Pro's please Chime in about my idea!!

[juice28]

Ok, I am new to being a chameleon owner and I have read countless posts on here and other forums and articles etc on their care. Now my question/theory is this:

this is for an indoor screen cage for a female veiled cham. with good misting regularly, not the heavy 4-5 gallon drenchings daily that ive read alot about. A mister system just isnt an option right now due to location so i have a good spray bottle that i use 4-5 times a day and a big dripper thats on almost 24/7

from what ive read, veild chams are know eaters..of just about everything...I have a female still fairly young i was told about 5-6 months about 4 inches not including tail and she loves her every once in a while leaf off the tree and ive seen her purposely dig out the rocks to get to the soil in one of her potted plants...she only did it once and didnt eat much of it.. but still..she still sampled it..and Ive been reading up on female veiled care more than general care and i see the "egg box" come up all the time and substrate fee cages and proper drainage is hot topic as well..Now..being that females need to have an area they can lay eggs in when the time comes.Now, would this work.. you have the screen cage indoor enclosure.. little door on the bottom so you can obviously put a tray of some sort in there to catch water or hold whatever.. what if i used say a plastic drawer like from one of the plastic wal mart shelf systems...they are about 7 inches deep at least some are deeper, and filled it with a mix of mainly sand and some organic potting soil and used that for..a "drain" and an egg laying place combined? im probably wrong about this lol being so green with chams, but it seems like at least for a female it would kill 2 birds with one stone.. the mix would stay damp but not soaked by catching the run off and the sand would dry fairly quick with the hi temps and being under the heat lights helping keep humidity high, she would have a large area to choose from, minus where the pots would be buried and itd be easy to keep clean, kinda like scooping kitty liter and with the occasional stirring water wouldnt..settle at the bottom.. i ask this because if you had a separate container in the enclosure by itself, its going to catch a fair amount of water from the misting/spraying etc, its still going to have to be cleaned and maintained and the soil mix still would have to be fluffed up so to speak, free range food will still crawl in it and she will still probably eat some of it every now and then regardless...so why doesnt anyone use a set up like that?

 

[Video Master]

Not sure where you read that an automated mister used 4 to 5 gallons a day. My 5 gallon bucket lasts almost 2 weeks. You do not need to drown the cham with the automated mister. You just need to make sure to get everything wet and enough time for them to do a cleaning in the morning.

 

[juice28]

Sorry I wasn't implying that misters use that much water, but I've read on some post where some people. use up to 3-5 gallons a day

 

[VigilantSpearIII]

Sorry I wasn't implying that misters use that much water, but I've read on some post where some people. use up to 3-5 gallons a day

Maybe for a large family of chameleons, haha. I use about 1 gallon/week for 1 cham. 3-5 gallons a day would be for like 20+ chameleons. Even with a dripper, mister, and fogger, you wouldn't even use half a gallon in one day.

 

[juice28]

Lol I was like wow lol I barely us a half gallon lol I don't use that much on my SW reef tank lol

 

[Carlton]

Ok, I am new to being a chameleon owner and I have read countless posts on here and other forums and articles etc on their care. Now my question/theory is this:

this is for an indoor screen cage for a female veiled cham. with good misting regularly, not the heavy 4-5 gallon drenchings daily that ive read alot about. A mister system just isnt an option right now due to location so i have a good spray bottle that i use 4-5 times a day and a big dripper thats on almost 24/7

from what ive read, veild chams are know eaters..of just about everything...I have a female still fairly young i was told about 5-6 months about 4 inches not including tail and she loves her every once in a while leaf off the tree and ive seen her purposely dig out the rocks to get to the soil in one of her potted plants...she only did it once and didnt eat much of it.. but still..she still sampled it..and Ive been reading up on female veiled care more than general care and i see the "egg box" come up all the time and substrate fee cages and proper drainage is hot topic as well..Now..being that females need to have an area they can lay eggs in when the time comes.Now, would this work.. you have the screen cage indoor enclosure.. little door on the bottom so you can obviously put a tray of some sort in there to catch water or hold whatever.. what if i used say a plastic drawer like from one of the plastic wal mart shelf systems...they are about 7 inches deep at least some are deeper, and filled it with a mix of mainly sand and some organic potting soil and used that for..a "drain" and an egg laying place combined? im probably wrong about this lol being so green with chams, but it seems like at least for a female it would kill 2 birds with one stone.. the mix would stay damp but not soaked by catching the run off and the sand would dry fairly quick with the hi temps and being under the heat lights helping keep humidity high, she would have a large area to choose from, minus where the pots would be buried and itd be easy to keep clean, kinda like scooping kitty liter and with the occasional stirring water wouldnt..settle at the bottom.. i ask this because if you had a separate container in the enclosure by itself, its going to catch a fair amount of water from the misting/spraying etc, its still going to have to be cleaned and maintained and the soil mix still would have to be fluffed up so to speak, free range food will still crawl in it and she will still probably eat some of it every now and then regardless...so why doesnt anyone use a set up like that?

