anyone keep chameleons?

as the title says...

a friend pretty much gave us a terrarium 45cm long x 45cm wide x 60cm high with 2 heat mats, heat bulb and uvb bulb she used to have a chameleon which died, and so my wife wants to get one...

any tips or advice from those of you that have experience with them?

cheers

So many to choose from.
Mellers, Yemen, etc

My personal favourites are panther chamelions

Lots of research is needed before you choose your new buddy

Does it have to be a chamelion? Bearded dragons, iguanas and water dragons (to name but a few) are just as easy to keep and just as nice a pet

stick with the chameleon pal if thats what the viv is set up for... a beardy needs a different setup and an iggy needs a hell of alot more room than any usual person is willing to give up (i had my 2 free roaming the spare room) not to mention their temperment!
in saying that a viv that size won't do any reptile too long so keep that in mind unless you get a geko i supose

Hi work with a well respected reptile man there is very little he doesn't know about
Them,if you pm me your number I could get him to call you,
He lives in your neck of the woods to!

anglecichlid wrote:

Hi work with a well respected reptile man there is very little he doesn't know about
Them,if you pm me your number I could get him to call you,
He lives in your neck of the woods to!

sound as a pound, pm sent!

its a yemen cham that the shop can get in. i wanted a beardie or gecko but the wife doesn't much like them, and i'm sure that (as was the case with fish keeping) we'll end up with a bigger viv by the summer lol.

we've been reading oodles of web pages (its the wife's idea so i'm not going to take it on all myself) and have a good idea of what we are going to do - grow live safe plants, have scrubbed & boiled sticks (dead ones) for climbing, will mist with atomiser many times a day. i think i'll need a small fan for air movement tho so will try to MacGyver something up along with DIY cricket feeder cups i've seen on the interweb.
i want an 18" t8 reflector for the uvb tube, and a lamp head for heat light then we're pretty much ready to go i think

Best of luck whatever you are going for!
If your looking for a decent price on any lizards give me a pm and I'll see what I can do...... have a contact that normally has good prices and knows what he's talking about!

hammie wrote:

Best of luck whatever you are going for!
If your looking for a decent price on any lizards give me a pm and I'll see what I can do...... have a contact that normally has good prices and knows what he's talking about!

pm sent!

well today was eventful to say the least! went to dublin on the wife's request to visit pet stores. long story short we have held a panther chameleon and huge vivarium (private sale) and came home with a pair of giant madagascar geckos. oh how this reminds me of how i ended up with 7 fish tanks in my tiny apartment...

Interesting choice of lizard.....
Beautiful to look at, temperament is anywhere between Tasmanian devil and Bambi depending on how well they have been handled!

Sure throw up some pictures and giz a look anyway

Best of luck with them!

(Just picked up my own viv with lights etc... just heat mat sand and decorations to get before I get my lizard )

goos tuff. any plans on where you getting your lizard, and where from? reptile haven is fantastic i didn't want to leave (and when i did it certainly wasn't empty handed!)

Ill be going to the fella i was telling you about.....
He's local and has everything ill need maintenance wise

Not exactly sure if I'll get a chamelion or what I'll get now to be honest

depends on the size of the viv and if you want something to handle or that just looks purrty

As JohnH said, we have The Herpetological Society of Ireland here.
I was the founding Chairperson, but have passed that position over to my OH (Justine), and now I am editor of the HSI Journal.

I've kept and bred chameleons for the past 30 years, and still have a few around the place.

The HSI will be at the Natural History Museum on 15th, 16th and 18th March 2013.....and I think that I'll be there on the Saturday (16th).
So, if you wanted to pop along and have a chat then please do so.

Of the chameleons commonly available, the best are either a Yemen or a Panther Chameleon (but only if captive bred).

There are some easier to keep chameleons, but they are not doing the rounds for donkey's years.

Do not bother with Pygmy Chameleons or with the real giants such as Melleri to start with.

Which ever chameleon you go for, it is getting a good quality one in the first place is of the utmost importance: trying to bring a sick chameleon back to health is not easy.

Stress is a major killer of chameleons.

Make sure that the UV lamp is a full UV lamp that gives out a decent spectrum of UVA as well as UVB. Also, if it is a fluorescent tube then it may no longer give out enough UVB if it is old.

If you need any other info, then please ask.

ian

Ian
In your experience is any 1 make of bulb any better than another? Obviously when i get the little chap / capete, id like to give them the best possible conditions! Plenty of humidity, the right temps and plenty of climbing / hiding space. So any of your experience you can pas long would be greatly appreciated!

With the likes of rabbits etc. That i would be more failure with there are salt and mineral stones which are important to keep their tech and coats in good condition! Is there anything like this for chamelions? Anything that people commonly overlook that would help keep them in better health?

Substrate wise i assume pro calcium sand is sufficient? I know unlike bearded dragons the chamelion isn't going to take in big mouthful of the substrate. Or perhaps a moisture holding moss would be more beneficial?

Thanks for your advise

Neil

Hammie, lighting is always an interesting topic.

It is quite simple to answer what is the best lighting: Sunlight.

But that is not always convenient (for obvious reason). But, even the amount of UVA that can get through most house windows will boost the animal no ends. All that would need is the odd exposure to the sun.

