Reptile & Amphibian Forums

....left me in shambles today! I came home this evening to find the cage open....just a smigget, the one corner where I normally stick the crixs in.

No Squig! I rustled in the cage for 10 minutes thinking he surely must be hiding...he couldn't have gotten out! He is such a "chicken" he never comes near the opening.

Still no Squig! I looked in all of the house plants, in the ferret cage, down the hall...everywhere! Finally, I looked behind the TV. At first glance nothing...but wait, what was that? A cord from the TV? I rolled it out, and there he was, clinging to the nicely bundled cords. He was tan, like the one he was on, and my heart sunk.

I pryed him off, and although cold, his colors came right back. I put him back in the cage, and he shot straight to the top. He was a little disoriented at first, so I let him be.

Fifteen minutes later, he gobbled up all of the crixs and drank water....

Hubby says "Squiggy didn't think nothing of it...just a little adventure!" AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

I will now double check and triple check that cage to make sure it is inescapable!

Thank god....crisis averted!

Kris
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2.1 Black Labs Tucker, Raider and Lacey
1.0 Lepoard Gecko Kumar (Another lost pet RIP and party on with Harold!)
3.0 Horses Smoothie, Rocky and Bogey
1.0 Husbands (he puts up with me)
1.2 Kids-Trevor, Logan and Rylie
1.1 Ferrets Tank and Ellie (The fun fuzzies)
1.1 Veiled Chams Squiggy and Pudge (may she RIP)
0.1 Snowflake Cornsnake Lucky

Thats great... I have had a couple of adventures with Hooloovoo in the last couple of days. He now has a free range set up and a couple of times I have came home and found him on the very top of the curtains chilling out in the sun.
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0.2 Chameleo Chameleo Calyptratus
1.0 Leopard Gecko
1.0 Furcifer Pardalis (Nosy Be)-Hooloovoo

glad all was OK!

This is why I love the jungle gym! Once Cyrus has either been outside (on warm days - not too often right now) or I feel he has spent adequate time under his UVB then I will open his top "door" and he scrambles right out and up! Today I had to leave for a few hours so I took down the part that leads to the window. He is pretty much stranded up there but just happy to be out and be BOSS!).
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Chameleon Help & Resource Info
1.0 Nosy Be Panther Chameleon - Cyrus
0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
1.1 Side-blotched lizards - Ana and Stan for now
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skippy
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh, Died 4/21/06
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha, donated to science 4/4/06
?.? Pinktoe Tarantula - no name yet

I forgot about Stitch one day and he was in my office on his free roaming area, Left the lights on all night, went to work the next day and I remembered about 11:30am. I was so stressed out at work all day, I got home and of course... no Stitch. So I look and look and finally went to check the other chams cages..about 3 rooms away.. Just in case... and sure enough, he was clinging to the side of Rana's cage like an inmate. I was really supprized that she wasn't freaking out, but I guess they had all day to get to know each other. Stitch heads to Rana cage when he gets out, Lou heads to the window, and Yosamite knows where the silkies are... About the only "good" one is Rana. She stays in her little spot They all try to make a break for it until they see me watching them, then they act all sweet all innocent! LOL, momma knows...

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TFFF
(Tootie Freakin' Fruity Feenie)

All my chams have had specific places in the house they like to get to if they can. In a way, it is good to let them explore when you are around, so you know where they tend to go. You wouldn't think a 24" melleri could disappear in a 4 room house would you? She liked to go behind the fridge and lie near the fan's warm air. My verrucosus prefered a particular curtain rod, the fischeri a hanging plant, my male melleri liked the shower curtain or behind the toilet. My jax preferred the mass of cords behind the stereo. The deremensis pair never left their big cage and my male veiled stalked back and forth in front of the dishwasher glaring at his reflection in the chrome kick panel. He also made a bee line for my Christmas cactus and took huge bites out of it, even if I moved the plant to another room.

see all this makes me want to know where charlie would go if he got out. The only problem is my house is surrounded by things he shouldnt get into too. Plants that are probobly toxic or otherwise harmful (cactus, substrate with gravel or perlite, or worse... carniverous), electrical stuff, or ending up somewhere where i might step on him. This was aked in an other post, but how far can they see? In other words, if i were to leave the cage door open one day when i was home, is there a distance i could stay behind him just to watch where he would go if there was no-one in the house and he happened to get out? Its a nice thing to know.

Jeff

I tried to recreate (in my opinion) the path he took to get to where he ended up! It obviously bothered me more than him...my fear was that he was squashed by the dogs (or worse).

I don't think I could handle letting him free roam....even if I was home! To many ways he could get hurt.

I like Lele's jungle gym thing....But I guess I am too overprotective.

Kris
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2.1 Black Labs Tucker, Raider and Lacey
1.0 Lepoard Gecko Kumar (Another lost pet RIP and party on with Harold!)
3.0 Horses Smoothie, Rocky and Bogey
1.0 Husbands (he puts up with me)
1.2 Kids-Trevor, Logan and Rylie
1.1 Ferrets Tank and Ellie (The fun fuzzies)
1.1 Veiled Chams Squiggy and Pudge (may she RIP)
0.1 Snowflake Cornsnake Lucky

I had a male fischer's that could open the sliding lid to his cage. Not only that he would climb to the top of the valance of the sliding door (to my house, not his cage) and "jump" off in spite of there being several ways to climb down the curtain.

I had a veiled male that watched the little white plastic latch turn around each time I took the screen door off his cage. One day I heard the door fall to the floor and went in to find him exploring. I assumed that it was just a fluke that he had been able to move the latch until the next day the screen door fell to the floor again. The third time he did it I happened to catch him in the act!

I had a C. chamaeleon that opened a sliding door to his cage too.

I wouldn't have believed any of these if I hadn't caught all three of them in the act!

Chams can see a long way...their distance vision is excellent. I always assume they can clearly see anything in the house visible from their cage. About letting them free range, I meant only that you could try it when all was safe in the house. There are lots of hazards they could get into, but some are only hazardous if they have to spend a lot of time there (such as eating perlite out of a houseplant or eating a toxic plant). Immediate threats like your dog are a different "class" of problems. If you have dogs or cats in the house you should probably keep the door to the cham's room shut when you aren't there, or block the doorway with something the cham can't get over like a smooth piece of cardboard taller than they can reach. So, if they do get out they are confined to 1 room.