Well, some people probably do something like this. I think it will come down to how much time and effort in soil condition monitoring you are willing to do over time. Cham cage substrates don't always saturate, drain, or dry as we hope they will (because of your local indoor temps, airflow, and humidity), and you would need some way to keep track of the moisture content so any eggs she lays won't dry out or mold. Also, remember that your cham will be pooping into that same soil, so eventually bacteria, e coli, parasites, etc. will build up. The soil may eventually become a health issue eggs or not. Now if she is laying infertile eggs you won't need to worry about anything hatching, but they will eventually rot if you don't find and remove them. And, as females don't lay eggs constantly you really only need that egg laying bin available periodically. The rest of the time all that substrate/soil still needs to be monitored to avoid molds and fungi growth.

 

[juice28]

Well, some people probably do something like this. I think it will come down to how much time and effort in soil condition monitoring you are willing to do over time. Cham cage substrates don't always saturate, drain, or dry as we hope they will (because of your local indoor temps, airflow, and humidity), and you would need some way to keep track of the moisture content so any eggs she lays won't dry out or mold. Also, remember that your cham will be pooping into that same soil, so eventually bacteria, e coli, parasites, etc. will build up. The soil may eventually become a health issue eggs or not. Now if she is laying infertile eggs you won't need to worry about anything hatching, but they will eventually rot if you don't find and remove them. And, as females don't lay eggs constantly you really only need that egg laying bin available periodically. The rest of the time all that substrate/soil still needs to be monitored to avoid molds and fungi growth.

thanks for your input, i live in a very hot dry part of new mexico so theres no such thing as humidity here lol at least not to me but im from new orleans..big difference from here and no the eggs wouldnt be fertile and would be removed asap. i am running into a bit of an issue with keeping my humidity up consistently being that the humidity here is like 5-10(just a guess but its a desert climate kind of) it averages 65/70.. higher with mistings of course and lower at night when the lights are off temp is ok its about 88in her basking area and 85 a bit further down. ill probably cover 2 -3 sides with a thick plastic like a shower liner

 

[Carlton]

ill probably cover 2 -3 sides with a thick plastic like a shower liner

I've kept chams in bone dry Colorado so know exactly what you are facing. Definitely try the shower curtains and also consider cycling an ultrasonic room humidifier on and off with a lamp timer. Both should help a lot.

 

[juice28]

I've kept chams in bone dry Colorado so know exactly what you are facing. Definitely try the shower curtains and also consider cycling an ultrasonic room humidifier on and off with a lamp timer. Both should help a lot.

thanks for the advice especially from someone with similar issues. so yea its a fine balancing act being here

 

[pigglett79]

It is really dry where I'm at. I have a cool mist humidifier piped in to my Jackson cage. Between the two cages my mist king goes through the 5 gallon bucket in about 3 days.

 

[juice28]

ok, thats not too bad. im getting ideas from all of your inputs, the more the better

 

[juice28]

So I've added the plastic liner around 2 sides of the cage and the humidity is around 75-80 she's shedding now and has somewhat of a grey color most of the time. She's bright green when walking around and when she sleeping. Is the darker greenish grey normal for a veiled? Or is because she's shedding?

 

[clarkrw3]

I run 5+ gal day but that's through 30+ misters in my cham room

 

[Coded]

Maybe for a large family of chameleons, haha. I use about 1 gallon/week for 1 cham. 3-5 gallons a day would be for like 20+ chameleons. Even with a dripper, mister, and fogger, you wouldn't even use half a gallon in one day.

same here....1 gallon/week for 1 cham.

 

[Kiwiflage]

I have this system and its worked well. I do not currently have a substrate but will get sand soon for her to lay eggs. Currently my tray catches wanted and waste which allows me to take the drawer out for easy cleaning

 

[juice28]

I have this system and its worked well. I do not currently have a substrate but will get sand soon for her to lay eggs. Currently my tray catches wanted and waste which allows me to take the drawer out for easy cleaning

it seems like it would be a pretty good set up and easy to clean up i set mine up with an 18x 15 aluminum baking pan...i cut the end off and overlapped it so it fit. In the 16x16 bottom. I got some sand from Lowe's and filled it and misted the top. She pooped in it right away and and it clumped up just like kitty litter n I scooped it out. so we'll see how this work out with keeping the humidity up. She hates being misted and get very upset when i spray her cage so i may try a fogger....i just don't want to drop 60 bucks and have that make her more uncomfortable that the spray