Very restless, clawing and pushing at top of cage

[Viv]

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Veiled, ~5months old
Handling - As little as possible. Had to take him out once after doing some research on this forum and finding out most of what the store gave me wasn't so good for him.
Feeding - Release about 9-12 crickets/day into his enclosure. He generally munches them all down within a few minutes. Crickets have been given a variety of carrot, apples, kale, greens, sweet potato and oranges. I change their food every other day minimum.
Supplements - calcium carbonate without D3 every day, Calcium with D3 and multivit every two weeks.
Watering - Misting 2-3 times daily. Big Dripper, always dripping. Mist from handheld spray bottle until enclosure is drenched. Have seen him drink from dripper, lick plants and also lick the walls of the enclosure (which is pretty hilarious XD)
Fecal Description - Droppings seem normal. White urates, dark brown faeces. Looks almost identical to the examples of healthy droppings in the poop 101 thread on this site.
History - Silly woman in the store dropped the box with him in it when we bought him.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Exo Terra glass, 450x450x600. Mesh top.
Lighting - Household 60W flourescent bulb, Reptiglo 10.0 UVB. Lights go off around midnight and on again around 9.30am.
Temperature - Basking spot is 85-88F during the day, lowest temperature in cage is around 70F. When I wake in the morning the lowest temp is around 65F. This all according to a komodo thermohygrometer combo which I'm honestly not super confident in...
Humidity - humidity lows around 60 highs around 80 Just misting.
Plants - Just plastic plants right now. Moving him to a bigger reptibreeze 2x2x4 enclosure with a large ficus in the next week.
Placement - on a cabinet, cage floor approximately 2 feet from the ground level. Not near any fans. Fair amount of people moving nearby but we try to stay around 3 feet from the cage at most times so as not to disturb him. Not sure what his range on detecting movement is.
Location - UK.

Been clawing and digging at the top of the cage for a few days now. Seems really stressed and hissed at me when I went in to feed him yesterday. He seems really agitated and almost desperate sometimes.

 

[Lovereps]

Sorry your cham is apparently having a problem.

I'm sure that he will be appreciative of the larger enclosure he is going to but there are a few changes I would make now, so he doesn't make himself ill before then.

It sounds like your cham is possibly getting too hot.
Remember that the basking temperature is the hottest that he should have.
You can raise the bulb up more above the cage or use a lower wattage bulb and recheck the temps with a more reliable thermometer.
If you turn off just the basking bulb, temporarily and find that after a long enough time for the enclosure to cool down, that he is no longer stress colored and agitated--you will know your thermometer is off.
You can accelerate the cooling down by opening up the doors, of course while watching him.

Though less likely to be the cause, you can also check the UVB bulb to see if that is the cause --by having the basking bulb on and shutting off the UVB bulb temporarily--but I suspect that if it was too much UVB, he would be getting away from it, rather than closer to it--although if there isn't enough foliage for him to have a way to escape the light, then maybe he would try to escape at the top, to the side of the bulb, where there isn't any from direct uv light beaming on him. Usually a troublesome UV light will result in a cham closing its eyes.

To quote for the forum's Veiled caresheet
Baby/juvenile (<9 months): ambient 72-80F (22-26C), basking 85F (29C)

Secondly, to somehow raise his enclosure up, so that he is above eye level.
Chams feel vulnerable unless they are at least at the same height as your eyes are.

Make sure there is enough foliage for him to hide amongst in order for him to feel more secure.
When it takes you a minute to find him, rather than being able to just see him at a glance, you'll know you've got enough foliage cover for him.

For more details, the forum's Veiled caresheet is found here https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/

As for how far away he can see--remember that chameleons rely upon keen eyesight to find food.
Rest assured they can see quite well for a reasonable distance.

Hopefully, making these few simple changes will help him.

 

[ZiggyStardust]

I used to have my male Veiled in exactly the same Exo-Terra as you've got and he used to do exactly the same - he'd come to the front of the glass doors and try and claw up and down them - the poor little mite looked like a "mime" sometimes!!

I did some reading and came to the conclusion that it was the glass that was completely baffling him - he couldn't understand why he couldn't get past the invisible barrier! He used to do it every day.

I got him an XL Reptibreeze about a month ago and he has been much much more settled - no evidence of his pacing up and down and back and forth at all. I'm honestly not a fan of the Exo-Terra glass vivs at all, unless you have a really really young cham.

 

[Viv]

I used to have my male Veiled in exactly the same Exo-Terra as you've got and he used to do exactly the same - he'd come to the front of the glass doors and try and claw up and down them - the poor little mite looked like a "mime" sometimes!!

I did some reading and came to the conclusion that it was the glass that was completely baffling him - he couldn't understand why he couldn't get past the invisible barrier! He used to do it every day.

I got him an XL Reptibreeze about a month ago and he has been much much more settled - no evidence of his pacing up and down and back and forth at all. I'm honestly not a fan of the Exo-Terra glass vivs at all, unless you have a really really young cham.

He was pretty young when I got him... about 2 months I believe. He was tiny... Grown about 50% since then.

I have kept the doors open for about an hour now and moved his lamp a little further away - his basking spot is now at 83F and he seems to have calmed a lot. Still want to get him into his XL reptibreeze asap. I was worried it would be too big for him at 2x2x4 but he's obviously not comfortable where he is so I'm gonna move him asap.

Also means I got a deceent sized Exo-Terra spare for some correlophus ciliatus

 

[ZiggyStardust]

I think that as long as you put lots and lots of branches, vines and foliage in the larger cage,so that a smaller cham doesn't have to struggle or reach too far to get about and risk falls, then you should be fine. Here's a photo of the set up that I have in my Reptibreeze and I've got to say that Ziggy absolutely loves it! He's always moving about exploring!