Posted by:
kaclon
at Sun Apr 22 20:10:11 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by kaclon ]
Hello all,
I am both new to this forum and new to chameleons, and I'd be very grateful for any advice you're able to give me. Eight days ago, I purchased a juvenile male veiled from LLL Reptile; he's a great little guy, and seems basically healthy and happy. My only concern is that he's not feeding quite as aggressively as I would like, and I'm not certain if he's getting adequate nutrition. While it's possible that it's the stress of the new place and the new setup (the theory of the people at LLL), I wanted to do my best to rule out any husbandry issues.
Here are the specifics of his setup: he's in a 2x2x4 wire mesh enclosure with a ficus and a pothos vine (both of which are pesticide-free.) He's got a full-spectrum ZooMed UV lamp which heats his basking spot to ~92 degrees; I keep the lamp on for about twelve hours a day, and he also gets some natural sunlight during the day. I'm in Southern California, so the temp never drops below 70 in the house. I've got an automatic mister that goes off every three hours, and I mist by hand a couple of times a day as well; I've seen him drink a lot, so I'm not concerned that he's not getting enough water. His enclosure is in a reasonably low-traffic area of the house.
Food-wise, I've been putting 6-8 small crickets in his enclosure every day (they're about the size of the space between his eyes) and also giving him mealworms and some vegetables. I gutload the crickets with commercial gutload stuff and I've been dusting them with ZooMed's Reptevite (which has calcium, vitamin A and vitamin D3, among others.) I've tried both dusted and non-dusted insects. So far, I've actually seen him eat 2 crickets and 2 mealworms total--while I'd guess he's eating when I'm not looking as well, I'm not certain how much hunting he's doing. I've seen him totally ignore crickets that are right next to his nose, though, and that seems weird--everything I've read says that baby chameleons are huge eaters, and mine seems decidedly not like this. He's sitting on the screen right now with probably six crickets in striking distance, and he's ignoring all of them. He's begun looking a little bit bony--it almost looks like I can see his ribs--and this worries me.
Should I assume that he's still stressed out about the move and give him some time? Should I be making an appointment with the vet? Am I overthinking this? Do you guys have any advice and/or thoughts on the matter?
Thanks so much in advance.
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 Feeding problems-new juvenile veiled - kaclon, Sun Apr 22 20:10:11 2007
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