Please Critique My Husbandry

CamoChameleonsHuman

Chameleon Enthusiast
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Male Veiled, age unknown but I'm guessing 4-4 1/2 months old, been in my care for 1 1/2 months
Handling - He's not a huge fan of handling so only when I clean his enclosure. Every 3-4 days for 10-15min period.
Feeding - Feeding 10 1/2" crickets in AM and 1 hornworm at lunch everyday. Crickets are gutloaded on bug burger and Bee pollen this week. Last week it was carrots and Mangos. Hornworms are on superhorn. I tried Dubias and BSFL with no success. Have Superworms coming for him to try next.
Supplements - ExoTerra Calcium everyday except Fridays. Fridays I alternate between ExoTerra Calcium + D3, Rep-Cal Herptavite, and Repashy Vitamin A Plus. Therefore he gets 1 of each every 3 weeks. I also started dusting with bee pollen as well.
Watering - Monsoon Solo going off 3x a day for 2min each. I do not see him drinking but I have seen him drink once off the leaves. I also hand mist with luke warm water once every 2weeks for a nice long bath. Monsoon gets distilled water and I put Reptisafe in the hand mister.
Fecal Description - lately since I added hornworms to his diet his urates is super watery but always white. His poops are firm but soft and brown with no undigested bugs visible.
History - He's a Petco cam. I originally had him in a 12x39x19 glass/screen hybrid enclosure with the mini compact UVB lamps for his first week at home but I have since upgraded all of this. Also I'm still working on a drainage system. I plan on getting the Universal Large Heavy Duty Dragonstrand drainage tray next week.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - 2x2x4 DIY all screen PVC floor.
Lighting - ExoTerra 100w basking bulb in deep dome. Zoo Med 24" T5HO linear UVB with 10.0 24 watt. Lights on 12.5hrs a day off for 11.5hrs on timer.
Temperature - 72-80 basking at 85
Measured with ZooMed dial gauge and temp gun.
Humidity - 45-50% during the day 70-75% at night. Using monsoon solo during day and ultrasonic cool air humidifer running 24/7 in his room. The humidifier is not pumping the air into his enclosure. Measured with ZooMed dial hydrometer.
Plants - 8 all fake plants. Plan on getting him a pothos once spring finally shows its face and we have plants out. 1 3ft long grapevine wood and baked pine wood dowels built into a tower. (See pics}
Placement - located in a bedroom not near any fans. Can be a high traffic area. No where in my house is traffic free lol. cage is 2ft off the floor. Top of cage is 6ft off the floor.
Location - located in Southern Colorado by the front range.

Current Problem - no issues but I'm curious if the watery urates are because of the hornworms? And if it's OK that his urates are basically like white diarrhea? Granted his poops are normal.
 

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The specifics of your husbandry look pretty good, but the cage needs some work. It is currently way too bare for a chameleon to feel comfortable.

Remember: empty space is wasted space! Needs more horizontal branches/vines/etc and significantly more foliage cover. Preferably live plants
 
The specifics of your husbandry look pretty good, but the cage needs some work. It is currently way too bare for a chameleon to feel comfortable.

Remember: empty space is wasted space! Needs more horizontal branches/vines/etc and significantly more foliage cover. Preferably live plants
I plan to do some live plant shopping once Spring officially hits. Thank you for your comment.
 
Current Problem - no issues but I'm curious if the watery urates are because of the hornworms? And if it's OK that his urates are basically like white diarrhea? Granted his poops are normal.
If the poop is normal all the time with solid I wont be too worry when its watery after consuming the hornworm , but if problem persist then we will need to looking into every angle to figure out what is causing it...keep eye on the poop n keep us update.
 
So all the details in the form look great. I would add live plants sooner then later. They do make the chams feel much more secure and our veileds really love their pothos to nibble on. I know all the indoor nurseries here are getting tons of plants in. I just picked up a beautiful Marble queen pothos today. You can also order them online. I think you will really like the drainage tray from Dragon strand.
As far as urates being runny white. I think this is normal since you are feeding horns. I also have a petco baby as well. I would recommend finding a vet you can take a fresh stool sample in to be checked. Just as a precaution and to rule out any parasites that could be an issue later. I called around until I got one to agree to just run the sample rather then making me stress Beman with an exam.
 
Better?!?!

This is a marked improvement, but still needs some important changes. It's better that you have more foliage and branches, but they still aren't located in the most important part of the enclosure (the upper half). The way you have it set up, the available perches are way too far away from the basking spot and UVB to do your cham any good. Without changing this, your cham will either glue itself to the top of the enclosure directly under the lights (dangerous) or simply not receive the warmth and UV which are necessary for their longevity.

