Worried about my new girl

[MrVisor]

Hi Everybody.

I recently adopted a female Veiled chameleon from a friend, and I am worried about her condition. Any suggestions on what I can do to make her feel better and more at home would be awesome. Thanks in advance!

Chameleon Info:

Your Chameleon - Female Veiled, ~8 months old. She has been in our house for about 2 weeks.

Handling - Never, yet, she is still gettign acclimated, and I dont want to upset her.

Feeding - I feed her about 4-6 crickets (fed with orange feeder blocks and random veggie bits) dusted with vitamins every other day, with a superworm or 2 for treats.

Supplements - Rep-cal Calcium with no D3 (only once so far, but will maintain at 2 times a month), and Rep-cal Herpitive Multivitamins (every feeding)

Watering - I have a dripper that runs 2-3 times a day for ~30 minutes, and I hand mist her a few times a day as well. I have never seen her drink, but shes new to our home and probably does it in secret.

Fecal Description - I believe I saw some today, it looked yellowish white. I took a picture and will post it.

History - I adopted her from a friend who didnt have time to take care of her about 2 weeks ago. He was kind of lazy in taking care of her and im worried that I am overdoing it in trying to make her feel at home.


Cage Info:

Cage Type - Zilla screen habitat (L 18 x W 30 x H 30), I have a couple fake vines running through the cage, along with 2, 1/2 inch dowell rods running diagonally across the cage. (I will post a pic)

Lighting - Reptisun 5.0 compact flourescent, and a 60 watt incandescent bulb for her basking light. I also open the blinds on our sliding glass door to let sunlight in the room during the day. (i have a Flukers 8.5 inch ceramic dome with a dimmer switch being delivered some time this week)
Her schedule is set up to have the UVB on from 8am to 8pm, and the basking light is on the same times.

Temperature - The basking area is ~84 to 87 degrees, and the cage floor is ~74-78 depending on the time of day. Night time is around 76. I have a digital thermometer that measures temps.

Humidity - I have a digital hygrometer. The humidity is around 60-64%. I hand mist the cage, and I am currently searching for a nicely sized real plant to put in the cage to help with humidity levels.

Plants - No live plants yet.

Placement - The cage is in our living room, near a fairly high traffic area (i know she needs to be moved, as this is probably not the most ideal place for her). The top of the cage is about 6 feet from the ground. The cage is also not near any vents or fans.

Location - Austin, TX


Current Problem - I am new to the chameleon owning experience, and I am just concerned with her well being. She was ok for the first week or so, but over the past couple days, she likes to climb down to the corner on the bottom of her cage and sit. Last night, she was sleeping in the corner of her cage, and was super unresponsive. I'm worried that she is not drinking, but her eyes have not sunken in at all (at least not from what I can tell). I will post a couple pictures of her to show her normal colors and what she looks like now.

 

[MrVisor]

Pictures

Here is a picture of her cage:
The Hello Kitty box in the corner is a nesting area for her in case she needs to lay eggs (if that's the problem, if not I will remove the box from her cage).

Here is a picture of her a few days ago:

And here is a picture of her today:

The poop I saw today as well:

 

[camimom]

Hello!
Read this. https://www.chameleonforums.com/care/caresheets/veiled/

Your supplements need a change.
ALso, you need more foliage in that cage.

Im not so sure you have a female. Can you post a pic of the back of the back feet.

 

[MrVisor]

Here's a pic of the back of her back feet:

And thanks for pointing out the supplements, didn't even realize I was giving them to her backwards.

 

[camimom]

Feet look like a female.

SHe just has a larger casque and some slight barring that made her look like a female.

Read that care sheet, and youll get all your questions answered.

 

[carol5208]

I thought it was a male at first also. The barring threw me off, but there are clearly no spurs. Strange for a female to have such strong barring. What do you have in the box for laying eggs? How deep is it? Can it hold a tunnel without collapsing? You should have a branch or vine going down into the box. I kinow you have the ladder but she may not figure out to use it to go into the box and lay if she needs to. She should be able to see down into the box and have a way to get in there. The "poop" you see hanging from branch is actually her pee or urate as it is called. There should be some brown poop part to it also.

 

[MrVisor]

In the egg box I have a sand/ potting soil mix approximately 10 inches deep, and it is damp and able to hold a tunnel ( I dug one with my hand all the way to the bottom. The cage bar in the picture kind of blocks it, but there is a vine going into the box right next to the ladder. My fiancee informed me about 20 minutes ago that she had been in the box today (I put the box in last night), but she wasn't sure if she had been digging or not, but she had been in the box at one point.

I was also told that she is up and moving around the cage again, displaying her bright bluish green color. She may have just been in a really terrible mood.

Hopefully she will let me get close soon so I can take a good picture of her without upsetting her.

 

[MrVisor]

Update on Cornbread

Hey eveyrone,

Just wanted to give and update on Cornbread (finally decided on a name for my girl). She is doing much better than a couple weeks ago. I rearranged her cage a bit, added in a couple live plants (some Umbrella plants which she LOVES). I'll post a pic of the new setup (with the egg bucket in the cage, I had to remove one of the plants to make room for it).

It also turns out that she was gravid, so I made her a real egg laying bucket (took out the crappy cardboard box I had in there for her). She started digging yesterday afternoon, slept in her hole, and had continued her digging this morning as I was leaving for work. I'm very excited that she is actually digging, as I was worried that she would just be a hater and not use the bucket. I snuck up and grabbed a photo (albeit crappy cuz I didnt want to disturb her) while she was sitting in her hole last night.

Thanks everyone for the info and links! I'll continue to post updates on Cornbread after her egg laying is all done.

 

[biffle]

Good luck!

Jason