Sleeping during day :(

[Melvin]

Today I saw my yemen chameleon sleeping 5 hours before the light went out. And he hasn't been eating that much lately. in about 5 days he have eaten 6 crickets. but he's full grown now and he usually eats 5 crickets a day. It's also winter in sweden where i live and it's very dark outside, and my room was dark too, the only light that was on was the enclousers light. He was at the bottom of the cage, and the light can bearly reach down there, so did he just think it was dark and felt asleep or is he sick?
Please help me!

 

[coffeeguy89]

I can't even pretend like I'm an expert, but I don't think it's uncommon for chams to adapt their sleeping schedule to the changing seasons. How much daylight do you get daily in Sweden? The drop in appetite could also be due to the change in season, but not sure. If you fill out the https://www.chameleonforums.com/how-ask-help-66/ I'm sure someone else who's more knowledgeable will chime in.

 

[kinyonga]

How warm is it in the cage? Basking area? Have you tried adding more light to the cage?

 

[Melvin]

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Yemen chameleon, male, 1 year and 6 months. I've had him about 1 year and 4 months
Handling -Not that often, maybe oce every second month, and when I do he doesnt seem o be stressed he enjoys it
Feeding - I feed my cham with crickets and grasshoppers. He eats 5-7 every second day. Im gut-loading with fresh fruit ore vegetables like carrot, apple, pear, banana and more.
Supplements - For Multivitamin and minerals i use TerraVit, JBL. I also have the Zoo Med's Reptivite with D3, and i also have regular kalcium i bought at the pet store. Im using the multivitamin once a week and the Reptivite with D3 once a week and the other days i use kalcium.
Watering - I have a flower mister that i mist with 2 times a day. Every time i mist i mist about 5 minutes. Yes I have seen him drink several times.
Fecal Description - Looks like it should look like, black and white. He's not dehydrated.
History - no.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - It's a combo, the top, leftside, back and right side are made of wood, and half the front is made of glass and the other half is screened. I want him to have a screened cage, but its to cold at the winter for him here in sweden, but many people in Europe have their chameleons in glass cages all there lifes without any problem, so I don't see this like a problem? The dimensions are 100cm wide and 125cm high.
Lighting - I use two Exo-terra Repti-glo, one is 5.0 and the other 10.0. I didn't want the 10.0 i wanted two 5.0 but the guy in the vet store told me that it was better with one 5.0 and one 10.0. I also have a regular 50w light bulb for the basking spot. My schedule is from 8.00am to 10.00pm, 14 hours of light every day.
Temperature - The normal temperature is between 70-74 degrees. the loweer part of the cage is about 66 degrees and the basking spot is between 84-86 degrees.I measure with two exo.terra thermometers.
Humidity - It's between 40-50% but when i mist it's about 70-80%. I mist twice a day and i have a humidity meter to control the humidity with.
Plants - I have one thats a real plant and it's a schefflera. The other is fake plants.
Placement - In my room, it's in a quiet and calm corner, the cage is also on a table so the cages top is 175cm.
Location - South Sweden

And if i want to buy a screened cage can you guys recommend any website that ships all the way to Sweden, becuase i cant find any screened cages in Sweden :/

 

[Melvin]

But if I ad more light it will be warmer, right? or do you have any ideas?

 

[JackP308]

I have the same hoods and I use 2.0 rather than then 10.0 on the other side so it's nice and Bright since it's full full spectrum. When I do that I don't even use my incandescent house bulbs since the temps are accordingly and he basks under the hood nicely. Thats just to help you out with better visual light have no ideal if thats why his sleeping, I doubt it. I dont see why a pet store would recommend to 5.0 and 10.0 together in the first place beats me. My cages seemed dull so I put in actually two 2.0 Repti Glos and use Reptisun long for his UVB. It's now nice and bright while he gets UV light the length of the cage. So just some ideas.

 

[warpdrive]

let me see if I'm reading this correctly...
you are dusting with reptivite that contains D3 once a week, you have a 10.0 UVB that will help produce a lot of D3, and you are gutloading with things that may not contain lots of Calcium.

chameleons will run away from lights that produce too much D3 when their body is overloaded witht it. I would cut down such supliments to 1 time per month at the most. I would even do it only once every other month with such lights with a fast growing chameleon...yet he is an adult, and is no longer growing fast, but slow.
at this stage he shouldn't ned this many dustings at all. maybe 2 times a week, out of 4 or 5 feedings...but proper gutloading is needed.

this sounds like he is just trying to get away from the lights unless I missed something.
I also don't understand why you would want a screen cage??? glass should be better for you, and tust me, you can view your chameleon better with glass.

your gutloading needs to improve but is not too bad.

Harry

 

[Melvin]

Should i toss the 10.0 and buy one thats 2.0? So i have a 5.0 and a 2.0? And this time i will buy the reptis sun and not the repti glow. Will the 2.0 provide more light than a 10.0?

 

[Melvin]

Yes Harry, you read it correctly. I've had my chameleon for a long time, and this is my first one so i didn't know that i was giving him to much D3. But im willing to do anything to get everything right! But all the time I've had him he has been really active and have shown no signs of any sicknes or anithing.So when i gut load, what fruit/vegetables contain calcium?

So if i change the 10.0 to a 2.0 so i have one 5.0 and a 2.0, should i dust 2 times a week? And if so should i dust with kalcium one time and vitamins the other time and only dust with D3 twice a month?

Thanks for all the help!

 

[JackP308]

Members tell me to toss the 2.0 for a normal house bulb most the time since it is a compact. regardless I would return or exchange the 10.0 for sure. , but I do have the Dual Hood like you so I use the 2.0s in both of them and they work good, Yes Bright good visual light. UVB lights like 5.0 and 10.0 reptiglo are not good visual light at all. I use the reptiglo compacts in the hoods though and I do like them never used reptisun compacts ever. I do use reptisun long tube 5.0s as well. Sorry if I confused ya any at all.

 

[JackP308]

Yes Harry, you read it correctly. I've had my chameleon for a long time, and this is my first one so i didn't know that i was giving him to much D3. But im willing to do anything to get everything right! But all the time I've had him he has been really active and have shown no signs of any sicknes or anithing.So when i gut load, what fruit/vegetables contain calcium?

So if i change the 10.0 to a 2.0 so i have one 5.0 and a 2.0, should i dust 2 times a week? And if so should i dust with kalcium one time and vitamins the other time and only dust with D3 twice a month?

Thanks for all the help!

on here most recommend to Dust lightly every feeding with a phosphurus free Calcium without D3 and Occasionally lightly dust 2-3 a month with Vitamins and calcium with d3. That seems to be consensus around here for the most part. Everyone has different circumstances and reasoning behind different scheduling due to sun exposure gutload ect.. but do what works best for him and that seems to be most common schedule to start on from reading this forum

 

[Xepera]

We have the same problem here with the winter darkness during daytime (Finland). My chameleon began to react to that months ago (ate less, seemed tired and passive, went to his sleeping spot earlier). We began to keep lights on in his room whole day long and bought an extra daylight tube. Now we have 2 x ReptiSun 5.0, basking light + that. Now he only seems confused if he is able to see outside. He'll climb to his sleeping spot and stay there for a while. But otherwise that helped a lot.

 

[kinyonga]

If you want to add more light without adding more heat you can use regular white fluorescent tube lights.