quick question

sittnlowon22s

New Member
I have an adult male veiled chameleon ive had him almost 2 yrs i did some research nd in. general found out after a veiled becomes an adult he should shed avarage every 3 to four months. Yet mine sheds. Almost. Every month. Hope someone can get back to me on that
 
Is he shedding his whole body or just in parts? I have found that as they age they seem to always be shedding somewhere whether it be the tail, leg, foot...etc I do think it would be odd for an adult to be doing full body sheds at 2 yrs of age every month. From your avatar pic your Veild looks like it has a huge casque!
 
They shed when they grow. So your guy is still growing at a pretty good rate. Chronological age is not always a good measure of maturity. Some mature faster than others, and some grow larger than others. Shedding is a good thing, it means that you are taking good care of him. I'd be more concerned about infrequent shedding, or incomplete shedding. At some point his shedding will slow and that's when you could consider him full grown, not some date on the calendar or timeline listed on some website.
 
They shed when they grow. So your guy is still growing at a pretty good rate. Chronological age is not always a good measure of maturity. Some mature faster than others, and some grow larger than others. Shedding is a good thing, it means that you are taking good care of him. I'd be more concerned about infrequent shedding, or incomplete shedding. At some point his shedding will slow and that's when you could consider him full grown, not some date on the calendar or timeline listed on some website.

When they are adults, they do stop growing. They will shed from time to time but that does not mean they are getting any bigger, so I am not sure if I agree with your statement. By imcomplete shedding, what do you mean? They will shed just certain parts as adults and that is perfectly normal. If he has a two year old adult and he is shedding every month and still growing, he would probably be the size of an Iguana! And when they are adults they will have full body sheds but not very often and that to me would be infrequent, and again this is normal.
 
They will shed from time to time but that does not mean they are getting any bigger, so I am not sure if I agree with your statement. By imcomplete shedding, what do you mean?


Let me fix the wording to be more specific:
They shed more frequently when they are growing, less frequently when they are full size. Since the original poster is worried that his is still shedding frequently, I'd assume it is not yet full grown. By "full grown" I do not mean size only, like your iguana reference. A healthy young adult will continue to fill out. So although the skeleton is not growing any more, the body is.

I've never known of frequent shedding to be a problem, it is usually a good thing. Infrequent shedding can be a sign of a problem.

Incomplete shedding is a health issue where the un-shed skin is retained and causes problems. There are numerous online resources for you to reference.
 
I would say theyre full shed and rarely skips a month when he doesnt. I took him to a petstore recently cuz i take em out with me. When i can nd they also said he was abnormally big nd that his casque was the longest theyve ever seen. But wat do they kno they cjt even distinguish male nd female veiled.
 
I would say theyre full shed and rarely skips a month when he doesnt. I took him to a petstore recently cuz i take em out with me. When i can nd they also said he was abnormally big nd that his casque was the longest theyve ever seen. But wat do they kno they cjt even distinguish male nd female veiled.

Full shed about every month means he is still growing. Unless he is getting obese, don't stress about it. If you want to know for sure, a digital gram scale and logbook comes in handy. I'd be interested in hearing how much your guy weighs and seeing some bigger photos. From your avatar, he looks like some of the large wild caught veileds I used for my breeding program in the 90's.

One other thing that comes to mind when seeing larger than normal sizes/growth rates:

Hopefully he didn't get that big from feeding excess protein like pinkies or feeder lizards. That will make them grow huge, but then they die early of organ failure.

Please tell us you have only fed him insects and fresh fruits and veggies.
 
Whats funny is that the picture on my avatar he was just shy of a yr. Im thinkn maybe its just the way he would eat when he was younger. He would typically eat 2 lizards a week when he was just about 6 months. Thats just what i kno. Who knows how many he would catch on his own. I would also feed him earthworms as well. Nd would have atleast half a banana a week. Recently i had him on a palm tree in my backyard nd raided a birds nest i saw him chewing on one so i rushd got the ladder nd brought him back down before he ate the other 2 that where left. I wasnt really happy about that. Heres a picture i took today
 
First ones from 2day the other one about 3 or 4 months ago nd the last one was from december
 

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He would typically eat 2 lizards a week when he was just about 6 months. Thats just what i kno. Who knows how many he would catch on his own. I would also feed him earthworms as well. Nd would have atleast half a banana a week. Recently i had him on a palm tree in my backyard nd raided a birds nest i saw him chewing on one so i rushd got the ladder nd brought him back down before he ate the other 2 that where left. I wasnt really happy about that. Heres a picture i took today



:eek:My suspicions were correct. Just because an animal will eat certain things does not mean they should. Also, the external appearance of health is sometimes a poor indicator of internal health. I once had an iguana donated to me that appeared to be as large as a 10 year old animal. It was one year old and had been raised on solely on cat food. It looked totally healthy. It was dead of organ failure at 18 months of age despite me changing his diet the day I got him.

The argument could be made that he would be eating those items like lizards and baby birds in the wild. True, but that doesn't make it a healthy diet.

Anyway, we uncovered the mystery of the frequent shedding at an adult age. Please reassess his diet. It is even more critical as an adult to allow him access to fresh fruits, veggies and insects only, no mammals, birds, or lizards. You may be able to reverse any long term damage, or at least keep it from getting worse.
 
I completely agree nd ive been trying to get hin back on crickets but he aint havin it.

Don't focus on crickets then. Some chameleons won't eat them unless they are starving to death. Try some roaches. Your guy sounds like he'd go crazy for some medium to medium large hissers. Make sure they are gut loaded first. He can use all of the help he can get.

If all you have are crickets, you can dust them with certain things to make them more attractive. Bee pollen to make them yellow, spirulina to make them green etc. Healthier too.

Good luck.
 
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