Shedding
- Thread starter verpas23
- Start date
elizaann2
Chameleon Enthusiast
Hello and welcome! This is a great place to get support and information on care for your beautiful chameleon 
Will you please copy the template below and fill out the requested information?
Chameleon Info:
Cage Info:
Current Problem -
Will you please copy the template below and fill out the requested information?
Chameleon Info:
- Your Chameleon - The species, sex, and age of your chameleon. How long has it been in your care?
- Handling - How often do you handle your chameleon?
- Feeding - What are you feeding your cham? What amount? What is the schedule? How are you gut-loading your feeders?
- Supplements - What brand and type of calcium and vitamin products are you dusting your feeders with, and what is the schedule?
- Watering - What kind of watering technique do you use? How often and how long do you mist? Do you see your chameleon drinking?
- Fecal Description - Briefly note colors and consistency from recent droppings. Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites?
- History - Any previous information about your cham that might be useful to others when trying to help you.
Cage Info:
- Cage Type - Describe your cage (Glass, Screen, Combo?) What are the dimensions?
- Lighting - What brand, model, and types of lighting are you using? What is your daily lighting schedule?
- Temperature - What temp range have you created (cage floor to basking spot)? Lowest overnight temp? How do you measure these temps?
- Humidity - What are your humidity levels? How are you creating and maintaining these levels? What do you use to measure humidity?
- Plants - Are you using live plants? If so, what kind?
- Placement - Where is your cage located? Is it near any fans, air vents, or high-traffic areas? At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
- Location - Where are you geographically located?
Current Problem -
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon. Around a year old
How long has it been in your care? 5 months
Handling - Couple times a day or 3 times a week as it always wants to leave her cage and explore. Shes restless at the moment as shes forming eggs.
Feeding - Crickets/mealworms/sometimes silk worms. She eats 9 small crickets. 1 mealworm a day nearly. I feed her in the morning like 11 and then at 5pm. Im gutloading crickets with dandelion leaves, collards, carrot, sweet potato, bee pollen, cucumber, apple.
Supplements - I dust calcium in every feeding. Multivitamin twice a month. 15 and 1st of the month. Reptivite just today. Before it was repashy without calcium.
Watering - misting pump twice a day morning and night. She just opens her mouth to drink and not often does she lick off leaves.
Fecal Description - a little yellow urate. Was never tested for parasites.
History - they had no problems
Cage Info:
Cage Type - Screen
What are the dimensions? 16x16x20
Lighting - T5 HO 5.0 UVB
What is your daily lighting schedule? 8am-8pm
Temperature - around high 60s low 70s basking temp is around 85
Lowest overnight tempt: high 50s
How do you measure these temps? temperature gauge
Humidity - around 40s
How are you creating and maintaining these levels? i spray in the morning and night only and just leave it. There are also pants in the cage
Plants - Pothos, not sure the name of the other one
Placement - Where is your cage located? In my solarium/office. Not a lot of traffic to none at all
At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
3ish feet?
Location - Where are you geographically located? Canada BC, Vancouver
Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon. Around a year old
How long has it been in your care? 5 months
Handling - Couple times a day or 3 times a week as it always wants to leave her cage and explore. Shes restless at the moment as shes forming eggs.
Feeding - Crickets/mealworms/sometimes silk worms. She eats 9 small crickets. 1 mealworm a day nearly. I feed her in the morning like 11 and then at 5pm. Im gutloading crickets with dandelion leaves, collards, carrot, sweet potato, bee pollen, cucumber, apple.
Supplements - I dust calcium in every feeding. Multivitamin twice a month. 15 and 1st of the month. Reptivite just today. Before it was repashy without calcium.
Watering - misting pump twice a day morning and night. She just opens her mouth to drink and not often does she lick off leaves.
Fecal Description - a little yellow urate. Was never tested for parasites.
