Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Azo my 3 month old male veiled chameleon for some reason goes to the bottom of his cage and stays there. Pumpkin, my 9 month old female is in a cage next to him. I put a piece of cardboard in between their cages so they could not see each other. He eats fine and everything but I have no idea why he keeps going to the bottom of his cage, he also is really dary whenever he is on the bottom. Azo sees Pumpkin if I take one of them out to go outside but it is not for a long period of time so I don't think he could be getting stressed from that. Any ideas would be helpful.

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Meg

He may be frustrated with the cage. What size is it? How high off the ground? He may be spending a lot of energy pawing at the cage trying to escape. May need a lot more climbing and perching areas, or the temps are too high.

His cage is 20x18x12. It is on a dresser to make it a little higher up. It is about 3 and a half feet off the ground. I have a cage that is 29x29x72 but I am going to wait untile he gets a little bigger to put him in there so he will be able to find his food easier. I just got some more silk plants to put in there to make even more places to hide under, I think that will help.
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Meg

I would move him. You can confine his feeders in a plastic bin so he can find them, but they can gutload themselves and move around to attract his attention. Place a climbing branch so he can reach the rim of the bin.

Hey, my chameleon was behaving this way before I started free-roaming him. He seemed more lethargic and would stay at the bottom which worried me. At one point I thought I would lose him. Now it seems like it never happened.