Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i heard the difference before but that was about 4 years ago, and i bought vynl. well i forgot the difference and wanna know what they are again, the reason being. i cup feed my chameleon and i dont want to do this anymore, i want him to hunt for his own food so he will be more active and alert, the thing is, the crickets eat through the vynl screen that i have on the cage. i was about to go buy fiberglass, or even aluminum and remembered that i heard something bad about those two.

i think that for the aluminum, they said that it would get hot from the bvasking light and would burn the chameleon, and or his nails would break from it.

not suree about the fiberglass. will this be strong enough for the crickets not to chew through this?

if anybody has anything to say about these types of screen, i would love to hear about it.
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1.0. Vield Chameleon(Jessy James)
1.1.3 Sugar gliders(Bonnie & Clyde)
2.0 Ferrets(Butch & Sundance)
1.1.3 Parakeets(Prettyboy,Sassy)
1.0 Doberman (Aries)
1.1 Cats(Riley, Zoe)

I have alum. screen. You shouldn't have the light right on the screen, but even if you do, it doesn't get hot. Go figure.

possum

When I kept my bigger chams (Panthers et al) in Reptariums, I routinely had "chew-throughs", herds of loose crix, and of course, hungry chameleons. I now choose to build all of my own cages out of regular window-grade fiberglass screen. I keep mostly Carpets now, though, so the crix I feed are not quite full size and may not be as apt to chew. I haven't had any problem with chew throughs with fiberglass yet. I do not like aluminum screen, as I've had too many nose rubs from this harsh screen with my chameleons. I have one aluminum screen cage that I bought as I prototype and I dislike it so much its been relegated to quarantine cage duty, so my prize Carpets don't have to spend too much time in it. I hopefully can post a picture tomorrow, as I've finally settled on a design that works great for drainage, since someone recently had drainage questions too.

~Kerry

That was me, Kerry. I would greatly appreciate it if you could be so kind as to post pic's of the set up that you have found to work well.

Thanks so much!
Kristen
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1.1 pygmy leaf
1.1 carpet
1.0 jackson
0.0.3 red eared sliders

the chameleon i have eats adult crix, would they be able to chew out of the fiber glass. the cage i have, and the part that has screening is about 4'x2'x7', so thats a lot of screen to replace on the cage, i want to do it right.
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1.0. Vield Chameleon(Jessy James)
1.1.3 Sugar gliders(Bonnie & Clyde)
2.0 Ferrets(Butch & Sundance)
1.1.3 Parakeets(Prettyboy,Sassy)
1.0 Doberman (Aries)
1.1 Cats(Riley, Zoe)

An all too common problem with using screen instead of a cage is pulled out toenails. My Jackson's lost five toenails due to the screen, and they don't grow back. Sometimes this can lead to nasty infections too. It's a risk you have to take if you use screen. I've seen several posts on this forum by people who had the same problem.

Crix will chew through fiberglass & it will steriorate in sunlight after a while. As someone else said, mesh is better than screen because they lose toenails on the screen. I try to keep male Jax in mesh.
Ed

well, the screen that i use now is the vynl ans is pretty soft, what is the difference with mesh?
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1.0. Vield Chameleon(Jessy James)
1.1.3 Sugar gliders(Bonnie & Clyde)
2.0 Ferrets(Butch & Sundance)
1.1.3 Parakeets(Prettyboy,Sassy)
1.0 Doberman (Aries)
1.1 Cats(Riley, Zoe)

By "mesh" I mean the wide wire cages. No way they can do foot damage on plastic coated wire mesh! Unfortunately, it's no good for a gravid female since the gaps are more than wide enough for babies & jueveniles to escape. And it has the disadvantage that you can't free range prey.

FWIW, routine inspection of feet and mouth (especially the temporal glands in the corners of the mouth) need to be part of the routine for ensuring cham health. Foot and temporal gland infections are very common in chams and especially in jax. Caught very early (before there's swelling), they're easy to treat with a little cleaning and Betadyne or Chlohexadrine solution. Caught late, only some serious vet care and heavy antibiotics can save them.
Ed

After experimenting with a few designs, this is what I've settled on as a near-perfect cage for my critters (medium-sized chams like adult lateralis, or subadult pardalis, jacksonii, etc). The top is a five-sided, aluminum frame and fiberglass screen with hinged front door, screwed onto a 17"x12"x7" stackable, plastic sliding drawer that I found at Bed Bath & Beyond. I drilled enough holes in the top of the drawer (the floor of the actual cage) for continual drainage. I can literally mist and drip all day long in every chameleon's cage without fear of flooding the cham room. The standing water in the collection drawer underneath the cages does help keep humidity levels up, but because I am a fanatic about cleanliness I empty the drawers every day so bacterial buildup is kept to a miminum. The whole cage is easy to clean and/or thoroughly disinfect as needed. My next step is to buy another round of the same plastic drawers to stack underneath all of the current cages, so I have more storage space for the inevitable clutter of chameleon keeping!

~Kerry

Close-up of plastic drawer cage bottom with drilled holes for drainage

One more suggestion, Kerry. Drill holes in the catch basins. Silicone seal plastic tubing (at least 1/4" inside diameter) and run the tubes into a big drainage bucket. It's a lot easier to empty one bucket/day.
Ed

That *is* a good idea! I've been mulling over the possibility of a plug type design drilled into each drawer bottom, so I can just "unplug" once a day per cage and not have to pull out each drawer to empty it, which rather disturbs the chams unnecessarily. However, I've worried about eventual and inevitable leakage around the plug site. Permanent tubing with silicon is brilliant, though! The catch basin could go anywhere, really; quite convenient. Now yet another reason to spend all day in the chameleon room!

~Kerry

See the pick at
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/epollak/drainage.htm

I really like this set up! Ed's point about the bucket is good but for someone like me who only has one cham it wouldn't be a problem. Thanks!

lele
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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 green anoles Jaida & Jetta
0.1 brown anole - Jamaica
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & Tia
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta