Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all. We have a female veiled chameleon that is about 4 years old. We have only had her for less than six months and she was very undernourished when we got her.

Recently with things cooling off she stopped eating well. We figured that she was getting too cool at night (even though our home only got down to about 70 degrees so we got her an ultraviolet light to help her stay warmer. She has begun eating better and seems to be less restless.

She lives in a 100 gallon reptarium with white basking light and UV lamp. She has water with a bubbler and a Ficas tree in her cage.

Lately she seems to be falling asleep rather early. She crawls on a vine under some branches of the ficas tree and falls asleep in the late afternoon. Everything that we have read says that this is not normal. Any ideas? Her basking light is only a 50W, do we need a stronger one so her cage stays a little bit warmer?

Do we need to be concerned? Any ideas as to what else we should be doing? She has never laid eggs (being undernourished from the previous owner) and does not seem to be gravid right now from everything that we can tell.

Thank you in advance.

Nathan

Hi
Depending on where you are and how cold it is there, you might want to increase the watts of your lightbulbs, keeping her basking area between 75-90 I think is the norm? (someone correct me if im wrong)
Also, are you supplementing her food with anything or gutloading her feeders? That could be the reason for falling asleep early and lacking energy?
Last question, does she have another water source (like a dripper) besides the water bubbler? Ive heard that chameleons dont drink well from bowls.

Just a few questions, hopefully others will have more input.

Erin
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1:0 Veileds (Gene, RIP Aurora)
1:1 Albino Clawed Frogs (Phedre and Jos)
?? Fire belly toad (Harold)
Various cats and dogs

Don't worry about that night temp...chams need a 10 to 15 degree drop in temp at night. The heat light is stressing her all night. Veileds can easily tolerate a drop into the low 60's. What type of UV light do you have? Most are useless. Give the brand. A safe one to use is the ReptiSun 5.0. A regular house light bulb is fine for heat. But, measure the temp of the surface of her basking perch. It should reach 90 F during the day, with the rest of the cage varying in temp into the 70's. In our winter even if there are cage lights, she may be responding to the short daylight she sees through windows. She may be suffering from deficiencies and dehydration if she was poorly cared for before. Give us more info on what you are feeding, what you gutload her insects with, what you dust with and how often. There is really good nutritional info on several websites including www.calumma.com and www.adcham.com you should read. How do you give water? She will need a cage air humidity of at least 50% so you need to spray her foliage several times a day depending on your room humidity level. You will need an accurate gauge to tell the level. Read the articles on veileds at www.chameleonnews.com for more health info on veileds too. Good luck!

raise her wattage of the light bulb to 100. her basking temp should be 95-105. rest of the cage80-90. you need a dripper as chams will sometimes drink out of a bowl but shouldn't. she shouldn't be falling asleep so early. haVE any more questions just ask.
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1.0 veiled chameleons(Rocket)