Veiled Chamelon

[speraw09]

After wanting one for years I finally got my first chameleon. I ordered him from FlChams and very pleased with the results.

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Male Veiled, 3 to 4 months old, 1 day in my care.

Handling - I'm trying my hardest to give him his space for awhile so I just look at him a lot.

Feeding - Put 7 crickets in his cage after about an hour. Going to try and feed an hour after sun up/lights on. Flukers orange cubes for now.

Supplements - Reptical w/ D3, Reptivite, and picking up Reptical w/o D3 as soon as i can find it locally.

Watering - Hand mister 4 times today about 1 to 2 minutes, and a dripper. I have not seen him drink but I left him alone for quite some time today.

Fecal Description - Have not seen any in his cage but his shipping box had solid brown fecal matter and white urate. No testing yet.

History - He does walk around a lot and sit a lot. Seen him eat one cricket and miss another.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Screen 16x16x30.

Lighting - Reptisun 5.0 18", 60 wt day bulb, and a 40 wt incandescent. Going to be 6 am to 6 pm.

Temperature - From top to bottom 90F to 70F. Night 70F. Infared thermometer and cage thermometer.

Humidity - 40 to 75. Misting, dripper and live plant. Simple dial gauge.

Plants - One live schefflera, long fake vine and fake leafs.
Placement - Corner of room on table pretty low traffic watch tv for few hours only. About 5.5 feet to the top.

Location - West Ohio.

Current Problem - Had so many problems keeping humidity up above 40 before he showed up now it is fine until I shut the lights off. Any advice? Trying to cup feed but he only ate the 4 crickets that missed the cup. Any problem with this?

 

[DavidBuchan]

Hello, welcome to the forum All looks good to me, a few little tweaks I would advise is to lower the basking temp to around 82F for now, while he's still little.
It's great that he has eaten on his first day. Hopefully he will settle in easily and quickly for you so you can look at him without worrying
I assume your humidity goes down when the lights go off? Same with mine. I would make the misting sessions a bit longer to make sure if he wants to drink he has time. Two or three 5 minute sessions a day at his age is perfect.
I wouldn't worry too much about the humidity at night, Veileds are relatively tolerant when it come to humidity. Here is a great all-round caresheet I recommend to all new people with Veileds - https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/chameleonsinmyhouse/395-veiled-chameleon-care-sheet.html

 

[speraw09]

Thank you for the care sheet, can not have to many of those in all honesty. I will lower the basking spot so he doesn't get too hot. It surprised me that when he came out of his container after shipping he was a very vivid green and moving around like mad, he has only turned black/brown once and that was a misting trajectory mistake.

 

[DavidBuchan]

Thank you for the care sheet, can not have to many of those in all honesty. I will lower the basking spot so he doesn't get too hot. It surprised me that when he came out of his container after shipping he was a very vivid green and moving around like mad, he has only turned black/brown once and that was a misting trajectory mistake.

Sounds very promising.....did you get any pics of the little guy yet? He'll grow up fast so the more pictures the better ....I know you shouldn't disturb him much but you have to clean things and if you happened to have a camera a couple of photos wouldn't hurt.
Flukers gutloads aren't really much good. Here is a great link - https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/75-feeder-nutrition-gutloading.html
If you want commercial gutloads for convenience then Repashy Bug Burger or Cricket Crack are both high quality.
P.s. little ones love fruit flies!

 

[Psychobunny]

Good advise from David B. and he always has that veiled care sheet link
handy

Veiled can get very terratorial and fiesty!! it's best to start 'taming' them
very young or you may have a permenently grumpy adult veiled.
The hand feeding thing should be tried every day.
Even if he hisses, or backs away, just make sure he sees your hand with
the food on it, but never be aggesive or try to get too close.
When he is ready, he will snap the food out of your hand.
When he is comfortible with eating from your hand, you should let him come
out of his cage on him own.
You can just open the door and stick a fake plant there and he will come
out in his own time.

Veiled are (IMO) the smartest of the chams and so, have the most interesting personalities, but you need to be extra patient with earning their trust to make them good pets

 

[CLP]

Welcome. I agree, sounds like you're doing pretty well so far. I see you have the UVB, basking and anther 40W incandescent, and I agree with David that you're top end temps are a bit high for his age. I think if you lose the 40W, you'll probably be fine. You really don't need both the basking and the 40W, but you might want to consider a grow light of some kind if you have live plants.

And an extra-long spray before lights out will help with your night time humidity. I found a small "personal" size ultrasonic humidifier that I put on a timer and put in my chams enclosures. It is set to come on a couple of times during the night to push the humidity back up. If you do this, just start with one or two short sessions until you get a gauge on the effects. Better to be a bit low than too much (especially at night) imho. And with veileds, they are more tolerant of the lower humidity levels so long as they're getting enough to drink. Mine often falls down to 40% with no ill effects. Just make sure you are sanitizing all your humidifying equipment on a regular basis to ensure no nasty bacteria is building up.

Definitely improve on the gut-loading as David recommended too.

Good luck.

 

[speraw09]

I read about the Flukers gutload after I bought and used it so it will be changed. He doesn't seem to mind me much but he will hide if my girlfriend looks at him, also when he sees a spray bottle he takes cover under leaves. So far nighttime humidity did't drop below 35 and his cage at night was low to mid 60s.

 

[speraw09]

I think he is getting used to his cage and surroundings now, because he was flying around his cage about an hour before his bed time. I still have not seen him drink but I am not worried since he shows absolutely no signs if dehydration. He does eat quite a bit of leaves though, along with his crickets.

 

[speraw09]

Few questions, I read on here that schefflera shouldn't be eaten in large quantities, but how much is too much. This one a two part question, so he has made a routine that happens everyday an hour before bed, he will turn a bright green and the little horizontal stripes on his lower body will turn black and he will explore his entire cage at a very fast pace bite at leafs at random, it is very entertaining. The questions are is it normal for them to run around like a chameleon with his head cut off and is it normal for the bright green and black stripes. I am not too concerned since he is very active its just odd.