Opinions on first time enclosure

[Mfohlin]

Hello, new to keeping and hoped for some thoughts and opinions.
Peaches is our new female panther.

• Your Chameleon - Peaches, about 8 month old female panther
• Handling - Seems to becomfotanle in enclose but comes out regularly to join me at the window to bask in the direct sunlight. Very explorative and friendly, haven’t heard a hiss, seen a defensive stance, or seen an attempted bite in the three weeks she’s been with us
• Feeding - 2-3 crickets daily, being gut loaded by dry cricket food and water gel. We’ll implement better diet for feeders soon. Occasional mealworms, black soldiers fly larvae.
• Supplements -Dusted calcium no d3 every feed. Started multi vitamin with d3 the 20th will again the 5th.
• Watering - Primarily misting, someone is always home so 10-15 times daily to keep up humidity. She does lap water off leaves, I want to eliminate fake foliage for this reason. Working on integrating accessible drinking glass
• Fecal Description - Dark brown log, urate has small firm eggshell color deposit, slightly orange in between urate and feces. Not tested for parasite but weight seems steady and she’s eating and drinking just fine. Poops every other day it seems
• History - Purchased from petco a few weeks ago. Don’t know much other than she got there very young around November 2023. Told us she didn’t like misting or crickets whatsoever but she has no problem at all with either from us. Particularly loves the misting

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Mesh cage, 30Tall x16Wide x16Deep
• Lighting - Blue bulb that came with enclosure for heat/uva. Upgraded from using 2nd socket UVB bulb and got a zoo med t5 5.0. UVB is too wide for cage so has a bit of overhang
• Temperature - Top: 78-82 F, bottom:70ish daytime. It’s clear when she’s ready for lights out and she cozy’s up right away. Night temp in the apartment is between 62-67, where she’s farther from heat unit
• Humidity - 40-60% throughout day. Trying to maintain with misting. Laying bin has helped hold up humidity. Small stump behind laying bin holds up humidity as well. Humidity meter in enclosure. I do a large misting just before I turn out lights for nighttime humidity bump
• Plants - Just in the last few days planted a lemon lime prayer plant in the corner of laying bin for privacy and for her to have a root ball to dig around. I’m no botanist so it may have an issue rooting again because I probably mishandled removing the fertilized soil
• 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?enclosure is in our record room, just outside of direct sunlight through til noon. Our four cats enjoy the room as well but we close the room off at night with the French doors and a screen over the open doorway to keep cats out and air flowing. Levoit Air purifier is running 24/7 just below and right of her enclosure to ensure clean airflow in the lower airflow corner she’s towards and to take away from the amount of cat hair that gets around. Windows will open soon with warmer temps coming. Cage goes to a little taller than 4 1/2 feet
• Location - New Hampshire, USA. Warm weather is coming so windows will open, AC eventually. And will be very aware of humidity drop throughout winter

 

[naterowley]

Hi Welcome to keeping! You'll find a nice variety of help here, can you measure how far the closest branch is the UVB bulb that your chameleon can reach, and also the same with the basking bulb can you provide the distance and the wattage? She looks super cute and will be in wonderful hands with you, there will be more feedback after me but I do know these are some the first things we will want to figure out

 

[MissSkittles]

Hi and welcome! Peaches is a beauty! I’ll go thru your husbandry and will have a lot of feedback for you. It’ll take me a bit of time.

 

[MissSkittles]

I’ll be putting my feedback in bold.

