",18",36") Very soon, you’ll be needing to upgrade to a minimum 2x2x4’. Our veiled boys get big and like to have lots of space. I have my boy in a ‘double wide’ (2 XL ReptiBreezes attached together) and he uses every inch. I have one side facing most of my room/bed/desk covered with blanket for humidity and just so he cant see me while im doing homework/being lazy, and another 1.5 sides sort of covered in press and seal (seran rap?) to try and trap some humidity in. If I am up much later than when his lights turn off I have been putting a very thin flag I have over part of the front to try and reduce the lamp light.
  • Lighting- What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule?
    • I have a 22" reptisun 10.0 UVB in a biomed cover and a 75 watt heat flood in a deep dome light for basking from scales and tales that are both on from 9am to 9pm The standard uvb strength is a 5.0 or 6%. Since you have a 10.0, the distance between light and basking area needs to be greater at around 10-12”. An easy fix is to elevate your light. I use little wire baskets from the dollar store which work great. They don’t look pretty, but they work. If you want pretty, you can look up ReptiRisers on Etsy.
  • Temperature- What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps?
    • I have one of the reptile control center things they sell at scales and tales that has 6 plugs, two heat sensors, and a humidity sensor. basking spot during the day is ambient 80-85 F and cage floor is between 65-70 normally. Just this week it started getting warm and our ac has been funky so they have shifted a little day to day but almost always within those ranges. I have a secondary ceramic heat bulb I have been turning on for just a few minutes, pointed mid level of the cage, if I notice much lower temperatures during the day. No need for that. You want to provide him with an area to cool off if he wants. Night time temperatures have been 65-70 at the top and usually 50-60 at the bottom. Great night time temp drops! watching today after switching all fake to live plants the bottom is 63 which is the highest I have seen so far. I have seen 51-53 sometimes at the bottom but never under 50.
  • Humidity- What are your humidity levels? How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity?
    • I have been changing this a lot recently because of reading more and more different information, but day times between 30-50% (normally around 38-40) Perfect! , after misting I obviously jumps up to crazy numbers for around 5 minutes and then slowly decreases again. At night I have been trying to get as high as I can but have simply had no success maintaining anything above 50%. That’s ok. If you can get it higher, awesome. But if not, your cham will be ok. During the day it is purely misting and recently with the help of live plants, but at night I have not been misting and running a reptifogger overnight as soon as the daytime temps drop. Humidity is also measured through the control center. In one of your pics I see the fogger running while lights are on. ??? You never want to do this. High heat + high humidity = risk for respiratory infection.
  • Plants- Are you using live plants? If so, what kind?
    • I have a large ficus tree, larger dracea tree of some sort, small ficus shrub, and one stalk of bamboo. Up until today there were a lot of fake leaves but they are now all gone. I have attached my fake plants to the outside of my enclosures to give my chams a sense of more privacy.
  • Placement- Where is your cage located? Is it near any fans, air vents, or high traffic areas? At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
    • It is in the corner of my bedroom in the basement, maybe 5 feet away from a ceiling vent that may or may not work. It is my bedroom and I am in college so I and roommates have been in and out, but I have been trying to limit interaction and he has been getting left a lone for as much as I can during the day. The cage is on a roughly foot and a half tall desk off of the floor. Height = safety for chameleons. They much prefer to be above and looking down on us.
  • Location- Where are you geographically located?
    • I am in northern colorful Colorado, US
Current Problem -
- Currently I am most worried about his eating. The first feeding he was voracious, and I have simply not seen that attitude in the last couple of days. I don’t know for certain what care animals who are taken to reptile shows receive during transport and the show itself. However, he may not have eaten well during it all. I have provided input on possible reasons for a poor appetite. After seeing the urate today I was worried about dehydration as well but with the live plants there is just so so so much more room for water to drop on leaves now I think he will get the memo. It’s ok and normal for there to be a bit of yellow or even orange on one end of urate (about 1/3). If they haven’t pooped in a couple of days, the urate will have more yellow.
- I really just wanted to post with all information again to see if there are any glaring missteps in my care so far. I think I am heading in the right direction but all I care about is his health and happiness I want to make sure I am doing the best. I would suggest getting more branches or vines for him to travel. You can use natural branches you collect from non-sappy trees (avoid pine and the like). Give a little scrub with dish soap, rinse very well and let dry in the sun. Keeping the bark on is fine. I even keep the lichen on if it doesn’t come off with a little scrub.

Just a note also regarding the pictures, I do not know why in every photo the light looks so blue? I really feel as if it does not look like that at ALL in real life but if that is a sign of something please let me know. It’s just the way the light reflects. Pics never do our chams or their enclosures justice.
 
