Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i was wondering if it is possible to keep a pair of veileds in a 12 x 12 x 12 room or is that not enough space for them to coexsist peacefully

It might be possible but you'd have to watch them closely, especially for the first few weeks. And you'd have to have it set up with a choice of trees & basking sites. The trees should be placed away from each other.
Ed

First of all that sounds like a freakin' sweet idea but having a large enclosure would create many problems like it would be hard to feed and keeep humidity up and in a well planted vivarium it might even be hard to find them. now i'm no expert but would defintly think about this plan for awile.

I don't disagree. Unless you have floor drain, misting and dripping will be a real tough job. And, of course, you should have at least 3 or 4 separate trees and each should have basking & UVB lighting. So I agree: although it is feasible, it will be an expensive proposition. You'd basically need thick ropes to connect the trees but still have the trees far enough apart so the female could escape the male if necessary.

I tried a free-range set up once but when thye misting started to bubble the paint and discolor the hardwood floor of our newly renovated home, the wife put her foot down!
Ed

Being hard to find would probably appeal to the chams, but make the keeper's job harder. Chams need to be able to hide from each other even in a big space. Veiled chams are well able to display and stress each other from across a room so you would need visual sanctuaries at least. I happen to like free range setups having done it with melleri, but again you need to watch the interactions of the animals too. For some it works, for others its war.

I've seen pix of Carlton's free range set up. Basically, the whole area was set on a thick plastic tarp so it looked like a very large wading pool. That took care of the drainage problem. And I agree with the visual isolation part as well. If necessary, you might have to hang cheese clth or som,ething else from the ceiling to provide visual barriers. Alternately, if you had 6-8 large (>7' tall) trees, they might be able to provide the visual barriers. But then you've got to provide enough light to keep these plants alive.

My rule of thumb for cages or anything else is that if you can easily find the cham in the cage, you don't have enough foliage/cover for him.
Ed

Ed, do you think this would be enough foliage for my veiled?
His basking branch is exposed and always has been, he shows no signs of stress but has always been very aggressive.

forgot the pic

That's not bad. They're always going to be highly visible when at the basking spot. As long as there are places where he can hide it's OK. I guess my question would be, "as you approach the cage and he's not in his basking spot, is it immediately obvious where he is?"

If the answer is "yes," you need more foliage &/or a bigger cage. If the answer is, "there are lots of times when I have to search for him, you're OK.
Ed

He would probably be in the catergory of "hard to find". When he is thermoregulating or hunting, he goes darker as he lowers to the very bottom of the ficus, he blends in with the base of the plant and is behind leaves anyway, it will usually take me anywhere from 5-15 seconds to find him.

I remember when he was a wee one, the babies are so green it would take 2 people 2 minutes to find him.

thanks for the help

I agree with the first person that responded. I think it could work, but you'd need separate trees and plants for them as well as separate drippers, feeding bins, and basking spots. I'd also watch them for stress the first few weeks.

The major problems I see with this is them breeding whenever they feel like it, thus not giving the female time to rest after she lays eggs, and none of it will be supervised so you wont know when to expect eggs. Also if one of the chameleons will not eat out of a feeding dish your gonna have problems getting enough food to it. These are some things I would think about before doing something like this.
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From Sunny Florida
Jovana's kids listed below
1.0 Veileds
1.1 Ambanja Panther
1.1 Tamatave Panther

hey thanks everyone for the help I have my male chameleon cosmo free roaming in my room and since my sister was planning on getting a chameleon too i thought why not make a whole room just for the two of them so im probably going to make a whole room for them but not until i have more money and space