• Your Chameleon - Peaches, about 8 month old female panther
• Handling - Seems to becomfotanle in enclose but comes out regularly to join me at the window to bask in the direct sunlight. Very explorative and friendly, haven’t heard a hiss, seen a defensive stance, or seen an attempted bite in the three weeks she’s been with us Panthers tend to be a bit more tolerant of us and some willingly come out to us.
• Feeding - 2-3 crickets daily, being gut loaded by dry cricket food and water gel. We’ll implement better diet for feeders soon. Occasional mealworms, black soldiers fly larvae. The amount is ok for now, but in a few months you will want to decrease to every other day feeding. You do need to add more variety and feed your insect feeders better. A healthy well fed bug is more nutritious. I keep mine fed with a variety of fresh produce and will add just a bit of Repashy Bug Burger to round out their nutrition. Mealworms aren’t a good staple feeder. Attaching some graphics below to help.
• Supplements -Dusted calcium no d3 every feed. Started multi vitamin with d3 the 20th will again the 5th. Very good! May I ask which multivitamin/D3 product you’re using?
• Watering - Primarily misting, someone is always home so 10-15 times daily to keep up humidity. Ok…wow. That’s a lot of misting! It would be better to mist for at least 2 minutes right before lights go on and off. If needed, you can either add another misting during the day or use a dripper for about 15-20 minutes. The enclosure needs to be able to dry out in between. I’ll cover humidity in that section. She does lap water off leaves, I want to eliminate fake foliage for this reason. Yes! This will help. https://chameleonacademy.com/plants/ Working on integrating accessible drinking glass This is something that another very different forum advocates for and here, we don’t believe in it. Chameleons aren’t known to identify still water as a drinking source. While some have been able to train their chameleons to drink from a glass, it is unnatural for them. There is however, a very natural way of hydration that we do advocate for here, and that is thru fogging at night. Provided you can achieve a consistent temp drop at night, below at least 68-70, you can add a cool mist humidifier/fogger for a few hours during the night. This simulates the hydration chameleons get in the wild thru fog.
• Fecal Description - Dark brown log, urate has small firm eggshell color deposit, slightly orange in between urate and feces. A little orange or yellow is ok, but you want it mostly to be white urate Not tested for parasite but weight seems steady and she’s eating and drinking just fine. Poops every other day it seems It’s always a good idea to test for parasites
• History - Purchased from petco a few weeks ago. Don’t know much other than she got there very young around November 2023. Aww…poor little sweetie spent a long time there. She looks surprisingly good, considering that. Petco isn’t known for their quality of chameleon care. Told us she didn’t like misting or crickets whatsoever but she has no problem at all with either from us. Particularly loves the misting

More to come….

 

[MissSkittles]

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Mesh cage, 30Tall x16Wide x16Deep Afraid that Peaches will be needing larger. A 2x2x4’ is the standard minimum size for an adult. I’ll post a pic below so you can see the difference. *it was from when I was just starting out and was still learning, so mistakes are present.
• Lighting - Blue bulb that came with enclosure for heat/uva. Upgraded from using 2nd socket UVB bulb and got a zoo med t5 5.0. UVB is too wide for cage so has a bit of overhang Yes! The T5 5.0 is the correct uvb. You’ll need to replace the bulb every 6 months or so. I suggest getting an Arcadia 6% bulb next time, which is good for a year. Generally colored lights aren’t recommended for sensitive googly eyes. If you can find them, old fashioned incandescent bulbs are good, along with halogen and reptile specific basking bulbs. Make sure to avoid led and mercury vapor bulbs. You want a distance of 8-9” between basking branch and your lights.
• Temperature - Top: 78-82 F, bottom: Perfect! 70ish daytime. It’s clear when she’s ready for lights out and she cozy’s up right away. Night temp in the apartment is between 62-67, where she’s farther from heat unit Perfect! No problem for adding night fogging.
• Humidity - 40-60% throughout day. Trying to maintain with misting. What would be much better than all those mistings would be to enclose the back and possibly one or both sides to hold in the humidity. You can use a shower curtain, get shrink to fit insulating window film or modify with pvc or solid sides. Replacing all of the artificial plants with safe live ones will add and maintain humidity and add more beauty. I’ll address enclosure set up at the end. Laying bin has helped hold up humidity. Small stump behind laying bin holds up humidity as well. Humidity meter in enclosure. I see it peeking from the corner I think. It looks to be an analog meter, which is notoriously inaccurate. I suggest getting a digital one with a probe end (same for thermometer) or you could try one of the many types of ‘smart’ ones, like Govee. I do a large misting just before I turn out lights for nighttime humidity bump
• Plants - Just in the last few days planted a lemon lime prayer plant in the corner of laying bin for privacy and for her to have a root ball to dig around. I’m no botanist so it may have an issue rooting again because I probably mishandled removing the fertilized soil That is one of my favorite plants. Pothos is king when it comes to pants for chameleon enclosures. I like adding a large or tall center plant, like a schefflera or weeping fig. Then putting in vining plants or accent ones around it at varied levels.
• 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?enclosure is in our record room, just outside of direct sunlight through til noon. Our four cats enjoy the room as well but we close the room off at night with the French doors and a screen over the open doorway to keep cats out and air flowing. Levoit Air purifier is running 24/7 just below and right of her enclosure to ensure clean airflow in the lower airflow corner she’s towards and to take away from the amount of cat hair that gets around. Windows will open soon with warmer temps coming. Cage goes to a little taller than 4 1/2 feet I can’t stress it enough that you need to be very wary of your cats around your chameleon. Just a week or so ago someone’s cat got on top of the enclosure, fell thru and the injuries required the chameleon to be euthanized. I have cats too, and I’m not sure they are even aware that my chameleons exist. I have my enclosures up very high, so that the tops are about 6.5 x 7’ up. There is nothing near enough that my cats can leap to the enclosures from. I have the back and sides covered with a solid shower curtain and I have attached my artificial plants to the outside of the door, which gives the chameleon more privacy and helps hide it from my cats. If you need to reinforce the screen top, you could attach a piece of hardware cloth.
• Location - New Hampshire, USA. I can feel the New England spring. Warm weather is coming so windows will open, AC eventually. And will be very aware of humidity drop throughout winter

