newbie

iamangiea · Jul 22, 2014

Hi we have just brought our 1st ever Chameleon we she is a Yemen and told about 4 months old.

I admit she was an impulse buy but we have many other '"weird" pets and she will be well looked after. The guy in the shop done everything as a package and gave us everything that we needed, so he said!!!

After coming home and looking on various web sites and this forum we realise we need to make some adjustments to her home. We will be taking all her plastic plants out and replacing with real ones in the next few weeks.

I have brought an umbrella plant and had her in the sun which she seemed to enjoy.

We have tried her with waxworks but she isn't interested at all, but loves locus. Is it ok if her main diet is locus and crickets, we are gut loading them. Then covering them in calcium powder. I have read on here that she will also need multivitamin which i have just ordered.

Is she allowed any fruit or veg at this age if so what kind and how would we give it to her. I offered her waxworks by hand and a cup and she wasn't interested in either way.

Sorry for all the questions just want to make sure we are doing the right thing for her. Thanks.

SilverWolf · Jul 22, 2014

That's a great sign that you're doing all of this research and this is probably the best web site to provide needed knowledge and insight. And umbrella plant actually might be really good for the enclosure! According to most people here another good plant would be a Pothos. Do you have two bulbs? One for UVB and the other for basking? Crickets as a main diet are fine but it is still good to add some variety every now and then. In my case (I have a jackson chameleon), I mainly feed my chameleon crickets all gut loaded, but I will sometimes give him flies as a treat, specifically blue bottle flies. Well I plan to soon anyway.

Aside from feeding her live insects, Yemen chameleons will eat vegetation and fruit, such as mango. Here is a link to a care sheet that should provide some pretty good information for you.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/

Last note, as she is a female she will eventually become gravid and lay infertile eggs which I do not have any experience with. Thankfully, that shouldn't be for a while since she is so young, giving you plenty of time to do some research as to how to deal with infertile eggs (or fertile if you decide to allow her to breed).

iamangiea · Jul 22, 2014

Hi thanks for a speedy reply, yes we do have both bulbs. I am going to buy variety of plants for her viv, and keep the umbrella plant for when she goes out in the garden for sun.

We originally asked for a male but again once we got home realised "he" was a she, so i have looked up info about a female.

She seems ok at the moment she is having about 10 crickets a day, i hate the crickets so hubby puts them in before work and she seems to eat them during the day.

The other thing i wanted to ask is we are doing a drip system with a plastic cup on top of the viv, she goes to a large leaf to drink but how long do we leave it on there for i have read different times. We are spraying the viv 2-3 times a day also.

thanks

SilverWolf · Jul 22, 2014

iamangiea said:
Hi thanks for a speedy reply, yes we do have both bulbs. I am going to buy variety of plants for her viv, and keep the umbrella plant for when she goes out in the garden for sun.

We originally asked for a male but again once we got home realised "he" was a she, so i have looked up info about a female.

She seems ok at the moment she is having about 10 crickets a day, i hate the crickets so hubby puts them in before work and she seems to eat them during the day.

The other thing i wanted to ask is we are doing a drip system with a plastic cup on top of the viv, she goes to a large leaf to drink but how long do we leave it on there for i have read different times. We are spraying the viv 2-3 times a day also.

thanks

I tend to only use my dripper when I am going to be away and I want to ensure that he is getting plenty of water and can drink whenever he needs to. But my chameleon just drinks off of the leaves after misting, and will drink straight from the tip of the spray bottle. In most cases though for dripping, I'd say as long as it is a slow steady drip, and will slowly drip for maybe an hour a day. Preferably however, it should just keep on dripping as long as possible. It's okay to experiment a bit. Let it drip for as long as you want it to and make sure you have something to catch the water so you don't have any overflowing of water. As long as her urates are white, that means she's hydrated and getting plenty of water. But I'd say maybe an hour a day. it really just depends, and as long as she is drinking it doesn't matter too much. Just make sure those urates are white

.

Spraying 2-3 times a day seems good as long as you are making sure the humidity is quite high. Maybe spend a good minute or so each misting. There should be about 60 - 70% humidity most of the time.

laurie · Jul 22, 2014

Welcome to the forum! Doing all the research is the best thing you can do for your Cham. We are all happy to help. Looks like you are making the needed changes.We have a lot of members from the UK so they can tell you what and where to buy stuff in the UK.