History - they had no problems
Cage Info:
Cage Type - Screen
What are the dimensions? 16x16x20
Lighting - T5 HO 5.0 UVB
What is your daily lighting schedule? 8am-8pm
Temperature - around high 60s low 70s basking temp is around 85
Lowest overnight tempt: high 50s
How do you measure these temps? temperature gauge
Humidity - around 40s
How are you creating and maintaining these levels? i spray in the morning and night only and just leave it. There are also pants in the cage
Plants - Pothos, not sure the name of the other one
Placement - Where is your cage located? In my solarium/office. Not a lot of traffic to none at all
At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
3ish feet?
Location - Where are you geographically located? Canada BC, Vancouver
elizaann2
Chameleon Enthusiast
@Beman @kinyonga @MissSkittles I do not have a lot of knowledge around shedding, could you assist this person please? They filled out the form for you already
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
Hi. Give me a bit of time and I’ll give you a review. Do have to ask about humidity levels though. Are they consistently around 40%? Does she ever get misted - intentionally or accidentally?
Give me a bit of time and I’ll give you a review. Do have to ask about humidity levels though. Are they consistently around 40%? Does she ever get misted - intentionally or accidentally?
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
I’ll be putting my feedback in bold. If there’s any urgent or serious changes needing to be made, those will be in red.
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon. Around a year old Has she laid eggs yet? If so, how many and how many times?
How long has it been in your care? 5 months
Handling - Couple times a day or 3 times a week as it always wants to leave her cage and explore. Shes restless at the moment as shes forming eggs. Could you post some pics of her enclosure, including floor and lights? Does she have a lay bin?
Feeding - Crickets/mealworms/sometimes silk worms. She eats 9 small crickets. 1 mealworm a day nearly. I feed her in the morning like 11 and then at 5pm. You are feeding her way too much! Besides putting her at risk for obesity, the number of eggs she’ll produce directly relates to how much she eats. Being a full grown adult, she should be getting 3-4 feeders, 3 days a week plus occasional treats. You really need to get her feeding reduced. Also, she should be fed once in the morning, which will provide her time to bask and digest. I’d also suggest more variety of feeders. Crickets and silkworms are great staples, mealworms are not. Attaching graphic below. Im gutloading crickets with dandelion leaves, collards, carrot, sweet potato, bee pollen, cucumber, apple. Nice variety. The cucumber won’t do more than hydrate your feeders, so you could eliminate that.
Supplements - I dust calcium in every feeding. Hopefully it’s without D3. Multivitamin twice a month. 15 and 1st of the month. Reptivite just today. Good, but does it contain vitamin D3? If not, you’ll need a calcium with D3 to give one feeding, every other week, like on the 7th & 30th. Before it was repashy without calcium.
Watering - misting pump twice a day morning and night. She just opens her mouth to drink and not often does she lick off leaves. How long are you misting for? It should be at least 2 minutes.
Fecal Description - a little yellow urate. Was never tested for parasites. Is always good to get a fecal check.
History - they had no problems
I tend to talk a lot so am breaking this into two parts.
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon. Around a year old Has she laid eggs yet? If so, how many and how many times?
How long has it been in your care? 5 months
Handling - Couple times a day or 3 times a week as it always wants to leave her cage and explore. Shes restless at the moment as shes forming eggs. Could you post some pics of her enclosure, including floor and lights? Does she have a lay bin?
Feeding - Crickets/mealworms/sometimes silk worms. She eats 9 small crickets. 1 mealworm a day nearly. I feed her in the morning like 11 and then at 5pm. You are feeding her way too much! Besides putting her at risk for obesity, the number of eggs she’ll produce directly relates to how much she eats. Being a full grown adult, she should be getting 3-4 feeders, 3 days a week plus occasional treats. You really need to get her feeding reduced. Also, she should be fed once in the morning, which will provide her time to bask and digest. I’d also suggest more variety of feeders. Crickets and silkworms are great staples, mealworms are not. Attaching graphic below. Im gutloading crickets with dandelion leaves, collards, carrot, sweet potato, bee pollen, cucumber, apple. Nice variety. The cucumber won’t do more than hydrate your feeders, so you could eliminate that.
