Waterfalls: /

I understand and thats why I do allot of research and join these forums to help better my pets and myself. I do ist my chameleons every day as well but now that they drink from the bowl they dont drink of the leaves any more. Believe me when i say i take the best care possible of my pets. But don't you think that there are several ways to keep chameleons healthy whether or not everyone agrees. I know you and others may be more experienced but i also get tips from local breeder as well. As long as my chams are healthy and well isn't that all that matters. I also thought that some of the other posts were a little harsh.
 
the reason we use purifiers for the water is because the water that comes from the tap has chlorine in it. The chlorine isn't enough to harm humans. But it can cause damage to a small chameleon over time. The purifiers help break up the chlorine before letting your cham drink it.
 
Hi,i currently use the little dripper from repti-sun or whatever,and recently my chameleon has been experiencing some eye problems,due to dehydration or some deficiency,its hard to tell. But it seems like hes just not drinking from it,i drip it on a leave the whole day(its collecting in a dish i empty out everyday), and I just never see him drink,and im really worried why:(
 
Some chameleons just don't respond to drippers. It could be that they just don't notice the water.

Most keepers will recommend that you employ long, thorough misting sessions at least twice a day, in addition to having a dripper. It is recommended that at each misting session you don't stop misting until you see the cham beginning to drink (this will often simply be the cham licking off drops of water that have collected on its casque/head and rolled down over its lips, or the cham will actively lap up water from the leaves in its cage).

And remember that just as it is important to have a long misting session to get everything wet, it is also important to have long, dry spells between misting to allow for everything to dry properly too.
 
But when i mist him,he just doesnt seem to like it,like he shrinks back and sorta does a puff/hiss sound.
 
That's normal. Not all chameleons enjoy being misted.
Some simply don't enjoy your presence inside their enclosure when you're spraying them (in those cases, that's where an automated misting system is quite useful: it doesn't stress them out as much, because no one is invading their space to mist them).

Another reason might be that although misting/spraying is a way to simulate rainfall, it isn't necessarily the way chameleons would experience precipitation in nature. In the dense tree canopies that a lot of species live in, the would probably be sheltered from direct rainfall, and would only experience drips of water through the leaves, and streams of water running down the trunks and branches. In the wadis of the middle east where Veiled chams are found, they are probably also not exposed to much rainfall, but they still live in areas where the humidity is high, and so they get their water through condensation that forms dew on the leaves of the shrubs and trees they live in.
So maybe the whole misting/spraying routine is uncomfortable for them.

Still, proper hydration and humidity levels are integral to keeping a cham healthy and misting/spraying is one of the best ways to accomplish them.
Over time, the chameleons actually get used to it and don't seem to mind as much. Some chams actually go and sit directly in the path of the sprayer to get thoroughly soaked.
 
It may not add exciting new info, but I want to add our experiences.
We have used almost every water delivery method - stopping short of waterfalls. We babysat for a cham that had a waterfall in his cage, and I removed; scrubbed and Nolvasan'd that thing daily. It was waaaaaay too much work.

As for our own chams: When we had two it was no trouble to use misting sprayers that could lock on. I just pumped them up, placed them to spray in a good spot and removed them when empty. We had several: you can still buy them - sprayer

Later when we got more chams, my hubby set up a misting system that he built. It used flexible tubing to deliver the mist and had expensive nossels that clogged a lot! (The walls had plastic on them to prevent overspray from warping the sheetrock.) Then I learned to place cotton sheeting behind the cages - it absorbed stray water and raised the humidity while drying out. All of our indoor cages have catch basins for the water.

In our greenhouse (10' x 16'), hubby fashioned a misting system that worked from his R/O system - going through a filter & reservoir and pump. It had timers. The misting nozzels were on small tubes that were connected to the PVC tubing.

For our breeding facility (25' x 50'), we had a well. So there was filters then the pumps and flow reducers - then the yards & yards of PVC piping and over 200 misters - all on timers. Those cages all were on a drainage gutter system. However.... we changed the micro misting nozzels to drippers. Why? Because it wasted too much water (when they weren't clogged). The chameleons were not impressed with all the water - usually the lowland species hid from it. The only ones that really liked the mist were the jacksons (which we moved to freerange in the greenhouse); the rudis and the melleri. When we removed the misters, we added a fogger to the rudis' environment - they loved that!

We spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars experimenting and trying to give the chams the best water delivery method. It all reverted back to drippers. All of our lowland chameleons prefer the drip method - but the catch was to aim the drip onto a good "bouncy" leaf. In the facility, I fastened large silk leaves under the drip... it worked perfectly. You can bend and shape the silk leaves....

Now don't get me wrong - I am by no means criticizing any one for their method(s) - to be quite honest - we have tried just about every kind of drinking device: bowls; cups; rodent waterers; and IV set-ups.

In our house, I prefer the IV set-up for a single cage - I call it my "dial-a-drip speed" and the chams will drink from the plastic tip. I have one panther and a ousteleti that drink from a small cup that I offer. I have several cages with IV drippers and the rest have drippers too - a large plastic cup (that I fill). I need to get more IV set-ups (there is a vet that sells these on Kingsnake).

For the person starting out that has spent $$$ on cham, cage, plants, branches and other stuff - we always tell them to start with a plastic cup or a plastic juice bottle. Just poke a pinhole in it and let it drip. Why spend $5 on someone else's plastic cup that they put their name on and stuck a drippy valve in (that usually leaks)???

I feel that the true key is WHERE it drips. If the drip falls straight to the bottom - heck - the cham won't know. If it bounces on a leaf and the leaf moves in the rythym of the drip... then the cham will notice.

We recommend folks mist with warm water too - but more for humidity than for drinking purposes. Our only chams that don't have a drip are the pygmies!

~Morgana
 
It take at least 24 hours for the chlorine to work its way out of the water and most would leave it for 48 hours to make sure that the chlorine is out.
 
Ok,im trying the misting thing,I have a syringe and i drip water on his nose and he just stands there:( I havent seen him lick his lips or anything. But while i was giving him a shower( to try to rehydrate him) I saw him lick is lips,but i didnt see any water or why he was doing it lol.So should I keep misting him till he starts to drink,no matter how long it takes?
 
Get a garden sprayer. These are cheap and you can find one for around $10 at Home Depot, Walmart....etc... Take the resivour and fill it with the hottest water that will come out of the tap. Get the whole cage a little wet. Then just spray over one location close to the chameleon. It should get nice and steamy in there. You should see some lip smacking going on. Hopefully some drinking too.

You could later alter the sprayer later for an automatic or semi automatic mister. I do agree with Tygerr some chameleons find it invasive to stand by their cage and spray. Cold or cooler water can be shocking to them to when it hits there skin.
 
For our "house lizards" we use the water jugs too - got a row of 20 - 1gal plastic AZ tea jugs. We refill them as we use them and they go to the back of the row... they average close to 48 hours before getting used again.

It's such a simple system. :)

~Morgana
 
I just wanted to give my two cents.

My veiled doesn't like being misted too much. I installed the waterfall and she loves it. People talk about bacteria and the chams pooping in them. I make sure that none of the branches pass over the waterfall where she can sit and hang out. I also take the waterfall out once a week and clean it good.

As long as I mist everything else in the cage, she is cool with it.

Just like everything else, you have to do routine cleaning. The only issue I have is sometimes if you overfill the waterfall it can leak a little onto the bottom of the cage. But thats ok, it helps with humidity. And for those of you that worry about respitory infections from the water, I make sure there aren't huge pools just sitting.
 
To jordan:
If i get the water as hot as possible and mist the cage,wont this burn him and he wont like it?
 
No. As water travels through the air it cools off. Take the sprayer after you fill it up and put your hand directly in front of it. Now spray. It will be pretty hot. Take your hand a couple of inches away and spray again. You will feel the differance.

As you can imagine a chameleon sitting under the basking bulb when his skin is eighty something degrees can get aggravated pretty quick when sixty degree water hits him. With the real hot water you will be looking at less of a temperature differance.

The hot water and the cooler air temperatures will usually give you a nice little cloud going on in the cage. This seems to get their interest in water going at least with manual mistings.
 
That makes sense! I think im going to go out this weekend and buy that.So if I do this long enough this will hopefully get him to drink right?
 
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