First, let’s talk about how to attach things when you have a screen enclosure. You never want anything connected only to the screening. Instead, you need to use the frame to support whatever weight of things you attach. The ways to do this are only limited by imagination. However, to make life easy, there are Dragon Ledges. https://dragonstrand.com/dragon-ledges/ This is what I’m using in my below pic. The weight I’ve had them hold is astounding! In the past, I was setting up a smaller enclosure for a baby and made a H shaped scaffolding of branches which I attached to the frame using thin wire. Then I could attach more branches and vines to that. Recently, I was setting up an enclosure and used scraps of garden trellis attached to the frame. I liked it so much that this is how I’ve set up additional enclosures. It did help to place some screws on the frame to attach my wires to, so my trellis wouldn’t slide down. It’s sturdy enough to support the weight of my branches and some plants. I like the look too. I use natural branches which I’ve scavenged and cleaned with dish soap. Just avoid those from trees with odor or sap, like pine, eucalyptus, etc. I do want to tell you that the black Exo Terra vine that you have has been well known to shed tiny particles, which somehow always make their way stuck in chameleon eyes. The better fake vines are like the foam Fluker’s ones.
With your plants, you want to create a forest edge. You need to provide some shaded areas to get out of the ‘sun’, hide or just hang out in. Lots of branches to travel and of varied diameters to fully exercise mitten feet muscles are best. I said pothos is king because it grows so fast, has long vines which are sturdy enough for additional little chameleon roads and big beautiful leaves, plus it requires little care to thrive.
I hope I’ve been able to be of some help to you. Do ask whatever questions you may have and I look forward to seeing more of your beautiful Peaches and your progress.

 

[Mfohlin]

That you very much for all the helpful insight.

Her supplements are repticalcium no d3 light dusted every feed and reptivite with d3 every two weeks. I will be implementing bee pollen occasionally as well.

It is currently the 60w daylight blue bulb but I had an incandescent alternative in mind.

I may have overstated our misting a bit, we just push a few sprays in there at a time to keep her leaves somewhat saturated, she usually shoots for a drop or two when we mist. I will keep the nighttime fogger in mind. I had also planned to cover at least the back wall to keep moisture away from my drywall and for humidity purposes.

And thank you for the structural tips. I will definitely find some dragon ledges and new vines. I hated the idea of attaching to the screen in the first place. Her current preferred spots distance from basking is about 6-7 inches and same for uvb

Thank you again

 

[elizaann2]

Hello and welcome to you and your beautiful panther girl! You have been given some great advice by other members on here. I hope you stick around so we can watch your girl grow