Basically, what I think you should do, is either move everything you have right now up a good 6" or so (this is an estimate since I can't really tell the scale from the picture very well) or add more materials above what you already have to fill it out. Chams want to be as high up as possible, so the top part of the enclosure is the most critical in terms of branch placement.

Oh, and add another horizontal perch option going straight through the middle of the enclosure. You kind of have it setup as a square frame, but your cham needs access to the central part of the cage as well - not just the sides
 
This is a marked improvement, but still needs some important changes. It's better that you have more foliage and branches, but they still aren't located in the most important part of the enclosure (the upper half). The way you have it set up, the available perches are way too far away from the basking spot and UVB to do your cham any good. Without changing this, your cham will either glue itself to the top of the enclosure directly under the lights (dangerous) or simply not receive the warmth and UV which are necessary for their longevity.

Basically, what I think you should do, is either move everything you have right now up a good 6" or so (this is an estimate since I can't really tell the scale from the picture very well) or add more materials above what you already have to fill it out. Chams want to be as high up as possible, so the top part of the enclosure is the most critical in terms of branch placement.

Oh, and add another horizontal perch option going straight through the middle of the enclosure. You kind of have it setup as a square frame, but your cham needs access to the central part of the cage as well - not just the sides
His 2 basking branches are 12" exactly from the top of the screen. Im maxed out in the 3ft wooden dowels. I will however get a couple more to run down the middle on the 3ft high set and 2ft high set. Thank you for your input
 
His 2 basking branches are 12" exactly from the top of the screen. Im maxed out in the 3ft wooden dowels. I will however get a couple more to run down the middle on the 3ft high set and 2ft high set. Thank you for your input

12" is too far away from the lights. You want 6-8". The extra 4-6" makes a huge difference. It's not functional to leave the top 1/4 of the enclosure empty. Again, the top 1/2 is vital, and you're leaving half of the top half empty. Also, maybe consider getting some natural branches or vines... The dowels aren't particularly "grippy" and it really isn't good for chameleons to only have one size perch to grab onto. They need perches of all different diameters to properly stretch their feet
 
Do I need to get a grow light for it or will the basking light suffice? I know they don't like a lot of light.
Nope your uvb one should be good. If you should notice the leaves dying off then you could either add a dome light with a plant bulb or get a dual bulb fixture and get a 6500 daylight bulb and add your uvb to that. I run a quad unit and I find they do love the light.
 
So as @Syreptyon was saying and is right on with your distance...
@CamoChameleonsHuman
So you can see how drastically it reduces here are my measurements. Yours will not be the same as mine though because I am running a quad unit with a 12% arcadia UVB bulb. Fixture type and how many bulbs along with which brand and UVB strength you use do make a difference in measurements of UVI and distance. But this will give you an example of where my UVI levels are with the equipment I am using.
Your also compensating in these numbers for the rise of the cham higher then the distance of measure. My highest basking branch is 7 inches. So when he basks here he has about a 2-3 inch rise in body off the branch putting him in the 4-5 inch measurement. Hope that makes sense lol.

Measurement is from screen down and the UVI level that coordinates with it. With a quad T5HO fixture and a 12% Arcadia UVB bulb…
3 inches = 4.5 UVI
4 inches = 3.8 UVI
5 inches = 3.0 UVI
6 inches = 2.5 UVI
7 inches = 2.1 UVI
8 inches = 1.8 UVI
9 inches = 1.4 UVI
10 inches = 1.2 UVI
11 inches = 1.0 UVI
12 inches = 0.8 UVI
15 inches = 0.01 UVI to nothing
 
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Measurement is from screen down and the UVI level that coordinates with it. With a quad T5HO fixture and a 12% Arcadia UVB bulb…
3 inches = 4.5 UVI
4 inches = 3.8 UVI
5 inches = 3.0 UVI
6 inches = 2.5 UVI
7 inches = 2.1 UVI
8 inches = 1.8 UVI
9 inches = 1.4 UVI
10 inches = 1.2 UVI
11 inches = 1.0 UVI
12 inches = 0.8 UVI
15 inches = 0.01 UVI to nothing

This is a super helpful reference! Will definitely be saving this.
 
This is a super helpful reference! Will definitely be saving this.
Awesome, yes I did it for another member I was helping who has the exact same bulbs and fixture I have but did not have the solarmeter to measure. :) Feel free to use it. The fixture is the quad fixture from lightyourreptiles.com. :)
 
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