Part II :)
Cage Info:
  • Cage Type- Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions?
    • Large reptibreeze full screen enclosure (18",18",36") Very soon, you’ll be needing to upgrade to a minimum 2x2x4’. Our veiled boys get big and like to have lots of space. I have my boy in a ‘double wide’ (2 XL ReptiBreezes attached together) and he uses every inch. I have one side facing most of my room/bed/desk covered with blanket for humidity and just so he cant see me while im doing homework/being lazy, and another 1.5 sides sort of covered in press and seal (seran rap?) to try and trap some humidity in. If I am up much later than when his lights turn off I have been putting a very thin flag I have over part of the front to try and reduce the lamp light.
  • Lighting- What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule?
    • I have a 22" reptisun 10.0 UVB in a biomed cover and a 75 watt heat flood in a deep dome light for basking from scales and tales that are both on from 9am to 9pm The standard uvb strength is a 5.0 or 6%. Since you have a 10.0, the distance between light and basking area needs to be greater at around 10-12”. An easy fix is to elevate your light. I use little wire baskets from the dollar store which work great. They don’t look pretty, but they work. If you want pretty, you can look up ReptiRisers on Etsy.
  • Temperature- What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps?
    • I have one of the reptile control center things they sell at scales and tales that has 6 plugs, two heat sensors, and a humidity sensor. basking spot during the day is ambient 80-85 F and cage floor is between 65-70 normally. Just this week it started getting warm and our ac has been funky so they have shifted a little day to day but almost always within those ranges. I have a secondary ceramic heat bulb I have been turning on for just a few minutes, pointed mid level of the cage, if I notice much lower temperatures during the day. No need for that. You want to provide him with an area to cool off if he wants. Night time temperatures have been 65-70 at the top and usually 50-60 at the bottom. Great night time temp drops! watching today after switching all fake to live plants the bottom is 63 which is the highest I have seen so far. I have seen 51-53 sometimes at the bottom but never under 50.
  • Humidity- What are your humidity levels? How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity?
    • I have been changing this a lot recently because of reading more and more different information, but day times between 30-50% (normally around 38-40) Perfect! , after misting I obviously jumps up to crazy numbers for around 5 minutes and then slowly decreases again. At night I have been trying to get as high as I can but have simply had no success maintaining anything above 50%. That’s ok. If you can get it higher, awesome. But if not, your cham will be ok. During the day it is purely misting and recently with the help of live plants, but at night I have not been misting and running a reptifogger overnight as soon as the daytime temps drop. Humidity is also measured through the control center. In one of your pics I see the fogger running while lights are on. ??? You never want to do this. High heat + high humidity = risk for respiratory infection.
  • Plants- Are you using live plants? If so, what kind?
    • I have a large ficus tree, larger dracea tree of some sort, small ficus shrub, and one stalk of bamboo. Up until today there were a lot of fake leaves but they are now all gone. I have attached my fake plants to the outside of my enclosures to give my chams a sense of more privacy.
  • Placement- Where is your cage located? Is it near any fans, air vents, or high traffic areas? At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
    • It is in the corner of my bedroom in the basement, maybe 5 feet away from a ceiling vent that may or may not work. It is my bedroom and I am in college so I and roommates have been in and out, but I have been trying to limit interaction and he has been getting left a lone for as much as I can during the day. The cage is on a roughly foot and a half tall desk off of the floor. Height = safety for chameleons. They much prefer to be above and looking down on us.
  • Location- Where are you geographically located?
    • I am in northern colorful Colorado, US
Current Problem -
- Currently I am most worried about his eating. The first feeding he was voracious, and I have simply not seen that attitude in the last couple of days. I don’t know for certain what care animals who are taken to reptile shows receive during transport and the show itself. However, he may not have eaten well during it all. I have provided input on possible reasons for a poor appetite. After seeing the urate today I was worried about dehydration as well but with the live plants there is just so so so much more room for water to drop on leaves now I think he will get the memo. It’s ok and normal for there to be a bit of yellow or even orange on one end of urate (about 1/3). If they haven’t pooped in a couple of days, the urate will have more yellow.
- I really just wanted to post with all information again to see if there are any glaring missteps in my care so far. I think I am heading in the right direction but all I care about is his health and happiness I want to make sure I am doing the best. I would suggest getting more branches or vines for him to travel. You can use natural branches you collect from non-sappy trees (avoid pine and the like). Give a little scrub with dish soap, rinse very well and let dry in the sun. Keeping the bark on is fine. I even keep the lichen on if it doesn’t come off with a little scrub.

Just a note also regarding the pictures, I do not know why in every photo the light looks so blue? I really feel as if it does not look like that at ALL in real life but if that is a sign of something please let me know. It’s just the way the light reflects. Pics never do our chams or their enclosures justice.
Seriously thank you so much for all of the advice, it seriously means the world to me. I have been trying to find solutions for raising the light safely.
 
For anybody else reading this, the last few nights I have noticed only while sleeping some parts of his head seem to be getting very very dark. He has some of the normal greyish head markings during the day, and I have seen some dark on days where he was definitely more stressed out like when I was rearranging his enclosure. But this seems different, large sections of the crest seem to be dark black/grey, only at night.
 
When our chams sleep, they show their ‘fired up’ colors. Many male veileds do have some dark/black areas along their casque so I’d say your little guy is just developing his big boy colors. Here’s a couple of pics of my guy that show his full fired up colors. Does your guy’s dark marks look anything like this?
76F9AA56-2AF0-4E31-B5A7-850468DDAA0B.jpeg E7778FFA-5541-44C7-892B-C2ADF68B5365.jpeg
*do take note that my guy is a bit overweight - he sneaks food.
 
When our chams sleep, they show their ‘fired up’ colors. Many male veileds do have some dark/black areas along their casque so I’d say your little guy is just developing his big boy colors. Here’s a couple of pics of my guy that show his full fired up colors. Does your guy’s dark marks look anything like this?
View attachment 323323View attachment 323324
*do take note that my guy is a bit overweight - he sneaks food.
Yes very similar he just doesn’t really have his bright yellows like that yet. But black on the body in a pattern like that, and all the grey on the head replaced with black just like that, whew thank you.
2B82EFDE-26B3-457D-BBA9-F588D186F625.jpeg
 
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