no cage????

im faster

New Member
does anyone else not keep there chams in a cage....


i have a huge tree that i got from a nother member.. and i keep my small cham in the tree all the time, and hand feed him.. the other will only eat when he is in the cage. but the tree is like 8ftand the big guy stays at the top, small one stays lower. they leave eachother alone. just wondering if im the only one
 
cool. You gotta post some pics of that. I'm designing my chams new cage so that there are no walls. I'm gonna attempt to free range it. Hopefully it will help the psycology of the cham. I'm hoping it will keep her less stressed.
 
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I'm surprised that there is no conflict between the two chams. I saw a pretty nasty jackson fight on youtube. You might want to put some padding on the floor in case they fight when you're not home. They really throw eachother off the branches like sumo wrestlers.
 
lol...I didn't even notice that I hit senior status. By the way check the other vids that the person has. They are cool too. They explain how panthers change colors in the other one.
 
i think that the tree would be good for showering or for taking your cham outside to get some sun time, but it probably isn't very good for humidity. In another post that you had it looked like maybe one of your chams had a bad shed and this can be a pretty good indication of poor humidity. It also isn't a very full tree and doesn't offer them a whole lot of cover, which they need to feel secure and to help establish territory and reduce stress.

Also, housing 2 males chams together is never a very good idea. It stresses them out, which can certainly lead to a higher rate of sickness and even early death.

How are your chams getting water? Do they have good (close and constant) UVB exposure on the tree? How are your basking and ambient temps?

The older cham only eating in the cage is also a pretty good hint that he doesn't feel secure being in the tree.

Sure, the "freedom" seems beneficial, but if it is hindering other aspects of good husbandry, then it probably would be better to give them play time on the tree and let them spend the majority of their time in a more controlled enviroment.

Just my two cents!
 
Cherron is right. You may think you are providing the cham with more freedom, but you may actually just depriving it of good husbandry.

Where are the UV lights? Your cham will die a slow, painful death without UV exposure (unless you go the risky route of trying to balance it's supplements just perfectly).

The cham is not protected from the basking light. It could easily get burnt if it ever decides to climb onto the lamp as a means of escape (and it may not do so now, but when it gets older it will develop a wanderlust and try to leave the tree).
Also the basking light seems too low. Chams feel most secure when they are high, so a high basking light would allow it to bask in a place where it feels more secure.

Also, you may think that it is a big tree, but it is actually quite small in comparison to a suitable wild habitat. The foliage isn't very dense, and I can't imagine that it actually feels very secure in that thin bush in the middle of your room.

All of the problems I have mentioned above (including the humidity/watering issues that Cherron discussed) are some of the main reasons people don't free range their chams. It becomes very difficult to apply the correct husbandry in a free range environment.

It's far easier to provide a secure environment, where you can satisfy all the cham's needs in a cage or other type of enclosure. It's not impossible to free-range, but it is difficult, risky and demands that the keeper is experienced.

Hopefully I am wrong and that you haven't neglected the husbandry needs that I've brought up, but I can't see any evidence of that from those photgraphs.
 
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