Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am new to this hobby, so I am not sure on how my veiled chameleon is supposed to act. I have read that they require lots of water. I have a mister that i use to mist his cage several times a day, but every time i do he goes running. He doesn't appear to be dehydrated i suppose, but i never see him drink water and he acts like he doesn't want to get wet. I am using water that is room temp. so i dont' think it is too cold. if anyone has any suggestions i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

You're laying out in the sun, nice and toasty, when all of a sudden a downpour. What do you do? Run for cover?

Your chameleon doesn't hate water.

He probably hates the fine mist.... Stick him in a short tree in your yard and gently rain on him with the hose for a few minutes and see what happens. One of my panthers doesn't drink much until I do that and then he'll drink all day long. Neither of my 2 veileds drinks much at all, but they eat the leaves and the occasional veggies or RASPBERRIES (they love these) that I offer them and they probably get enough water from that. I still water them with drippers, but I never see them drink.
-Tyler Stewart

Thanks a bunch. Yall have made me feel a lot better about the little guy. Since i am new to all of this, i read everything i can get my hands on, and take it all to heart. I guess i had the impression that when the water came, my cham was supposed to put on his rain coat and golashes and break out in song and dance to "singin in the rain."

Is there a temp that he would prefere when it comes to water? I've read that room temp is fine, and i've also read that luke warm is good too.

My mist water is room temperature.

Warming your mist water helps to keep the cham active during the mistings. The mistings drop the enclosure temperature as well as the chams body temperature.

I do not think this is necessary unless there is a problem that requires you to do so. (dehydrated condition) Even so, you would have to start with HOT water to have a luke warm mist output. There are much better areas to occupy your time..misting temperature is not one of them.

We prefer to mist the adults with room temp water, and the same for their drippers.

However... younger chams appreciate warm water misting. We put the misting bottle (not the sprayer) in the microwave to heat the water to HOT - not boiling. Then dial a fine mist... it should come out warm - test on inside of your wrist.

With a bit of experimentation - you can figure out if you need to nuke it for 1 or 2 minutes on High... we use quart-sized hand-misters and that works out to be 2 min. Even with 150 - 200 babies to mist.. the extra time is nothing.

See if your little guy responds better to the warm mist...
Hope this helps,
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well thats normal mine used to be like that but she now actually loves water as far as veileds go. if i mist her with big or large drops she will come up and suck on the bottle for a while and the same with the dripper but she used to hate any water at all, you might want to try giving her a shower in a ficus that worked for me.

JK