Reptile & Amphibian Forums

1- Cage Screen: 18 X12 X 20
2-Temps: - Basking area: 85 F; lower in cage : 75-80F
3-Lighting: - Regular household bulb, it use to be 100 WATT and now its 45 WATT and its at the top and I moved it farther from the basking site, it use to be like 5 inches! Thats why his skin was like that, not ant bites it was burns. Ants are gone BTW. I do not have a UV bulb, but I let him bask on my screen window for an hour and half every day where sunlight hits him that isnt blocked by any glass.
4-Humidity: do you have a gauge?No >_< but I live in Miami, FL so the humidty should be ok.
5-Water: I mist 3 times a day, I spray a old window cleaner bottle THUROUGHLY CLEANED about 6 times everytime. I have a dripper active about 3 times a day for 30 minutes. I havn't seen him drink recently, but I gave him a shower and spray him a lot and I hear he absorbs water through skin. His poop is clear and healthy looking.
6-Plants/branches: A fake branch, and a ficus tree. I have not trimemd ficus branches so there is no sap that he hook rub his eye on.I dumped the old branches and bought a plastic one and put a ficus plant that I soaked in soap water for 30 minutes.
7-Food : He is eating crickets bought a my local pet store. Im feeding the feeders, orange/carrot/ and dog chow that has alot of vitamins. I leave the food in my cricket carrier and they eat it so i'm assuming its gutlaoded?
8-Supplements what and how often do you dust and with what (brand)? I feed my cham crickets individually, one at a time. Not hand feed but I just release a single cricket in its cage and let it eat. I do this about 3-5 times a day. At first I dusted them heavily with Miner-ALL and probably fed it 12 crickets with Miner-ALL, but when I read eye problems could be a cause of Vit A deficiency i bought Repto-vitamins and gave him about 4 crickets dusted with that. I stopped dusting crickets in fear that these problems are from over supplmenting it.
9-Cham facts: He is about 10 Months old, and he is captive born, I got it from Xtremereptiles.com. They also live in Miami so I just picked up my jackson so he wouldn't be stressed from shipping.
10-Vet do you have one that KNOWS chameleons? I called all my local vets and asked them some cham questions, and they seemed cluless. I asked him a question saying that my Cham';s tongue was hanging out (its not but I wanted to see if he knew about Chams) and he said, "I have no clue, why don't you bring him in". So I take it my local vets dont have much experience.

So any reason to why he is stop using his tongue? He is just trying to bite the crickets, and the crickets hop away. This may have happened when I tried feeding it a superworm, it might have been a little large so when he tried to stick its tongue at it, it was in his mouth but I guess it was too big so it spit it out. So perhaps trauma caused this lack of using his tongue to his potential? How do I fix that? The worm incident happened about 3-4 days ago. I think my old 100 WATT volt is reponsible for the soars, they are burns.

THANKS LELE!!!

*That cage is very small. I don't know exactly how big Jax get, but i think they are comparable to a panther. Especially for a 10-mth old cham you should use a 24x24x48 sized cage.

*I'd scrap that window cleaner bottle. Even though you cleaned it out well, plastic will absorb the chemicals and then they may leach out into your spray water. I got a very nice and very large spray bottle for less than $5.

*Carrots are good, and oranges may be used sometimes, but I've heard someone say that cat/dog foods have too much protein and that it can cause some kind of problems. I use Total cereal, oatmeal, non-fat dry milk, apples, and leafy greens like dandelion, and collard. Lettuce, even romaine, IMHO, is crap. Stay away from spinach and kale as they can bind calcium.

*For supplements I use repcal calcium with D3 3 times a week and Herptivite 1 a week. Once your cham reaches about a year of age, use them both less.

Hopefully someone else can answer your other questions.
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~Melissa
1.0 Ambanja Panther (Diesel)
0.1 African Hegdehog (Kaimah)

Heya,

I am not lele but I still wanted to quickly give my 2 cents. Jacksons for a start are not an overly active specie of chameleon but this does not mean that they can be housed on the small side. Chameleons will often get stressed if they feel boxed in. This is a specie that requires high levels of humidity and does not tolerate drastic temperature changes. Try to find a delecate balance here. In the morning spray until the humidity hits 90 to 100%, it may gradually drop during the day but towards the evening it should be back up to 90 to 100%. Make sure that the cage dries out in between sprays. Jacksons prefer a basking temp of a 24 to 27 degrees Celsius and an allround temperature of about 20 degrees celsius. Jacksons need a nighttime temp drop of a couple of degrees (very importent).

I would be tempted to just fill his cage with as much foilage as I possibly could. They like to hide and even though they don't show aggression all the time, they do not like to be disturbed.

I would also be feeding baby grasshoppers, waxworms, baby hornworms and some small species of cockroach. Jacksons start of feeding well on crickets and out of the blue they go on a hunger strike. Take my advice and stop that from happening. Diversity is everything when it comes to feeding chameleons.

The tongue problem could have many causes. Missed badly and bruised his tongue. Lack of certain vitamins in his diet (correct me if I am wrong anybody, but I believe that tongue failure is because of a deficiency of vitamin B). But it could be a simpel as insufficient lighting. Heat is one thing but light intensity is just as importent. If a chameleon cannot see his prey probaly (due to insufficient bright lighting) they can get tempted to move in a little closer to lesson the chance of missing.

I really hope things turn out for best for you and your Jackson. By the way, which specie is he. Merumotanum, xantolophus etc ect.

René Imming.

Oh and by the way. Buy a clean spraycan. You cannot afford to take chances when it comes to there drinking water.

