Thoughts on housing

[AusVeiled]

Hi all,

I just wanted to get people's thoughts on their preferred method of housing their chams, for veileds in particular.

What kind of enclosures do you prefer?
Indoor vs Outdoor?
Is there anything you avoid when housing chams?
Are there any features you look for when housing chams?
Thoughts on free range?


I am trying to get some good information together for my little project.
If you are not familiar with what my project is please see the thread where I introduced myself here:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/hello-128338/

Thanks!

 

[Carlton]

That's quite a few questions to answer, and the answers for me depend on a lot of factors.

I free range some chams depending on their personality, size, activity level, and how closely my house meets their environmental needs. Melleri do great free ranged in a room. But, a very shy species like verrucosus would probably not do as well kept that way.

I have to house everyone indoors due to my climate (wet and cold). You are probably totally different. For example, if you wanted to keep jackson's and your outdoor climate is very dry and warm, you'd really only have the option to house one indoors. But, if you need AC much of the year you may not be able to free range because you'll need to provide a lot more moisture/fog/cooler temps than a room can give you. If you want to keep veileds you could probably either free range or cage indoors or use a ventilated humidified greenhouse outdoors.

Maybe if you describe what your indoor and outdoor climate tends to be and what species you want to keep, we could evaluate which option might work the best for you and why.

 

[eyeviper]

I free range my cham pascal. I don't think I will go back to any type of cage again. The personality and calmness of the chams when free ranged is just too good to go back for me. I find the requirements are pretty simple. Clean dripping water, a good basking spot, and no cats If you have never free ranged I would suggest thinking very hard about how you want to do it. people say don't do it till you are an expert or something but I think if you have common sense you can free range very easily. Humidity is this biggest factor for me as in winter the heating just zaps the humidity. My cham did great in about 40% as I just could not get the humidity up this winter to above 50% for any extended period and I saw no problems. I of course changed my husbandry and kept him well hydrated and monitored him for this often. No issues for me.

This is my free range set up. He can get down sometimes thanks to the blind but otherwise he chills on the wall.