So, lets get to artificial lighting.....

the absolute best artificial lighting is a full spectrum mercury vapour lamp. In a 100 meter sprint, the sun would have finished the race whilst the mercury vapout lamp had just left the starting block.
But it is still the very best artificial lighting.

There are, however, serious safety aspects to using such a lamp: for then low powered lamps, the animal cannot be within 4 feet of the lamp; for higher power lamps you are talking in the region of the lamp being at least 6 feet from the animal.

These lamps are also highly dangerous to use in that if broken (and that is very easy) then loads of mercury will be released; they cannot be hung at an angle; they must not be near vibrations; they must not be near heat; they must not be near humidity or splashes.
They are easily blown....and for something that costs upto several hundred quid that is not good.

They cannot be used with any form of thermostat, and the UVB spectrum will not pass through glass.

So....you need a very large system to use one.

OK....so now to the more realistic UVB/UVA lamp: the common old fluorescent tube.
These are very good; easy to instal; and much safer to use.

But, you need to make sure that the animal can bask within 8 inches of the lamp.
The level of UVB will rapidly drop after 6 months of use.

You'll need to get a 10% fluorescent tube, and have areas of shelter from the light.

When selecting the lamp, get the one with a high UVB and high UVA output. But don't be too fooled by the % output as that is con anyway.

There is a common fallacy that UVB light makes Vitamin D3: it does not.

What is needed after exposure to UVB is heat....it is actually heat that finally makes Vitamin D3 in the skin from precursors within a time-span required for a living creature.

There is no point giving UVB unless sufficient calcium is supplied in the diet. It is unlikely that the standard food has sufficient calcium for the chameleon, so you will need to dust the food with appropriate calcium supplements.

If you use a supplement with Vitamin D3 added to it, then be careful: chameleons do not take kindly to vitamin supplements (even though they do requirement them in their normal diet).

Substrate.........calci-sand: what a load of rubbish and a waste of time in my opinion. I see no use for it at all for any reptile.

Normally impaction in the gut is not necessarily due to the substrate itself but more to do with captive animals not being kept correctly and, thus, having a gut function that is not up to scratch.

Moss and Coire-Compost is what I use.

All chameleons need humidity sorted. Different species require different humidity.
Humidity is easy to obtain, BUT all chameleons need a very airy viv.....so you need to sort out keeping humidity up with having plenty of aeration.

Do not overfeed waxworms.

That is just a quickie reply.....it would have been quicker to explain all this if you popped into the NHM saturday to chat with me (ian millichip).

ian

Here's a poster I did for helping explain the importance of UV light and Vitamin D3 synthesis.

That's an impressive amount of knowledge!
Thanks for your time in answering my questions, as you can tell I've been fed a diet of bs information from other sources and prefer double check information from someone that knows what is best rather than someone that knows what they are selling!!!
I would love to be able to call into the herp society but its a bad time for me. Just doesn't suit (this time but I'll make a point of doing just that at another event)

Thanks again

Neil

There are only a few shops that have any decent knowledge on these in my opinion.

A few extra notes:

if you're getting a heat-lamp (basking lamp) then make sure the chameleon cannot get close to it (I would usually say about a foot is the closest). Chameleons will burn their own heads off as they seem to lack that bit of brain-power.

When selecting you Chameleon look for the obvious health issues (but remember some are not easy to spot):
is it hydrated properly; let it cling to you finger....you should feel quite a strong grip; look at its gums for stuff oozing; is there any damage to the tail (eg a molt that didn't complete)?; is the tail, legs and back straight in areas they should be straight?; are the eyes sunken?; is it eating?; amke sure it is captive-bred.

Get a male as your first as it is less prone to stress (or to put another way, they are likely to live longer).

If you wanted to venture into Pygmy Chameleons or the large Melleris then hold-off until a bit of experience is gained.


ian

oh balls, i was far too late reading this, but thanks ian and i hope it went well

well anyhow, i got a male panther from a mate who works in a pet shop where i bought a lot of my aquatics. it was his own pet, not out the shop, so we knew it was defo well taken care of and in very good health - he had it over a year. this was with the full viv set up, we just need to replace the uv tube and i'll be planting it out shortly.


also we picked up a pair of juv. giant madagascar day gecko's for the smaller viv. all are feeding, drinking and basking well and from your info the cham is in great form, he took a few days to fully shed there a couple weeks back but all went without problems. the geckos shed in 1 day while i was on my course for 6 hours which is also very good i believe.

just one point about the geckos they are unsexed (well, i cant sex them) but sold as a pair from different parents, they have little spats (ie trying to rob each others crickets) but lately they have been lying ontop of each other looking all cuddly. really cute!

there seems no territorial dispute so should i leave them be until big enough to sex, or separate them until i know for sure if i have one of each, like some have been telling me?

That's a fine looking panther chameleon.

The giant day geckos are awesome animals.....very fast as well....and bruise easily if handled: so that makes catching these somewhat awkward.

ian

i dont really handle them - they handle me! they'll jump from wherever they are to my arm so they can see if i have food in my hand lol. greedy wee fekkers! gorgeous things. one shed within an hour there the other day, amazing!