possible basking light too hot?

[yarvy]

Hi, my 4 month old female veiled chameleon seems to have some brown spots on her casque, even when the rest of her body is bright green. Could this be because her basking spot is too hot and she got burned? I would think that she wouldn't stay up there long enough to get burned and that she would thermoregulate and go to a lower part of her enclosure if she was too hot but maybe that's not the case? I just measured the temperature at the very top where she sits occasionally and it was around 88-89 degrees. The lights are currently sitting directly on top of her mesh enclosure, and I'm not sure of an easy way to increase the distance between the lights and the cage if that is necessary.

 

[Carlton]

Hi, my 4 month old female veiled chameleon seems to have some brown spots on her casque, even when the rest of her body is bright green. Could this be because her basking spot is too hot and she got burned? I would think that she wouldn't stay up there long enough to get burned and that she would thermoregulate and go to a lower part of her enclosure if she was too hot but maybe that's not the case? I just measured the temperature at the very top where she sits occasionally and it was around 88-89 degrees. The lights are currently sitting directly on top of her mesh enclosure, and I'm not sure of an easy way to increase the distance between the lights and the cage if that is necessary.

Possibly. That is a common area for burns. Hard to say without seeing it. You would think they thermoregulate better, but ironically, they don't have many thermo receptors in their skin to warn them when their skin is getting too warm. Burns occur because of BOTH the temp AND the accumulated time they spend in it. The main problem is the way we provide heat...by a narrowly focused beam of heat from a bulb. Because they bask to warm up their internal organs, their skin can overheat before their insides reach "operating temp". Especially for young chams, they can and do get burned. So, the first thing to do is move the bulb up off the cage top to create a bit of air buffer and cool off the basking spot slightly. She may bask a little longer if its cooler, but that is still safer than getting a burn.

There are clamp fixtures you can get at hardware stores that will let you raise the light and clip it somewhere above the cage. Or, you can use a lower watt bulb.