Glad the information was easy enough to digest! That's what I aim for!



You said..."do I absolutely have to use a Reptisun tubular light? I've got a very expensive Powersun 100watts self ballasted Mercury Vapor bulb, which the petshop said I had to buy. Is that ok, or did I waste my money?"...I have never used a mercury vapor bulb...but I know that you need to be careful if you use it. Here's a very good website that talks about them and other bulbs...

http://www.uvguide.co.uk/mercuryvapourlamps.htm



You said..."Can I use Flukers cricket food to gut-load them, or do I have to worry about special diets for crickets?"..you can use a commercial product but you need to make sure that the calcium, phos., D3 and vitamin A in the chameleon's diet/supplements/etc. stays in balance...and sometimes using a commercial product makes that difficult. I prefer to use a natural diet....and for me its not much work because I also keep turtles/tortoises and other omnivorous lizards.



Concerning caging...I have used glass cages with screen lids or glass cages with screen lids and doors for over 20 years now for chameleons...I live in Canada and certainly wouldn't recommend this if you lived in a hot country....but its hard to keep the screen cages warm enough in the winter especially. You need to make sure that water doesn't sit stagnant on the floor of the cage and I recommend mounting the basking light and UVB lights to one corner/side to help with the air flow but those are the main problems. I have had people say that the chameleon reacts negatively to its reflection in the glass, but this has never been a problem. My chameleons live long healthy lives in these cages.



You said your house gets down to the 58-60 degrees at night during the winter....that's a little too cool IMHO for chameleons. You can use a ceramic heat bulb at night if you really need heat in the cage. I don't use any under-the-cage heat.



Regarding substrate...I don't use any in my chameleon cages. I worry about them causing impaction when/if its ingested.



You said..."she can't climb at sharp vertical angles or hang onto thick branches like a normal cham can because she's missing two toes. So I was thinking I should maybe change her cage to a tank that has more width than height to compensate. That way she doesn't have to climb so high to reach warmth and light"...this would be fine. I also put long pieces of tree bark in cages on a more gentle slope with old/disabled chameleons that have difficulty climbing so that they have more like a long rough ramp to climb rather than a vertical surface. I really think that chameleons like horizontal space as well as vertical space.



Don't worry about asking questions...I like to see people succeed with chameleons. I will answer them the best I can...can guarantee I will know all the answers though! Even after over 20 years of keeping them, I'm still learning!

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