When should I worry about cham falling?

[Xepera]

I have a healthy looking young male yemen chameleon, whose limbs are straight, casque too, he is growing fast, feces look fine and so on. He has a very good grip if he wants to, but on my hand he sometimes seems to relax his toes a bit and not squeeze a lot. He has 2 x ReptiSun 5.0 + proper suplementation schedule. So everything should be fine.

Sometimes he seems to be in a hurry to get out of the enclosure and he runs incautiously, although he has an opportunity to explore outside his enclosure a couple of times a day and has his own man-sized ficus as a sort of free range. He has fallen a couple of times while hurrying, but never in normal climbing situations. He seems to be quite an athlete otherwise apart from this.

The last time he fell was when he was trying to climb up a painted wall holding on from a branch only with his back feet. He lost his balance and fell straight to the bottom of the enclosure and got a couple of bruises + scared himself and me.

When should I start worrying and when is this normal silly behaviour?
We are adding some extra vines for him in the enclosure tomorrow to prevent him from falling, but of course we cant fix every chameleon path to be supersafe.

 

[Mr Wilson]

Thats def. not normal if your guy is falling in his cage often!!!! Its not uncommon for a cham to fall in general but it's usually the keeps fault for either putting the cham in the situation or stressing him/her out where they try and run from you.

If hes just in the cage and or on you hand, and is falling there;s something wrong. Maybe some one will chime in that has been through that before

+ if i read it right, you dont need 2 5.0 bulbs
.

 

[Xepera]

Thanks for your reply.

He has fallen only a couple of times, 2 that I know of. Those times he has slipped he has run towards my hand to get to it and never fallen from my hand. He has never been afraid of me, he's an unusually friendly chameleon. I dont think stress causes this.

> + if i read it right, you dont need 2 5.0 bulbs
I have two UVB:s because the enclosure is very big and I was advised to get two by a reptile specialist. Of course normally you only need one.

 

[jastate09]

What supplements do you use (brands) and how often? What do you gutload your feeders with?

 

[Xepera]

I feed my cham crickets, dubias and supers + an occasional mealie or fly. I gutload them with dark green salads and greens such as rucola, basilica, mint, bok choi, alfa-alfa, cellery leafs, apples, oranges, carrots...

Supplements:
Plain calsium carbonate without D3 every day
Nutrobal once a week (calsium with 3D)
Reptivite vitamins once a month or so

I am far less worried than before, because he hasn't fallen since and things are getting into their proportions again.

 

[laurie]

Unless he seems to have a injury i wouldn't worry too much. Any cham can have a fall, but it is he he starts to fall several times that I would worry. Overall all it sounds like both you and the cham are doing well. I think it is the continental air that makes the veiled friendlier to their keepers than some here are. But then when I visited Jann, I found both Camille and Luie to be both very friendly and way, way beautiful. I am sure your guy will be also.

 

[Xepera]

Thank you so much! Now I know better when to worry. I'll monitor his behaviour and continue to educate myself on chameleon husbandry.