Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey ya'll,

Im thinkin of building an outdoor cage for some sort of larger chameleon....oustaletts, veruscus, or a mellers....the cage is gonna be 8 feet long, 3 feet deep, and 6 feet tall. My main concern is the winters the temps hover above freesing at night....i know for sure that a mellers could not handle such brutal cold nights....could an oustallets or veruscus? I plan on providing a large heat bulb (250 watts) over a large ficus ali tree....would this idea work at all or should i just give up?

Thanks in advance....
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eric

It's alot easier to heat than it is to cool, so you have that part working with you. I have a cage here that's about 6x3x3 that I wrap in plastic wrap (visqueen) for the winter and put a ceramic heater on top. It works great during the winters. I didn't think SD got that cold, but it works good here where it rarely freezes (but gets close a few times). On a bigger cage, you could do some more elaborate type of heater, or put a few in there in various spots, since a single heat source wouldn't cover that much area unless there was low ventilation.
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Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV
www.BLUEBEASTREPTILE.com

Thanks for the ideas dude! Belive it or not it does freeze in San Diego....i live in a part called Poway and it really only freezes about 15 times a year... I plan on keeping an oustallets in the cage....are there any other species of cham that would do well in this cage?

BTY you guys have very stunning chams...i hope to see ya at irba!
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eric

Eric,
Many types would do well, but like you said, you should stick to something bigger. Veileds handle the cold well, and panthers are good also. I get a kick out of Melleri, but you need to get some nice ones (CBB are prime if you can find them). The other bigger species just aren't colorful enough for my liking, but those big 3 species are all hardy (by chameleon standards) and all would do well in a big cage. Chameleon Company has CBB Oustalets right now I believe with some good size on them.

I will indeed see you at the Del Mar IRBA in April. I paid for that show this past October, so hopefully it'll be as good as the last 2 there have been. Del Mar's a fun place to go, so far it has been a great show, and there's plenty of cute girls to chase around down there.
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Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV
www.BLUEBEASTREPTILE.com

Wow i didnt know that panthers could handle the cold?! I gave up on the mellers too....god dont i miss having those vicious, yet wonderful chams around!

Del mar is full of babes! I love to surf there too....
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eric

When I lived in San Diego, I loved right next to the coast (south bay area). I kept my Jacksons outside year round, right along my bonsai trees.
During the winter, I would cover my whole growing area in clear visqueen to keep the chill out, rather than cover the individual cage as Tyler suggested.
I think part of the reason this worked was that Jacksons are a mountain species and can handle cooler climates. The other part was that I was right next to the coast, so it never really dropped below 45.
Another thing to consider might be to build seperate winter quarters inside. I don't think the 'cold' weather lasts too too long in Poway. Should be starting to warm up nicely even now, right?
Good luck!
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

Where did you keep your Mellers that you had before? Were they indoors or outdoors? Exactly how long have you kept Mellers? You had mentioned that you had several Mellers; how big were the enclosures?
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

Dude i only ever had THREE mellers chams at one time....never seven! i have kept them for 4 years until 5 moths ago when my female died: eggbound and the male died 3 months before her. 2 of them were adults and one was a captive bred baby that i bred ! I kept them outddors in a greenhouse with 8x8x8 dimensions and LOTS of plants...the greenhouse had ventilation with little fans in places to help the cage cool in the summer...it also had heat lamps to keep it warm in the winter..a little sprinkler system set up to water chams and plants...overall this cage set up worked EXTREMELY WELL!

The first mellers chameleon i ever kept was an LTC female that i purchased from a guy by the name of Garrett...nice healthy 19 inches long, good weight....and best of all a sweet temperment...After 1 year of sucess with her i decided to purchase a male for her to breed with...so my parents bought me a wild caught one...the didnt tell me the store but it was obvious he was wild caught due to the scars and scabs he had...After he went through quarantine for 7 months i began to introduce them in the greenhouse. Turned out they were frindly towards eachother and existed peacefully. They bred once and laid 30 eggs...onyl 1 was fertile and luckily it hatched!

If you are interested in a mellers chameleon post some questions here....and make sure you have LOTS of free time because they need lots of taming and cleaning the cage is LOTS of work with a pissy WC Male!LOL
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eric

>>Dude i only ever had THREE mellers chams at one time....never seven! i have kept them for 4 years until 5 moths ago when my female died:
I said SEVERAL, never mentioned SEVEN :
Where did you keep your Mellers that you had before? Were they indoors or outdoors? Exactly how long have you kept Mellers? You had mentioned that you had several Mellers; how big were the enclosures?
eggbound and the male died 3 months before her. 2 of them were adults and one was a captive bred baby that i bred !
I wonder how it is that you were able to breed only ONE baby? Can you tell me what temps you kept your eggs at, and exactly how long incubation was?
I kept them outddors in a greenhouse with 8x8x8 dimensions and LOTS of plants...the greenhouse had ventilation with little fans in places to help the cage cool in the summer...it also had heat lamps to keep it warm in the winter..a little sprinkler system set up to water chams and plants...overall this cage set up worked EXTREMELY WELL!
You kept them in a greenhouse? Where ever did you find such a small little greenhouse? Sounds VERY expensive. How much did this whole set up cost you. A better question is, why aren't you continuing to use this setup? I'm also very interested, as I lived in San Diego myself. I ran a bonsai business and I ran a large greenhouse. It cost me a lot of money to set up the greenhouse, but I was able to afford it due to my business. Where EXACTLY did you purchase this set up, and who set it up for you?
Now, was this 8x8x8 enclosure for ONE of your Melleri, or did you keep all three in that one enclosure? Are you saying that you kept 3 mellers together? An 8x8x8 enclosure is VERY small for just ONE mellers....
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

>>Dude i only ever had THREE mellers chams at one time....never seven! i have kept them for 4 years until 5 moths ago when my female died: eggbound and the male died 3 months before her.
Beardiedude, I wonder...
here in this post you say that you kept Melleri for FOUR years. Plus you state that you kept THREE Mellers.
Yet, in an earlier post:
http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1001829,1005565&key=2006
you mention that you only kept ONE male and ONE female for only TWO years.
Are you counting your experience as a COLLECTIVE PER ANIMAL, or total experience?
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Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

Im only 14 years old...there is no way i could have handled mellers chameleons when i was 10! My dad did the dirty work back then...me as an individual have kept them for 2 years! my dad did almost all of the work when i was little unitl i became more aware of there care and requirements....then i did 80% of the work..

As for the greenhouse...that was my moms that she was willing to let me use for the mellers...she charged me rent of $75 a month for it....she had it built like 12 years ago because most of her plants died in the winter or lost there leaves...which she hated! so she had a greenhouse built by a freind of a neghbor...do you know Laurrie Conable? she is a big gardener in san diego and had her hired gardeneers to build one for us (not for free)

As for breeding them, i really dont know what stimulated them to breed and neither does anybody i have talked to. I think that since the greenhouse had transparetn plastic, they could see the seasons changing....the tempos dropped too. I saw she had a large bulges in her stomach, so iassumed she was gravid...she definately was! She laid 25 infertile and only 1 fertile..which hatched after being incubated at room temperature (70 to 78) after a period of approximately 6 months.

If you have any more questions to ask....GO FOR IT!
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eric