Supplements - I dust calcium in every feeding. Hopefully it’s without D3. Multivitamin twice a month. 15 and 1st of the month. Reptivite just today. Good, but does it contain vitamin D3? If not, you’ll need a calcium with D3 to give one feeding, every other week, like on the 7th & 30th. Before it was repashy without calcium.
Watering - misting pump twice a day morning and night. She just opens her mouth to drink and not often does she lick off leaves. How long are you misting for? It should be at least 2 minutes.
Fecal Description - a little yellow urate. Was never tested for parasites. Is always good to get a fecal check.
History - they had no problems
I tend to talk a lot so am breaking this into two parts.
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
Cage Info:
Cage Type - Screen
What are the dimensions? 16x16x20 This is way too small! Even if that’s a typo and should read 30’ and not 20’…too small! The standard minimum for an adult veiled is 2x2x4’. Posting a pic of that next to (if memory is correct) a 16x16x30’. That was when I was new to chams and was in the process of switching my girl to a big enclosure. You can see that I had plenty of room for her lay bin and I grossly underestimated the number of branches and plants needed to fill it out.
Lighting - T5 HO 5.0 UVB Perfect! What about basking light?
What is your daily lighting schedule? 8am-8pm Perfect!
Temperature - around high 60s low 70s basking temp is around 85 This is a bit too warm. Bring it down to around and no higher than 80. This goes along with the reduced feeding - lower basking temp keeps metabolism a tad slower which helps prevent hunger. This article explains it perfectly. http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/2007/12/keeping-female-veiled.html
Lowest overnight tempt: high 50s Excellent!
How do you measure these temps? temperature gauge
Humidity - around 40s For daytime, is well within the ideal range of 30-50%. At night, since you have a temp drop well below at least 68, you can boost humidity all the way up to simulate natural hydration that they get in the wild thru fog.
How are you creating and maintaining these levels? i spray in the morning and night only and just leave it. There are also pants in the cage What type of hygrometer are you using? The analog kind are notoriously inaccurate. Digital ones with a probe end or the smart ones like Govee et al are usually most accurate.
Plants - Pothos, not sure the name of the other one Do you know if it’s on the list of safe plants? If you post a pic, we can probably ID it. If you have any artificial plants, it’s best to remove them. Veileds, especially the girls, like to nibble their plants and have been known to eat fake ones. It only takes one nibble to cause a bowel obstruction/impaction. I hang my fake plants on the outside of the enclosures to provide more privacy.
Placement - Where is your cage located? In my solarium/office. Not a lot of traffic to none at all
At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
3ish feet? That’s too low. They feel safest when they are up high and able to look down upon the world.
Location - Where are you geographically located? Canada BC, Vancouver Just wondering if it’s naturally humid there. If so, do you often need to run either heat or ac in your home or use a dehumidifier?
In your situation, I’m inclined to believe that your girl’s shedding is related to humidity levels. She may have gotten in the way of misting and gotten a few drops on those spots or you may have had a brief time of too high humidity while she was shedding. Chameleons are dry shedders. I’m in humid Florida and even though I run the ac almost year round, have a separate room ac and dehumidifier in my chameleon room, I struggle just to maintain humidity in the low 40’s. My panthers shed great. My veileds do not, especially the two that will sit right in the area that the mister sprays. One of my girls has shed ‘lines’ along her sides and my male’s casque always looks flaky. Just keep an eye on those spots. Hopefully the shed will just flake off when it’s ready. Only if it starts to build up with her following sheds do you really need to worry.
Do start working on her diet and temps. Our sweet ladies don’t live as long as the boys because the whole egg laying process takes so very much out of them. Plus, the more eggs they produce and the more frequently they produce them, the greater the risks for complications such as egg binding.
