serenitystarlite
Established Member
My nosy be panther chameleon Drac hates his cage and I hate it too. We're having serious cage issues with it. Drac was in a wood/screen cage that was 18x12x30in. As he got bigger, he started pacing the cage and trying to get out. So I started working on a new cage and debated moving him into Kami's 2x2x5ft cage. But with Kami's past health problems, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to sanitize that cage well enough for him and felt bad downgrading her from her condo. When I was at the reptile show a few weeks ago, I got a female Jackson's chameleon named Lotus along with a 15x15x30in screen/metal cage. Even though the 2 cages are almost the same size, the new one seems like it has more space since it's square, so I moved him into this cage thinking he would like it. I don't think he likes it.
So here are the problems I'm having with this current cage:
1. This new cage's screen is very tiny and I can't hang anything from the screen itself, only from the frame. The cages I built are made with 1/4th inch hardware cloth, so it's extremely easy to hang things in those cages. It's also really easy for my chameleons to hold onto. I've been trying to add more vines and things and having a really hard time hanging anything except for what's already in there. If I could hang more vines, maybe he would feel more comfortable and have more things to climb on instead of the screen.
2. Drac seems like he has trouble holding onto this screen and has fallen several times (into his plant, he doesn't fall far). His grip seems fine and he never fell in his old cage. He grips me with no problem and doesn't lose his grip. I even turned him upside down and tried to (gently) shake him off of my hand to see if he was having issues with his grip and he held on with no problem. He doesn't fall from anything in the cage except the screen. He has no problem holding onto the plants and vines that are in there now. He doesn't fall all the time, just sometimes and usually from the top of the screen when he's upside down. His nails aren't very long compared to the rest of my chams. Does anyone else have an issue with screen cages like this? Do I need to put him back in his old cage and just put my new Jackson's in this one or will that stress him out even more?
3. This screen under the basking light gets extremely hot, probably hot enough to burn him. This also might be partly why he's falling sometimes, if he's burning his feet on the screen
I checked him all over for burns and he seems to be fine, but now I'm afraid to use the light until I can find a solution for it. I'm going to see if I can find a bulb cage of some kind or see if I can find the clamp to this lamp and clamp it to something. I tried to make something out of hardware cloth for the lamp to sit on, but it fell. My lamps sit directly on my other cages and the hardware cloth doesn't get hot at all. What can I do? Someone else has to have this same cage that has a solution to this problem.
He has a 2x2x5ft cage waiting for him, but it will take a month for the stain/poly to dry. So in the meantime, I need to try to make this cage work or I'm going to throw it out the window (not with him it in of course) Otherwise I can put him back in his old cage and move Lotus into this cage, but that will be stressful on both of them, especially because she might be pregnant (not my doing, she came that way)
These pics are from yesterday, before I moved his cage onto a plastic drawer for drainage. Here's my little blue guy:
here's his cage (it's now sitting on a plastic drawer for drainage):
and here's his Chameleon Info:
* Your Chameleon - Male nosy be panther chameleon. He's about 6 months old and I've had him for 3 months.
* Handling - I've been handling him more lately when he's freaking out in his cage and he seems to calm down when I let him out to crawl on me and around the room.
* Feeding - I've offered him everything and it seems like he should be eating more than he does at his age. Some days he doesn't eat much at all. I offer him hornworms, butterworms, crickets, dubias, and even waxworms everyday. He usually only eats 2 or 3 worms or crickets each day. He won't touch the dubias and only ate 1 or 2 waxworms total. I gutload them (except the worms) with kale, orange slices, bananas, pears, Zilla gutload, and Fluker's cricket quencher. I offer him 5-10 feeders per day but he only eats 2 or 3.
* Supplements - Zoomed calcium without d3 every feeding, Rep-cal with d3 twice a month, and Rep-cal Herptivite once a month.
* Watering - I was misting several times a day. I didn't have a way to drain water, so I wasn't using a dripper but now the cage is sitting on a plastic drawer with holes drilled in the top of the drawer for drainage, so now I can use a dripper. Sometimes he drinks out of the spray bottle.
* Fecal Description - Fecal/urates are normal, even without a dripper for the past week.
* History - Nothing I can think of other than I switched him to a new cage, but he was pacing the old cage too.
Cage Info:
* Cage Type - Currently he is in a 15x15x30in metal/screen cage. Not sure what brand, I bought it from a breeder at the reptile show and it didn't have anything on the box.
* Lighting - 18in Repti-sun 5.0 UVB and a regular 60 watt household incandescent bulb for basking. Lights are on from 8am-8pm.
* Temperature - 85F at the basking spot and 75F at the bottom of his cage. At night it only goes down to about 70F since the weather has gotten nice. I use a digital thermometer.
* Humidity - Humidity is 50-75%. I mist the cage several times a day and his digital thermometer has a humidity gauge.
