Too young to free range?

[JJC]

Beside my 11 week old Veiled's cage is a ficus tree that I use as a mini free range. The idea was to leave his cage open sometimes and let him go in and out of his cage to the tree at his own free will. I had hoped it would make him less shy. Well...the result is that every time i make him stay in his cage he hangs out on the front door close to the outside tree, and turns a grumpy brownish green. As soon as I open his cage he climbs out and is a beautiful lime green. Inside his cage he has his lights/dripper/crickets so I don't like having him outside for more then an hour at a time. I have been looking through threads of peoples free ranges that they built...and I have a pretty good idea on how to go about making it...but my question is, how old should my veiled be before i allow him to be 100% free range?

 

[Cainschams]

Old enough that he can be found if he goes roaming else where in the room You can always set up a smaller scale one and make a barrier around the range incase he does get curious which I am sure he will.

Edit: old enough as in size wise

 

[jannb]

If you set up a safe area you can free range at any age. I'll see if I can find you a pic of the free range tree I made for the babies.

 

[bridgofaith]

Old enough that he can be found if he goes roaming else where in the room You can always set up a smaller scale one and make a barrier around the range incase he does get curious which I am sure he will.

Edit: old enough as in size wise

If you set up a safe area you can free range at any age. I'll see if I can find you a pic of the free range tree I made for the babies.

Both excellent!

I have been free ranging my veileds since they were 9 weeks old, using the modified free range that Jared and Jann mentioned. Works great!

 

[JJC]

Thanks everyone! Thats great news... Norman will be so much happier without his tiny cage... I look forward to seeing pictures Jann!

 

[jannb]

I fixed this simple free range of just a plant in a very large plant pot so if the babies went down the large pot was too big for them to get out of. I did cover the small plant pot with the plastic chicken fencing so if they did go down to the bottom they could crawl back up the fencing. In the house I didn't have to watch them so closely and I even took it outside but I did sit next to them the entire time outside but gave them some freedom in the house. If you plan to have a full time free range it's very important to create the same conditions for them that you have in the cage....same lighting and humidity. I just hung the UVB light from the cage up over the tree.

This will work when he's super young then your next step could be the barrier as Jared suggested.