Cage Type - Screen
What are the dimensions? 16x16x20 This is way too small! Even if that’s a typo and should read 30’ and not 20’…too small! The standard minimum for an adult veiled is 2x2x4’. Posting a pic of that next to (if memory is correct) a 16x16x30’. That was when I was new to chams and was in the process of switching my girl to a big enclosure. You can see that I had plenty of room for her lay bin and I grossly underestimated the number of branches and plants needed to fill it out.
Lighting - T5 HO 5.0 UVB Perfect! What about basking light?
What is your daily lighting schedule? 8am-8pm Perfect!
Temperature - around high 60s low 70s basking temp is around 85 This is a bit too warm. Bring it down to around and no higher than 80. This goes along with the reduced feeding - lower basking temp keeps metabolism a tad slower which helps prevent hunger. This article explains it perfectly. http://raisingkittytheveiledchameleon.blogspot.com/2007/12/keeping-female-veiled.html
Lowest overnight tempt: high 50s Excellent!
How do you measure these temps? temperature gauge
Humidity - around 40s For daytime, is well within the ideal range of 30-50%. At night, since you have a temp drop well below at least 68, you can boost humidity all the way up to simulate natural hydration that they get in the wild thru fog.
How are you creating and maintaining these levels? i spray in the morning and night only and just leave it. There are also pants in the cage What type of hygrometer are you using? The analog kind are notoriously inaccurate. Digital ones with a probe end or the smart ones like Govee et al are usually most accurate.
Plants - Pothos, not sure the name of the other one Do you know if it’s on the list of safe plants? If you post a pic, we can probably ID it. If you have any artificial plants, it’s best to remove them. Veileds, especially the girls, like to nibble their plants and have been known to eat fake ones. It only takes one nibble to cause a bowel obstruction/impaction. I hang my fake plants on the outside of the enclosures to provide more privacy.
Placement - Where is your cage located? In my solarium/office. Not a lot of traffic to none at all
At what height is the top of the cage relative to your room floor?
3ish feet? That’s too low. They feel safest when they are up high and able to look down upon the world.
Location - Where are you geographically located? Canada BC, Vancouver Just wondering if it’s naturally humid there. If so, do you often need to run either heat or ac in your home or use a dehumidifier?
In your situation, I’m inclined to believe that your girl’s shedding is related to humidity levels. She may have gotten in the way of misting and gotten a few drops on those spots or you may have had a brief time of too high humidity while she was shedding. Chameleons are dry shedders. I’m in humid Florida and even though I run the ac almost year round, have a separate room ac and dehumidifier in my chameleon room, I struggle just to maintain humidity in the low 40’s. My panthers shed great. My veileds do not, especially the two that will sit right in the area that the mister sprays. One of my girls has shed ‘lines’ along her sides and my male’s casque always looks flaky. Just keep an eye on those spots. Hopefully the shed will just flake off when it’s ready. Only if it starts to build up with her following sheds do you really need to worry.
Do start working on her diet and temps. Our sweet ladies don’t live as long as the boys because the whole egg laying process takes so very much out of them. Plus, the more eggs they produce and the more frequently they produce them, the greater the risks for complications such as egg binding.
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
I really don’t see the reasoning for that. I moved my girl from her little one right after she had her first receptive period and she laid her eggs in her big enclosure. It was just coincidental timing. My other veiled girl was already in her big enclosure by the time she became receptive and then laid.
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
No, you can move her in now. There’s usually at least 2-3 weeks if not longer from the end of the receptive period to when laying can occur. As you can see from my above pic, I use a deep lay bin with opaque sides. It measures about 12” square and deep, but I fill to only about 6” with play sand moistened enough to hold a tunnel without collapsing. To prevent water drainage from making a muddy mess, I do drill some tiny holes in the bottom of the bin. I put my bins in the back and hopefully out of the line of their preferred pooping spot. Yes, some chams have their spots. Putting a plant in front of it helps. Of course, once she is starting to act like she may be close to laying or actually enters her bin, I cover the bottom half with a light sheet. I make small peek holes so I can monitor without her seeing me.