* Plants - There is a Dragon Plant and a pothos
* Placement - His current cage is near the window which is only open when it gets really hot in here. The top of the cage is about 6ft from the ground. There is a small fan but it points away from him and I run it at night. It blows on me at night but I can barely feel it, so I doubt it bothers any of the chams (plus it's always really hot in here at night).
* Location - Where are you geographically located? Pittsburgh, PA
Thank you for getting through this super long post
So here are the problems I'm having with this current cage:
1. This new cage's screen is very tiny and I can't hang anything from the screen itself, only from the frame. The cages I built are made with 1/4th inch hardware cloth, so it's extremely easy to hang things in those cages. It's also really easy for my chameleons to hold onto. I've been trying to add more vines and things and having a really hard time hanging anything except for what's already in there. If I could hang more vines, maybe he would feel more comfortable and have more things to climb on instead of the screen.
2. Drac seems like he has trouble holding onto this screen and has fallen several times (into his plant, he doesn't fall far). His grip seems fine and he never fell in his old cage. He grips me with no problem and doesn't lose his grip. I even turned him upside down and tried to (gently) shake him off of my hand to see if he was having issues with his grip and he held on with no problem. He doesn't fall from anything in the cage except the screen. He has no problem holding onto the plants and vines that are in there now. He doesn't fall all the time, just sometimes and usually from the top of the screen when he's upside down. His nails aren't very long compared to the rest of my chams. Does anyone else have an issue with screen cages like this? Do I need to put him back in his old cage and just put my new Jackson's in this one or will that stress him out even more?
3. This screen under the basking light gets extremely hot, probably hot enough to burn him. This also might be partly why he's falling sometimes, if he's burning his feet on the screen
I checked him all over for burns and he seems to be fine, but now I'm afraid to use the light until I can find a solution for it. I'm going to see if I can find a bulb cage of some kind or see if I can find the clamp to this lamp and clamp it to something. I tried to make something out of hardware cloth for the lamp to sit on, but it fell. My lamps sit directly on my other cages and the hardware cloth doesn't get hot at all. What can I do? Someone else has to have this same cage that has a solution to this problem. He has a 2x2x5ft cage waiting for him, but it will take a month for the stain/poly to dry. So in the meantime, I need to try to make this cage work or I'm going to throw it out the window (not with him it in of course
) Otherwise I can put him back in his old cage and move Lotus into this cage, but that will be stressful on both of them, especially because she might be pregnant (not my doing, she came that way) These pics are from yesterday, before I moved his cage onto a plastic drawer for drainage. Here's my little blue guy:
here's his cage (it's now sitting on a plastic drawer for drainage):
and here's his Chameleon Info:
* Your Chameleon - Male nosy be panther chameleon. He's about 6 months old and I've had him for 3 months.
* Handling - I've been handling him more lately when he's freaking out in his cage and he seems to calm down when I let him out to crawl on me and around the room.
* Feeding - I've offered him everything and it seems like he should be eating more than he does at his age. Some days he doesn't eat much at all. I offer him hornworms, butterworms, crickets, dubias, and even waxworms everyday. He usually only eats 2 or 3 worms or crickets each day. He won't touch the dubias and only ate 1 or 2 waxworms total. I gutload them (except the worms) with kale, orange slices, bananas, pears, Zilla gutload, and Fluker's cricket quencher. I offer him 5-10 feeders per day but he only eats 2 or 3.
* Supplements - Zoomed calcium without d3 every feeding, Rep-cal with d3 twice a month, and Rep-cal Herptivite once a month.
* Watering - I was misting several times a day. I didn't have a way to drain water, so I wasn't using a dripper but now the cage is sitting on a plastic drawer with holes drilled in the top of the drawer for drainage, so now I can use a dripper. Sometimes he drinks out of the spray bottle.
* Fecal Description - Fecal/urates are normal, even without a dripper for the past week.
* History - Nothing I can think of other than I switched him to a new cage, but he was pacing the old cage too.
Cage Info:
* Cage Type - Currently he is in a 15x15x30in metal/screen cage. Not sure what brand, I bought it from a breeder at the reptile show and it didn't have anything on the box.
* Lighting - 18in Repti-sun 5.0 UVB and a regular 60 watt household incandescent bulb for basking. Lights are on from 8am-8pm.
* Temperature - 85F at the basking spot and 75F at the bottom of his cage. At night it only goes down to about 70F since the weather has gotten nice. I use a digital thermometer.
* Humidity - Humidity is 50-75%. I mist the cage several times a day and his digital thermometer has a humidity gauge.
* Plants - There is a Dragon Plant and a pothos
* Placement - His current cage is near the window which is only open when it gets really hot in here. The top of the cage is about 6ft from the ground. There is a small fan but it points away from him and I run it at night. It blows on me at night but I can barely feel it, so I doubt it bothers any of the chams (plus it's always really hot in here at night).
* Location - Where are you geographically located? Pittsburgh, PA
Thank you for getting through this super long post
