Just bought Veiled chameleon, need help!

I think my chameleon is afraid of water, i have the mister spraying from the top-back-left corner and he runs every time it turns on. There is a piece of wood that he runs behind to not get hit by the water. Btw, anytime i go to clean the cage or do anything he gets very scared and runs to hide. I have tried hand feeding but he gets very nervous and afraid when he sees my hand. Is there any tricks you guys used to get them used to you? Ive read a thousand times how asocial they are but i really want him to hand feed on occasion, thats it.

 

Yeah, they do best with a lot of water, though. I don't use substrates in any of my large species chameleon cages. Only the leaf chameleon tanks have substrate in them.

 

Running from the mist is pretty normal for a young chameleon. Try using hot water in your misting bottle.. it will cool before it ever hits your chameleon.

Every chameleon has a different personality, and it is possible you won't be able to hand feed yours. However, give him time. They usually get a bit better as they grow older, and more convinced that you aren't going to eat them.

 

Heika- i know you don't use substrate i any of your cages and you said you can drill a hole in the plastic with a funnel and screen on top to make a drainage system. In my case a lot of the water is sitting in different spots of the enclosure, how can i drain it in so many different places? should i tilt the cage?

 

Oh, sorry about that! Refresh my memory on what type of cage bottom you have? All of my cages have semi-flexible bottoms. They are made of either tile board or plastic in one form or another. I place the drain in the center of the floor, and then set a plant (without a water pan) directly on the drain. The floor flexes because of the weight, and the water runs out.

 

Heika if you run the mister for that long doesn't the garden sprayer run out of water? The standard seems to be just 2gal in any hardware store I've seen

 

No, when I was using the garden sprayer system, I misted two cages for 40 minutes a day, and used about a gallon. I had a 2 gallon garden sprayer. I used .5 gallon per hour misting heads on the system, and it worked out fine. I have many, many more cages now than I used to, and use a pump driven system because of it. I chose the Promist 70, and have been very happy with it. But, if I only had a couple cages, I would have stuck with my homemade system. It worked well.

 

i have a hard plastic bottom that doesn't flex. I have have quite a bit of water build up at the bottom. ill try to get some pictures up here soon.