He is xantolophu and he is rather small, I'd say about 4-5 inches body length. So the cage is fine, and I have plenty of foilage. I also have a lot of light and I think his eye problems is gonig away when I upped the humidity, any tips on how to increase the humdity and I'm still worried about the tongue issue!

Hey there - please don't look at me as the naswer lady b/c I sure don't have them all! LOL!

>>1- Cage Screen: 18 X12 X 20

for a 10 month old cham it really should be 2x2x4

>>2-Temps: - Basking area: 85 F; lower in cage : 75-80F
>>3-Lighting: - Regular household bulb, it use to be 100 WATT and now its 45 WATT and its at the top and I moved it farther from the basking site, it use to be like 5 inches! Thats why his skin was like that, not ant bites it was burns.

are you sure they were burns? if so, did you put something on them?

Ants are gone BTW.

don't mean to be a broken record but...are you sure they are gone? Ants can multiply quickly and may not show up in numbers right away

I do not have a UV bulb, but I let him bask on my screen window for an hour and half every day where sunlight hits him that isnt blocked by any glass.

nope. screen blocks some UVB rays, too. you NEED a reptisun 5.0, Mercury vapor bulb or something comaparable

>>4-Humidity: do you have a gauge?No >_< but I live in Miami, FL so the humidty should be ok.

"should be OK" is not sufficient. You can get a combo temp/humidity gauge at home depot for $18. I have a veiled so I do not know humidity requirements for jax so make sure you keep it in appropraite range.

>>5-Water: I mist 3 times a day, I spray a old window cleaner bottle THUROUGHLY CLEANED about 6 times everytime. I have a dripper active about 3 times a day for 30 minutes. I havn't seen him drink recently, but I gave him a shower and spray him a lot and I hear he absorbs water through skin. His poop is clear and healthy looking.

he may or may not be getting enough water. If you are shaowering him - meaning taking him out? You may be handling this guy too much. he has barely had time to settle in, so leaves wet so he can drink. If you are home enough see if you can figure out his drinking habits. Luna has her dripper in one corner of the cage and goes there when she is thirsty - usually. I do supplement with hand watering (holding a hamster water bottle so she can drink)

>>6-Plants/branches: A fake branch, and a ficus tree. I have not trimemd ficus branches so there is no sap that he hook rub his eye on.I dumped the old branches and bought a plastic one and put a ficus plant that I soaked in soap water for 30 minutes.

you really need to repot this plant. pesticides and synthetic fertilizer could be in the soil and then taken up by the plants - oh, wait. jax don't eat foliage. Well, it is still a good idea to begin with everything clean

>>7-Food : He is eating crickets bought a my local pet store. Im feeding the feeders, orange/carrot/ and dog chow that has alot of vitamins. I leave the food in my cricket carrier and they eat it so i'm assuming its gutlaoded?

I would recommend buying enough crix to last at least amonth. You need to get the pet store crap - ummm, food - out of them and parasites so they really need to not be fed until you have given them optimum conditions for at least 2 or 3 days. this way you will always have a healthy supply

>>8-Supplements what and how often do you dust and with what (brand)? I feed my cham crickets individually, one at a time. Not hand feed but I just release a single cricket in its cage and let it eat. I do this about 3-5 times a day. At first I dusted them heavily with Miner-ALL and probably fed it 12 crickets with Miner-ALL, but when I read eye problems could be a cause of Vit A deficiency i bought Repto-vitamins and gave him about 4 crickets dusted with that. I stopped dusting crickets in fear that these problems are from over supplmenting it.

it is recommended that mineral once/week and vitamin 1/month - provided feeders are well fed

>>9-Cham facts: He is about 10 Months old, and he is captive born, I got it from Xtremereptiles.com. They also live in Miami so I just picked up my jackson so he wouldn't be stressed from shipping.

well that was good thing! Nice to have the breeder near by have you asked them any of your concerns?

>>10-Vet do you have one that KNOWS chameleons? I called all my local vets and asked them some cham questions, and they seemed cluless. I asked him a question saying that my Cham';s tongue was hanging out (its not but I wanted to see if he knew about Chams) and he said, "I have no clue, why don't you bring him in". So I take it my local vets dont have much experience.

go here and check out the Miami listing http://www.herpvetconnection.com/florida.shtml here's another site with listings http://www.anapsid.org/vets/florida.html. Also, you can post right here and ask who other folks in your area recommend

>>So any reason to why he is stop using his tongue? He is just trying to bite the crickets, and the crickets hop away. This may have happened when I tried feeding it a superworm, it might have been a little large so when he tried to stick its tongue at it, it was in his mouth but I guess it was too big so it spit it out. So perhaps trauma caused this lack of using his tongue to his potential? How do I fix that? The worm incident happened about 3-4 days ago. I think my old 100 WATT volt is reponsible for the

not sure about the tongue thing. He may have hurt it a bit. Try feeding him some softer food like waxworms & silkies.

Hope this helps! I have not read the other responses yet but I am sure they give good suggestions, too.

lele
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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Líta
1.0 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.5 Mad. Hissers
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (no name yet)
?.? Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula (no name yet)

I am pretty sure they are burns, and I havnt put anything on it but they are healing.

I am SURE they are gone. Havnt seen a single one in 3 days

The type of screen I have is similar to the cage of the chameleons in that there is direct contact with the outside. Thus the sun hits him directly and is COMPLETELY unfiltered.

Ill get that guage =)

Ill try hand feeding if the problem persist

I asked them about the concerns and they are not sure

The waxworms on orderd online, but it wil be next week before its shipped =(

THANKS again! I must just trade the jackson to an experience reptilist for a hardier veil.