Just fyi: I discovered the last time one of my girls laid that they can be very particular about their bins. Being on the reduced laying program, they don’t lay often and hadn’t laid since I made their enclosures bioactive. Well, my girl didn’t like the substrate. She was restless and tried digging everywhere she could. I quickly made up a decent sized bin with sand - she tried it and rejected it. This went on for a few days until finally out of desperation and things to try, I put in her old lay bin. That did the trick. Go figure.
Ohh interesting!! Yeah she's just been scratching her cage and quite restless but I have not seen her digging or hanging out at the bottom of her cage which might mean she's not ready to lay eggs? I've attached photos of her enclosure.
Attachments
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
Can I ask why your uvb is so high? Are you using a T5 with either a 5.0 or 6% uvb bulb? If so, then the distance between your light and basking area should be around 8-9”. Only if you are using a stronger uvb, like a 12%, 14% or 10.0 would your distance need to be greater.
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
Just make sure that there’s 8-9” distance between basking area and the light and it’s good. The goal is to achieve a UV index of around 3.0, which at that distance is what you’ll get.
^^^^ UVB must be changed to the 8-9 inches from the bottom of the fixture to the branch. She will need it to be that way right now with that distance her UVI levels are too low at basking.
Has the edema been addressed? Can we review this below please. When you say before it was repashy without calcium can you tell me exactly which one you were using and what the schedule was? Also please confirm if you are using calcium without D3 for your everyday dusting.
Has the edema been addressed? Can we review this below please. When you say before it was repashy without calcium can you tell me exactly which one you were using and what the schedule was? Also please confirm if you are using calcium without D3 for your everyday dusting.
How much should I be feeding her? Would this be enough for the day? They are 8 small cricketsI’ll be putting my feedback in bold. If there’s any urgent or serious changes needing to be made, those will be in red.
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon. Around a year old Has she laid eggs yet? If so, how many and how many times?
How long has it been in your care? 5 months
Handling - Couple times a day or 3 times a week as it always wants to leave her cage and explore. Shes restless at the moment as shes forming eggs. Could you post some pics of her enclosure, including floor and lights? Does she have a lay bin?
Feeding - Crickets/mealworms/sometimes silk worms. She eats 9 small crickets. 1 mealworm a day nearly. I feed her in the morning like 11 and then at 5pm. You are feeding her way too much! Besides putting her at risk for obesity, the number of eggs she’ll produce directly relates to how much she eats. Being a full grown adult, she should be getting 3-4 feeders, 3 days a week plus occasional treats. You really need to get her feeding reduced. Also, she should be fed once in the morning, which will provide her time to bask and digest. I’d also suggest more variety of feeders. Crickets and silkworms are great staples, mealworms are not. Attaching graphic below. Im gutloading crickets with dandelion leaves, collards, carrot, sweet potato, bee pollen, cucumber, apple. Nice variety. The cucumber won’t do more than hydrate your feeders, so you could eliminate that.
Supplements - I dust calcium in every feeding. Hopefully it’s without D3. Multivitamin twice a month. 15 and 1st of the month. Reptivite just today. Good, but does it contain vitamin D3? If not, you’ll need a calcium with D3 to give one feeding, every other week, like on the 7th & 30th. Before it was repashy without calcium.
Watering - misting pump twice a day morning and night. She just opens her mouth to drink and not often does she lick off leaves. How long are you misting for? It should be at least 2 minutes.
Fecal Description - a little yellow urate. Was never tested for parasites. Is always good to get a fecal check.
History - they had no problems
I tend to talk a lot so am breaking this into two parts.
View attachment 335670
Attachments
MissSkittles
Chameleon Enthusiast
Depends on the size of the crickets. How big is small? An example of what I do - if feeders are each 1/2” in size, I’ll give 4-5 of them.
They are about this size. I also noticed my chamelon sleeping like this tonight ): I feel like have a small cage is causing so many issues.
Attachments
The edema is quite severe.... She is having issues breathing so she is pointing her nose straight up. Can you go back to this post I did in your thread and answer the questions please https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/shedding.189422/post-1758234
