Just bought Veiled chameleon, need help!

I bought a baby veiled chameleon about 3-4 days ago and he looks to be only about 7 weeks old. Every day i put about 6 pinhead crickets i his cage. I need help because I don't think that he is eating AT ALL. Like most chameleons he is staying mostly at the top but moves down at night to find a place to sleep. I have a mister that comes on about every 3-4 hours to give it a nice mist but sometimes he will be hiding in the fake leaves where the mister sprays and he will climb out until it is finished with its cycle. I have not seen him move to the bottom to feed since i got him the first day when i caught a glimpse of him attempting to eat but I don't think he got anything on his tongue. I have tried to hand feed him small meal worms but he looks at them and then ignores them.

i need some help, does he just need time to get used to the cage? should i not try to hand feed for a while? Should i purchase flightless fruit fles? I don't know what to do.




Since this picture I replaced all the substrate and rocks with just white paper towels.[/img]

 

you have to make sure that the food you are giving it is no bigger than the space in between his eyes. Try maybe feeding it a few wax worms and see if he goes for that. If all your trying to give him is crickets, try and give him something else. Find out what the pet store was feeding it and see if you can find out if he was also not eating at the pet store.

 

He may not be comfortable climbing down to the floor to eat. Take a container, put your crix into it, and then place a stick running from the container to where your little veiled likes to hand out. The crickets will crawl up the stick.. see if that entices him. Placing bugs on the screen by him may help also. Whatever you do, try to do it quickly and with as little disruption as possible. Your little guy is making a big adjustment right now..

 

Im not sure which kind of cup i should use, plus my "habba mist" system will create water in the cup thus killing the crickets, ive put crickets on his same branch but he just looks at them then ignores. I bought the chameleon the same day the pet shop received them. I don't believe the owner knows anything about chameleons, let alone reptiles, and i wanted to get him out of the store as quickly as possible. The two foods I have tried are meal worms and crickets.. the pinhead crickets are small enough for him to eat and they are constantly moving around on the wood right below him. I also did not mention that i moved around some of the vines and such right after i put him in. I also got rid of all the substrate in case he couldn't see the crickets. He may be eating but i have never seen him eat and i watch him pretty often.

I tried suspending a up of meal worms to track the number but the mister system turned on and killed them (wasn't thinking).

Do most breeders use flightless flies?

i can try to ask the owner if he knows who he ordered form and try contacting them.

 

I fed my veileds hydei fruit flies at that age. Asking the previous owner what he or she was feeding the veiled would be a good idea. How does it look healthwise? Can you take some pictures?

 

When he is not colored and standing up I can make out his ribs only slightly. Although most babies I have seen pictures of I can see the same. Ill have a few pictures up of him tonight.

 

hope he eats for you soon! I find they like waxworms.

 

I may try wax worms, do any of you breed them? ive found some tutorials online and wondered if u would rather buy in bulk or breed. Get all over the house etc.

I just now noticed today his skin has gotten some yellow discoloration? does this mean anything serious?
^I just now read an article that said they turn light green and have yellow spots when they are relaxed. So I assume he got these yellow marks before he went to sleep. If I am wrong let me know.

 

Your picture isn't very clear, but what I can see of it looks like he is a chubby little veiled. My guess from that picture is that he is getting enough to eat. You may want to add a live plant to your setup.. it will increase the humidity and make him more comfortable.

 

I was thinking in about 2-3 months i will get him a live plant and a new enclosure about 24x24x48. I am deciding if i will build that over the summer since i will have time. I also found a great site for custom mesh cages. I need a few questions answered as to where I can find a large pesticide-free pothos. I also need to know how strong the basking bulbs need to be, and if my 24" hood (18") 10.0 reptisun would be ok if i have a sanding tree reaching to the top.

Thanks

 

My chamelen loves any kind of worm. They must be delicious!

 

HES EATING! Thinking about purchasing a 24x24x48 and building a humidifier system! New cage in probably another month!

Thanks for your help, it took a couple of days but hes eating crickets, ill get him some waxworms in another week when hes a bit bigger.

