Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My year and a half old male veiled chameleon went to the bottom of his cage and scratched up the newspaper that was a little wet from the drip system. I don't know if he ate any of it because I just found the cage like that. He probably did.

He also is not eating a lot and is sleeping more. Could that be because of the weather change or what?(I have him in an indoor cage) Do you think if I used a night time light that he would go back to normal?

I don't know about the digging in the newspaper. Has anything about the cage changed? Any new reflections he might be seeing? He could simply be trying to get to more space. How big is the cage and how long has he been in it? If he's feeling hormones he might be trying to roam to look for a mate.

What is your day/night cycle? Chams often slow down a bit in our fall and winter despite being indoors. They are quite sensitive to the general house light level (and associated temp) and as days shorten the house light level will change. If he's getting about 12 hours of light I would not change that. You can't really prevent him from reacting to the seasons all that much, and as long as he has a fairly regular daily pattern that is more important.

Sorry
he is in a 29x29x72inch cage that he has been in for about a year. It has a hibiscus tree that is about 4ft tall and there are extra braches at the top where the plant has not grown to yet. I did have a female that he saw every so often but they never had the chance to mate.

Now that you say it though he has been roaming around a lot. Normally if I would leave his cage open for a few minutes to feed he would stay where he was, but now if I leave it open he crawls out to as far from the cage as he can get, which really is only about 3 feet.