 

Glad to hear that he is eating..

I would hold off on the 24X24X48 until he is a bit larger. Also, instead of a humidifier system, you may want to look into a misting system.

 

I have a habba mist for the fake leaves so he can drink and i use distilled water with electrolytes. I didn't know my parents had an ultrasonic humidifier they didn't use so i grabbed it and bout some pvc connectors and used pool tubing to make a system. I will have pictures up and a small short video tomorrow. My humidity is only around 20% and i took out my waterfall system since i read so much about how nasty they were. I hope to increase to 40-50 with the system!

 

Sounds like a humidifier is needed after all! The habba mister kinda sucks for use with a chameleon.. they don't run long enough. They work well enough to help bump up the humidity, but really shouldn't be relied upon for your chameleon's only source of water. I had one with my first chameleon, and kept it for a couple months. Then, I went with a homemade misting system that could run for much longer periods of time. Do you have a dripper running as well? As far as using distilled water with electrolytes.. plain ol' tap water is usually fine, unless it is bad water that you wouldn't drink either.

 

I just used distilled to keep the nozzle in good shape. What home made misting system do you use? pvc? I do rely on the system as my only water source. Should i use a dripper as well? i don't have a drainage system either so that sorta a problem. i have paper towels at the bottom that i change out every few days.

 

Yes, I would recommend a dripper as well. The habba mister just doesn't mist long enough to really meet a chameleon's hydration needs. Since you don't have a drain on your cage, you can use a dripper and place a small bowl with a piece of screen rubberbanded over the top to catch the drips. Just empty that once a day, and it will keep your cage floor dry.

I used a misting system made from a garden sprayer, tubing and misting heads. It was controlled by a sprinkler timer and a valve. The total cost was about $60-$70.00, and it worked very well for only a couple cages. I just pumped up the bottle each morning, and there was enough pressure to last through about 40 minutes worth of misting in two cages.

Heika

 

The pressure bottle is a good idea! I have gone with another home made system... I searched around eBay and found a 12V pump for RVs and an RV 10Gal. tank. Then located a 12V valve. Made a trip to Home Depot for some water jets and hose/tube fittings. The idea is to control all of this with some home automation from X10.

You talk about how the habba mister doesn't meet the needs of a chameleon... what is it that doesn't work right? I am using patio misters that can dispense 1/2 gallon of water in an hour.... I obviously won't run the system that long... but what is a good amount of time to have a mister running? When I get the system running ill post some pictures of it.

 

Hey, that sounds really interesting, I would love to see pics when you are finished. Can your pump run dry? The pressure bottle wasn't my idea.. it has been around for a while! It does work well, though. I tried to adapt a cornelius keg (an old pepsi bottle from a soda fountain) to the system, and ended up blowing up tubing. If there was a way to reduce the pressure from the bottle, it would work. I used an air compressor to pressurize it, and it produced the most amazing mist.. until... hoses started blowing and drenched everything!

The biggest problem with the Habba Mister is that it will only run for 1 minute at a time. If I remember correctly, you can set it to run 6 times in 24 hours. That is a whole whopping 6 minutes a day. That isn't very long for a chameleon. One of the peculiar things about these animals is that they seem to require longer mistings to generate a drinking response. I run my misting system (now a pump driven system because of the amount of cages it serves) 4 times a day for varying lengths of time. The first is at 8 a.m., a half an hour after the lights come on, and it runs for 15 minutes. The next is at 11 a.m., and it runs for 10 minutes.. then 2 p.m. for 20 minutes, and then at 6 p.m. for 10 minutes. Because of the misting intervals and the length of the misting sessions, I don't use drippers. My chameleons are well hydrated.

 

WOW that sounds like a lot of water. I guess when I get the system running I will have a better idea of how much it will deliver and how much she'll need. Now that I have real trees I'm not as worried about where all the water will go. My plan is to buy a larger cage for her and make a drainage system. is it better to have a layer of 1" rocks and then smaller rocks and then dirt? and maybe another layer of rocks for easy cleaning?